Background

After waiting for the Hummingbird release for the LaFonera 2.0G a long time and discussed with the Fon support team when 3G dongles will work, I gave up and installed OpenWRT on my LaFonera 2.0G router.

I’m sorry FON, you have a cool idea and nice routers but your unlogical approach to the users and communtity, finally got me to install plain OpenWRT instead.

Installation

After alot of googling and testing and downloading, reading and so on, I finally run into a guide that worked for me.

Most of the descriptions and howto assumes that the RedBoot will accept to download a new firmware via TFTP, this is true with the early releases of 2.0G , but the one sold now do not have this feature.

The trick is to install a firmware that allows changing the RedBoot partition of the memory, change the RedBoot parttion and install OpenWRT via TFTP.

The guide is unfortunatly in French, but google translate helped me to translate it to English.

The pitfalls I run into is to reboot the device several timesafter installing the hacked version of FON firmware: FON2202_2.2.5.0_Flipper_RedBootC_VoteGOP.image

The only difference is that I used a later version of OpenWRT. I used Backfire 10.03 instead of Kamikaze 8.9.1

After succesfully installed my new Linksys WRT160NL with OpenWrt, the next step is to configure it. As the summer is approaching and my need for Internet access in our summer cottage will arrise. The summer cottage is in the middle of nowhere so it would be handy to put a USB dongle and the Wlan router in the spot with best 3G field strength and use the WiFi to connect several computers to the router and Internet.

The 3G USB modem is a Huawei modem I bought for 20 EUR and unlocked using this guide.

I found an excellent guide describing excactly what I wanted todo but it did not work 100% in my environment so I will describe what I did to get it running. Read the guide to get background and deeper explanation of how things are done. This guide assumes that you have read the guide, basic knowledge of OpenWRT, howto edit files in a Linux environment and so on.

Installation

The USB hardware and the modem need some extra packages to be installed. I installed the following:

root@WRT160NL:~#opkg install kmod-ar9170 kmod-usb-acm kmod-usb-core kmod-usb-ohci kmod-usb-serial comgt
kmod-usb-serial-option kmod-usb-storage kmod-usb-uhci kmod-usb2  usb-switch

Probably not all of them are necessery but during my tests and fiddeling these are the ones I installed.

Configuration

Create /etc/modules.d/60-usb-serial:

usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x1446
 

The vendor and product parameters can be found by attaching the 3G modem and run:

root@WRT160NL:~# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

T:  Bus=01 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#=  1 Spd=480 MxCh= 1
B:  Alloc=  0/800 us ( 0%), #Int=  0, #Iso=  0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=01 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=1d6b ProdID=0002 Rev= 2.06
S:  Manufacturer=Linux 2.6.32.10 ehci_hcd
S:  Product=Atheros AR91xx built-in EHCI controller
S:  SerialNumber=ar71xx-ehci
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=  0mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   4 Ivl=256ms

T:  Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  2 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=12d1 ProdID=1446 Rev= 0.00
S:  Manufacturer=HUAWEI Technology
S:  Product=HUAWEI Mobile
C:* #Ifs= 2 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=500mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usbserial_generic
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=01(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
I:* If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usbserial_generic
E:  Ad=02(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=82(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
 

The parameters are marked in yellow above.

The next step is to configure usb switch. Create /etc/usb-modeswitch.conf

########################################################
# Huawei E270+  (HSPA+ modem)

DefaultVendor= 0x12d1
DefaultProduct=0x1446

TargetVendor=  0x12d1
TargetProductList="1001,1406,140c,14ac"

CheckSuccess=20

MessageContent="55534243123456780000000000000011060000000000000000000000000000"

I have no clue of the syntax but I copied it from my Ubuntu machine /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1:1446 and it works:-)

Add the following to /etc/config/network

config 'interface' 'ppp0'
    option 'ifname' 'ppp0'
    option 'proto' '3g'
    option 'device' '/dev/ttyUSB0'
    option 'apn' 'internet.tele2.se'
    option 'pincode' '1234'

The pincode is obvious, the apn is local and given by your local operator. It is handy to configure it to work in Ubuntu and then look at the configuration Ubuntu creates.
 

