Using Sun Management Center for Advanced Monitoring
Ravi S. and Yogesh Patil, October 2007
This article explains how to perform advanced monitoring tasks using Sun Management Center software modules.
Introduction
The software modules are categorized into four types: hardware, operating environment, local
applications, and remote systems.
The following are modules available for advanced system monitoring:
Directory Size Monitoring Module Version 2.0
Fault Manager Module Version 1.0
Service Management Facility Module Version 1.0
File Scanning Module Version 2.0
Hardware Diagnostic Suite Version 2.0
Health Monitor Module Version 2.0
Kernel Reader Module Version 2.0
Process Monitoring Module Version 2.0
Directory Size Monitoring Module Version 2.0
This module enables you to isolate and monitor the size of any
directory and its subdirectories on a host on which an agent is installed.
The subdirectories and links can be viewed recursively using a window that is
accessible from the modules pop-up menu.
To Monitor Directory Size
In the Browser Details pane, double-click the Operating System icon in the hierarchy
(tree) view.
The operating system modules are displayed in both the hierarchy and topology views.
Double-click the Directory Size Monitoring icon in the topology view, or click the
expansion icon next to the Directory Size Monitoring icon in the hierarchy view.
The Directory Monitoring Status folder is displayed.
Double-click the Directory Size Monitoring Status folder in either the hierarchy or the
topology view.
The Directory Monitoring property table is displayed.
Add a row to the table.
You can use one of the following ways to add a row:
Press mouse button 1 in a table row or column header, and choose New Row from the pop-up menu.
Select the table, then choose New Row from the Options icon menu.
The Row Adder window is displayed.
Provide the module and directory information.
In the Instance field, type a name that uniquely identifies this instance of
the Directory Size Monitoring module.
In the Directory field, type the complete path to the directory that you
want to monitor.
To add the row to the table and close the Row Adder window,
click the OK button.
The added row is displayed in the topology view.
Fault Manager Module Version 1.0
The Fault Manager module handles hardware and software faults effectively. This module also
displays a detailed fault report or a message article for the selected fault.
The Fault Manager module has the following managed objects:
Fault Management Daemon table
FMD Configuration table
FMD Fault Events table
To View a Fault Report
Navigate through the topology or hierarchy view until you have accessed the FMD
Fault Events table of the Fault Manager module.
The FMD Fault Events Table is displayed.
Select a fault for which you want to view a fault report.
Press mouse button 3 and choose Show Fault Report from the pop-up menu.
The Probe Viewer shows the detailed fault report for the selected fault.
To View a Message Article
The message article contains information such as the fault type, severity, description, impact,
and suggested action. This article helps the user to take appropriate action for
a specific fault.
Navigate through the topology or hierarchy view until you have accessed the FMD
Fault Events table of the Fault Manager module.
Select a fault for which you want to view a message article.
Press mouse button 3 and, from the pop-up menu, choose Show Message Article at www.sun.com/msg/.
A browser opens with a message article at the following site:
http://www.sun.com/msg/SUNW-MSG-ID
where SUNW-MSG-ID is the message identifier and is the last column of the
FMD Fault table.
Note - The message article does not open in the browser if the Java
Console is not installed on your system.
Service Management Facility Module Version 1.0
The Service Management Facility (SMF) module monitors and displays the services running on
a host. You can view the current state of a service. However, you
cannot create, delete, or modify the properties of a service. You can enable
or disable a service when certain conditions are met.
To View the Details of a Service
Navigate through the topology or hierarchy view until you have accessed the Service
Management Facility module.
The SMF module displays services based on their category.
The details that are displayed for each service are:
Start time of the service
Start of the service
FMRI (Fault Management Resource Identifier)
Description of the service
Select a service.
Press mouse button 3 and choose Service Details from the pop-up menu.
The Probe Viewer appears that shows the service details, dependencies for the selected
service, services that depend on the selected service, and the processes in the
selected service.
File Scanning Module Version 2.0
The File Scanning module scans files on a host for user-specified patterns. Multiple
instances of the File Scanning module can be loaded to scan multiple files.
This module requires you to add rows for the data property tables.
The File Scanning module has the following managed objects:
File ID Table
File Statistics table
Scan Table
Hardware Diagnostic Suite Version 2.0
This module tests the system for hardware faults. When the module is loaded
and the Hardware Diagnostic Suite software is installed, you can initiate the tests
through the Applications tab on the details window.
Health Monitor Module Version 2.0
The Health Monitor module monitors the health of your host. When alarm conditions
occur, the module offers suggestions, if necessary, on how to improve the performance
of the system. For example, this module monitors the swap space that is
available, reserved, allocated, and used.
