StatSentry

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User's Guide

RELATED INFORMATION
POSIX Event Log
LinuxSystem RAS
Hardened Drivers
Common Stat Mgr
Diagnostics

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RPMs
Resource Monitor RPM
requires evlog
Developer RPM
XML utility RPM
requires Resource Monitor

evlog RPM
evlog-telco RPM
requires evlog

RMView RPM
requires Resource Monitor, evlog-telco

SNMP subagent RPM
requires Resource Monitor, tcp-wrappers, and the following snmp rpms
ucd-snmp RPM
ucd-snmp-utils RPM
ucd-snmp-devel RPM
tcp-wrappers RPM

What is Resource Statistic Monitoring?

Resource Statistic Monitor provides a consistent programmatic access to statistics and create threshold, watermark, and leaky bucket monitors for any instrumented subsystem in the Linux operating system. The architecture of the Resource Statistic Monitor defines five primary components:

1. Consumers - Linux applications that use the programmatic access.
2. Resource Monitor library - the interfaces used by Consumers for monitoring access.
3. Resource Monitor daemon - the runtime process that manages consumer monitoring requests and provides continuous monitoring of statistics.
4. Subsystem Monitor libraries - the subsystem-specific access methods used by the daemon to query statistic values.
5. Data Capture libraries - the data capture methods used by the daemon to store statistic values.

Resource Statistic Monitor is designed to be used by the following types of Consumer Applications:

1. Autonomous network management agents - Instrumentation of watermarks and thresholds can use/leverage the RM facility for operating system, driver and application monitors.
2. Graphical displays - Data can be obtained from RM and presented in graphical form.
3. Availability managers - Monitors can be established for critical system resources.

Resource Statistic Monitor depends on an event management system for logging and retention of events generated by statistics monitoring.  The event management system used should provide consumer applications with mechanisms for subscribing to particular monitoring events based on event attributes.  Resource Statistic Monitor conforms to the POSIX 1003.25 event logging interface, so any event management component that meets this specification may be used.   By default, Resource Statistics Monitor links in the "evlog" event management system (see RELATED INFORMATION).

XML Utility

The rmxml utility is a command driven utility to create and control monitors using XML to define the monitors, their configuration status, and their states. There is currently no man page for rmxml. Type 'rmxml' for the usage statement. 'rmxml discover' will output the available statistical resources in XML. Example XML files and shell scripts for monitor creation and evlog notification are included in the package installation.There are also some example XSL files in the rpm that format the rmxml XML in a browser.

RMview GUI

RMview provides a graphical interface for creating and controlling monitors. Event log records can also be monitored and displayed. An icon is put on the KDE desktop to launch rmview when the package is installed. There is no source or help available yet for this package.

Interface Definitions

See the Resource Monitor API Documentation for client C/C++ API's and the Subsystem namespace for instrumentation library interfaces

SNMP Subagent

Linux Resource Monitor SNMP Subagent is a project to enable resource monitoring through SNMP. It is an AgentX subagent implemented based on UCD-SNMP and Linux Resource Statistic Monitor. Working with a existing snmp daemon, it can be set up to do the following:

1. Query the subsystems currently registered with Resource Monitor Daemon, including resources and statistics.
2. Create/manage monitors.
3. Send SNMP traps when events happen.

Instrumentation Libraries

1. process
2. kernel
3. file system
4. SCSI driver
5. Common Statistic Library - uses the Common Statistic Manager to access kernel mode driver statistics such as the e100 ethernet driver and to create kernel mode statistic monitors.
6. table and XML Data Capture

Future Tasks:

Network Management Framework integration

1. CIM Sensor Providers would expose the monitoring capabilities to applications using the CIM framework to access management capabilities. The CIM classes for sensors and indications were used as models for developing the Resource Monitor daemon class infrastructure.

New subsystem monitoring libraries for resource types not accessible today

1.  TCP/IP stack subsystem library
2. Other protocol stack subsystem libraries
3. lmsensors - develop a monitoring library for lmsensor data.

Integration with existing open-source Linux management tools

1. KSysGuard – link Resource Monitor monitoring capability to KSysGuard visual objects
2. MON – develop MON event plug-ins for evlog, in general, and Resource Monitor monitoring events, specifically
3. PCP – develop a node data collector plug-in that utilizes Resource Monitor subsystem libraries for statistic exposure and data collection

New second-order statistics and monitor types

Call for Participation