The firewall rules need to be updated and I added ppp0 to the wan section in /etc/config/firewall

config 'zone'
    option 'name' 'wan'
    option 'input' 'REJECT'
    option 'output' 'ACCEPT'
    option 'forward' 'REJECT'
    option 'masq' '1'
    option 'mtu_fix' '1'
    option 'network' 'wan ppp0'

To make the change to take effect run:

root@WRT160NL:~# /etc/init.d/firewall restart
 

Start it

Attach the modem and run:

root@WRT160NL:~# usb_modeswitch

Looking for target devices ...
 No devices in target mode or class found
Looking for default devices ...
 Found default devices (1)
Accessing device 002 on bus 001 ...
Using endpoints 0x01 (out) and 0x81 (in)
Inquiring device details; driver will be detached ...
Looking for active driver ...
 OK, driver found ("usbserial_generic")
 OK, driver "usbserial_generic" detached

SCSI inquiry data (for identification)
-------------------------
  Vendor String: HUAWEI 
   Model String: Mass Storage   
Revision String: 2.31
-------------------------

USB description data (for identification)
-------------------------
Manufacturer: HUAWEI Technology
     Product: HUAWEI Mobile
  Serial No.: not provided
-------------------------
Setting up communication with interface 0 ...
Trying to send the message to endpoint 0x01 ...
 OK, message successfully sent
 Device is gone, skipping any further commands

Checking for mode switch (max. 20 times, once per second) ...
 Original device is gone already, not checking
 Searching for target devices ...
 Searching for target devices ...
 Searching for target devices ...
 Searching for target devices ...
 Searching for target devices ...
 Found correct target device

Mode switch succeeded. Bye.
 

logread should now give something similiar to:

Jun 12 17:29:11 WRT160NL user.info kernel: generic ttyUSB0: generic converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
Jun 12 17:29:11 WRT160NL user.info kernel: usbserial_generic 1-1:1.0: device disconnected
Jun 12 17:29:11 WRT160NL user.warn kernel: usb 1-1: usbfs: process 1345 (usb_modeswitch) did not claim interface 0 before use
Jun 12 17:29:11 WRT160NL user.info kernel: usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 2
Jun 12 17:29:11 WRT160NL user.info kernel: generic ttyUSB1: generic converter now disconnected from ttyUSB1
Jun 12 17:29:11 WRT160NL user.info kernel: usbserial_generic 1-1:1.1: device disconnected
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ar71xx-ehci and address 3
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: option 1-1:1.0: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: usb 1-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: option 1-1:1.1: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: usb 1-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB1
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: option 1-1:1.2: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: usb 1-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB2
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.debug kernel: usb-storage: device found at 3
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.debug kernel: usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.info kernel: scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.debug kernel: usb-storage: device found at 3
Jun 12 17:29:16 WRT160NL user.debug kernel: usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Jun 12 17:29:21 WRT160NL user.notice kernel: scsi 3:0:0:0: CD-ROM            HUAWEI   Mass Storage     2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Jun 12 17:29:21 WRT160NL user.debug kernel: usb-storage: device scan complete
Jun 12 17:29:21 WRT160NL user.notice kernel: scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     HUAWEI   SD Storage       2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Jun 12 17:29:21 WRT160NL user.notice kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
Jun 12 17:29:21 WRT160NL user.debug kernel: usb-storage: device scan complete
 

Using it

To start using your new configuration:

root@WRT160NL:~# ifup ppp0
SIM ready
PIN set successfully

And now ping a host on Internet

root@WRT160NL:~# ping ftp.sunet.se
PING ftp.sunet.se (194.71.11.69): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 194.71.11.69: seq=0 ttl=55 time=119.351 ms
64 bytes from 194.71.11.69: seq=1 ttl=55 time=88.978 ms
64 bytes from 194.71.11.69: seq=2 ttl=55 time=88.751 ms
64 bytes from 194.71.11.69: seq=3 ttl=55 time=88.484 ms
64 bytes from 194.71.11.69: seq=4 ttl=55 time=128.257 ms
^C
--- ftp.sunet.se ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 88.484/102.764/128.257 ms
 

Stop your connection:

root@WRT160NL:~# ifdown ppp0

Useful links

• http://josefsson.org/openwrt/dongle.html The excellent guide that I used as a platform, read it!
• OpenWrt, Linuxbased firmware for routers

Background

After getting fedup with the bad fon support I decided to give a new wireless router a try. After browsing internet and openwrt forums I thought that a Linksys WRT160NL would fulfill my requirements:

The requrements are:

• N
• 3G USB dongle
• Cheap

Packing up

The installation from Linksys is crap, a CD comes with the product and if you want to configure it you need to install software from the CD. The only supported operating systems are windows or Mac, I run linux.

I skipped the CD and connected my Linux box with a ethernet cable to the router. I tried to connect to http://192.168.1.1 and got a login screen.

After some googling I found that the default login was blank and the password admin.

I managed to configure my new router after logging in. I do not now the purpose of the CD, real stupid.

Install OpenWRT

I read the instructions to get OpenWRT on my Linksys WRT160NL and tried the "OEM easy installation". According to the instruction openwrt-ar71xx-wrt160nl-squashfs.bin is the image to install. Unfortunatly I get an errormessage " Firmware Upgrade Failed!"