Sample alarm messages, from lowest to highest severity, include:
No worries: sufficient swap space available
There is lots of unused swap space
Not much swap left: perhaps add some more
Swap space shortage: add some more now
Dangerous swap space shortage: add more immediately
To View The Properties of Health Monitor Objects
Navigate through the topology or hierarchy view until you have accessed the Health
Monitor module.
The Health Monitor module displays objects to monitor the health of the host
machine.
The objects that are displayed are:
Swap Table
Kernel Contention Table
NFS Table
CPU Table
Disk Table
RAM Table
Kernel Memory
Directory Cache Table
Double-click the required Health Monitor module managed object.
The corresponding property and its description are displayed in a table.
Kernel Reader Module Version 2.0
The Kernel Reader module monitors kernel statistics and all kernel information including CPU
statistics, system load statistics, disk statistics, file system usage, and so on.
The section includes properties and their descriptions for all Kernel Reader managed objects:
User Statistics Table
Interprocess Communication Tables
Disk Statistics Managed Objects Tables
I/O Error Statistics Table
Filesystem Usage Table
CPU Statistics Managed Object
Memory Usage Statistics Table
To View the Details of Kernel Information
Navigate through the topology or hierarchy view until you have accessed the Kernel
Reader module.
The Kernel Reader module displays objects to view all kernel information.
The objects that are displayed are:
System Load Statistics
CPU Utilization
Memory Usage Statistics
Swap Statistics
Filesystem Usage
Double-click the desired Kernel Reader managed object.
The corresponding property and its description is displayed in a table.
Process Monitoring Module Version 2.0
The following section describes the Process Monitoring module parameters and its property descriptions.
When a matching process is found, the %CPU and a count of
the number of processes that match is displayed. If you want to change
the module parameters, you can edit all the parameters except for the entry
name by accessing the pop-up menu.
Table 1 Process Statistics Properties
Property
Description
Entry Name
Name of the process statistics table entry
(must be a unique name).
Name Pattern
Pattern to match the name of the
binary for the process that you want to monitor.
Argv Pattern
Pattern to match the
arguments of the command that executes the process.
User Specification
User name that is
executing the process.
Entry Description
Description of the entry (required field).
Process Command
Command used
to initiate the process, if applicable.
Process Count
Number of processes currently running that
match the patterns.
% System CPU Usage
Percentage CPU used by the system processes.
This value is a time-weighted average that is taken at different time intervals.
Do not confuse this percentage with the value that might result after you
enter the UNIX ps command.
% User CPU Usage
Percentage CPU used by the
user processes.
Virtual Size
Total size of the processes in Kbytes.
Resident Set Size
Resident size
of the processes in Kbytes.
Monitoring State
Toggle between on (row is enabled) and
off (row is disabled). When the row is disabled, all the entries are
displayed as 0 (zero).
Modules That Enable You to Add Rows
For selected modules, the software enables you to add, delete, enable, or disable
rows for the data property tables. When these modules are initially loaded, the data
property tables are empty, except the Directory Size Monitoring and Print Spooler modules.
For the File Monitoring, File Scanning, and Directory Size Monitoring modules, you must
add a row to monitor the data property. The following table lists the
modules for which you can add rows and the information that the rows
contain.
Module Name
Description
Directory Size Monitoring
Enables you to define another directory for monitoring
File Monitoring
Defines the
file to be monitored
File Scanning
Defines the pattern that must be matched within the
monitored file
Print Spooler
Enables you to define another printer for spooler monitoring
Process Monitoring
Defines the
pattern that must be matched from all the processes that are running on
the agent object
To Add a Row to a Data Property Table
You can use the steps in this procedure to add a row
to the Directory Size Monitoring, File Monitoring, File Scanning, and Process Monitoring modules. The
following example procedure uses the File Monitoring module which enables you to monitor
a file's size, modification date, and rate of growth.
In the Browser Details window, double-click the Operating System icon in the hierarchy
(tree) view.
The operating system modules are displayed in both the hierarchy and topology views.
Double-click the icon for the module in the topology view, or click the
expansion icon next to the module icon in the hierarchy view.
The module's folder is displayed.
Double-click the module status folder in either the hierarchy or the topology view.
An empty property table is displayed.
Add a row to the table.
Choose either of the following ways to add a row:
Press mouse button 3 in a table row or column header, and choose New Row from the pop-up menu.
Select the table. Then choose New Row from the Options icon menu.
The Row Adder window is displayed.
Type the appropriate information in the text fields.
To add the table row and close the Row Adder window, click the
OK button.
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