3 The IT Monitor server

The IT Monitor server (“monitorsrv”) is controlled via preferences (see 8 “Preferences”), which allow setting conditions when alarms will be sent off to specified e-mail addresses.

If a single condition for setting off the alarm is met, a so-called “Push Notification” is sent to all iPhones that monitor this server. In addition, “monitorsrv” administers a list of e-mail addresses to which the alarm notification is sent. This list can be edited from the iPhone. By default this list is empty.

Note:: “monitorsrv” needs not be installed on the server running the services that are subject to observation (see 4.3 “IT Monitor observed services”).

3.1 IT Monitor Server service port

The IT Monitor Server service port is 2029.

: Issue the command socket localhost 2029, type help for the command overview and quit to leave.

help

List available commands.

help <command>

Print help on a command.

quit

Close the connection to IT Monitor Server.

login

Usage: login <user> <password>

Example:

login hendrik secret
ready.

remote

Connect to a different IT Monitor Server.

Example:

remote turtle.helios.de
IT Monitor Server 1.0.0 (2.0/macosx86) running on "turtle"
ready.

name

Show server name.

Example:

name
ankh.helios.de
ready.

clients

Show list of connected client.

Example:

clients
The following machines are connected:
172.16.2.89
172.16.2.93
ready.

range

Show time range of recorded statistics.

Example:

range
time range:
05.05.2014 09:53:20
11.09.2014 13:21:54
ready.

format

Set the output format for the statistics records:

	1	Plain text
	2	XML
	3	Internal format used by IT Monitor app

Example:

format 2
ready.

stat

Get accumulated statistics (authorization via login required).

Usage: stat <start (UNIX “time_t”)> <end (UNIX “time_t”)><numSamples>

Example

(for selected “format 3”:)

stat 1399248000 1409875200 8
"record time cpu-usage cpu-alert memory-usage memory-paging
network-packets disk-alert user-system user-helios
jobs-print jobs-opi jobs-script jobs-tool jobs-index"
{1 1399248000 8.7 1 60.6 20 13 0 3 3 4 0 0 0 0}
{2 1400766171 9.4 1 59.7 23 18 0 3 3 3 0 0 0 0}
{3 1402284342 9.0 1 63.3 24 14 0 3 3 3 0 0 0 1}
{4 1403802514 9.5 1 62.7 29 16 0 4 5 4 0 0 0 704}
{5 1405320685 6.1 0 56.3 19 16 0 4 6 4 1 0 0 0}
{6 1406838857 7.4 1 63.7 30 32 0 4 5 4 33 0 0 246}
{7 1408357028 0.0 0 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0}
{8 1409875200 0.0 0 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0}
ready.

3.1.1 Filter system messages

The number of system messages on a host can rapidly increase, depending on the server traffic. In order to filter all messages for the desired information, IT Monitor Server allows setting up filter scripts which can reduce the amount of system messages significantly. IT Monitor Server allows two approaches to filter messages on the IT Monitor server:

prefilter.pl: The “prefilter.pl” script allows filtering system messages for specified messages, e.g. info, errors, before they are written to the database.
postfilter.pl: The “postfilter.pl” script allows filtering system messages for specified messages after they have been requested from the database. In this case, the filtered messages are not displayed on the iOS device.

Both filter scripts must be created and set up by the customer, and stored in “var/monitorsrv”.

Note:: It is necessary to create the “monitorsrv” subdirectory.

The “prefilter.pl” script:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;

while (<>) {

	# postfix stuff
	next if /postfix\/smtp/;
	next if /postfix\/smtpd/;
	next if /postfix\/qmgr/;
	next if /postfix\/cleanup/;
	next if /postfix\/anvil/;
	next if /postfix\/bounce/;
	next if /postfix\/scache/;

	# login/logout users
	next if /pam_unix/ and /session opened for user/;
	next if /pam_unix/ and /session closed for user/;

	# Test for skipping lines
	next if /skip/;

	print;
}

Note:: Make sure that the first line does really point to an existing Perl binary. On Windows, you may just use “Perl” because it should be in the environment PATH.

You may remove the unneeded “next if ...” lines which are just shown as an example here.

After the Perl script has been saved (or modified later) “monitorsrv” needs to be restarted.

You can verify this script using “psyslog”, e.g.:

psyslog -t "testing" "bing"
psyslog -t "testing" "bing skip me"
psyslog -t "testing" "bum"

If the script works properly the line (... bing skip me) should not be listed in the IT Monitor app.

HELIOS Manuals September 10, 2020