I upgraded the firmware to the latest Linksys firmware and after that tried the OpenWRT firmware with the same error message.

After some bad language and alot of googling I found a bug reported that the version I tried to install always gives that message when installed from the Linksys webgui.

So I tried the Beta version instead and finally I success message.

I telneted to 192.168.1.1 and run passwd to change my password.

ssh to 192.168.1.

run:

root@OpenWrt:~# opkg update

root@OpenWrt:~# opkg install kmod-ath9k

root@OpenWrt:~# opkg install  hostapd

And start configure.

Update BETA to stable version

It was a annoying feeling to run beta when a stable version existed.

I used the luci webgui to update the firmware to the stable version and it looked alright. I managed to log in both with ssh and webgui.

But when I tried to install a new package it gave me an error message that there was no free disk, sigh!

I installed the BETA version and it worked, tried RC3 and the same problem with no free disk.

After some bad language and a lot of fiddeling I updated to the stable with the checkbox "Keep configuration files" unchecked and this time it works flawless.

Follow the guidlines above to change root password, update the software package list, install wlansupport, WAP support  and start configure.

A succefull login below:

peter@peter-laptop:~$ ssh -l root 192.168.1.1
root@192.168.1.1's password:

BusyBox v1.15.3 (2010-04-06 03:14:11 CEST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

  _______                     ________        __
 |       |.-----.-----.-----.|  |  |  |.----.|  |_
 |   -   ||  _  |  -__|     ||  |  |  ||   _||   _|
 |_______||   __|_____|__|__||________||__|  |____|
          |__| W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M
 Backfire (10.03, r20728) --------------------------
  * 1/3 shot Kahlua    In a shot glass, layer Kahlua
  * 1/3 shot Bailey's  on the bottom, then Bailey's,
  * 1/3 shot Vodka     then Vodka.
 ---------------------------------------------------

root@WRT160NL:~# uname -a
Linux WRT160NL 2.6.32.10 #20 Tue Apr 6 15:01:26 CEST 2010 mips GNU/Linux

I’m the happay owner of a Huawei E1750 modem and it is real easy to get it running in Ubuntu. This guide will probably work with many other 3G USB modems.

Just type from the command line:

sudo apt-get install usb-modeswitch

Plug in the modem

Go to the Network manager and enter your Mobile Broadband credentials and now it works!

With my new and fancy HTC Desire I wanted to look at my Nagios or op5 Monitor status. I have found two apps Nagroid and NagMonDroid.

NagMonDroid did I not get working, probably because op5 Monitor only uses https as protocol.

Nagroid works like a charm:

The configuration is rather straightforward:

I wanted to use the Android SDK on my Ubuntu machine, mainly to grab screenshoots but also to play around with it.

I followed the guidelines at this guide, but it did not work. DDM just show garbage as the device and when trying to get a screenshoot it complained with:

54:42 W/ddms: Unable to get frame buffer: device (????????????)
request rejected: insufficient permissions for device

After some googling i figured out that I had to hack my udev rules.

I added to /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bb4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0c87", MODE="0666"
 

and run

reload udev

The idVendor and  idProduct was found by running lsusb:

# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 011: ID 0bb4:0c87 High Tech Computer Corp. 

Now when starting DDM:

And I can take screenshoots:

For the first time I felt that this is more than a phone, for the first time calender integration works, for the first time I can use the builtin GPS, for the first time accessing the web with a phone works, for the first time downloaded software really works.

My favorite apps so far is:

• Nagroid, to be able to view my op5 Monitor status
• FONMaps, find hotspots for LaFoneras
• Car Cast, listen and download podcasts
• MapDroid, to use preloaded OpenStreetmaps and GPS without using any bandwidth. Perfect when abroad because of the crazy price of data roaming outside Sweden.
• HTC Facebook, read and post on facebook
• FON Access, automatically connect to FON hotspots when traveling.
• GPS Logger, logg tracks in gpx format that almost any GPS software understand
• Sipdroid, to connect to my Asterisk PBX using 3G or WiFi

Of  cource the device is not perfect, I miss:

• The phone must be ‘rooted’ to be real useful, why? Open the phone so the community and others can develop apps that are real useful. Vendor lock-in always sucks.
• IPSec VPN so I can connect to my IPSec based OpenBSD firewall. The IPSec implementation in the phone sucks.
• OpenVPN, there exists OpenVPN apps but to use the the phone must be ‘rooted’
• Bluetooth modem, it is not possible to use the phone as a modem using bluetooth
• Screenshots, the phone must be rooted or using the SDK to take screenshoots. Why?

I really hope that Google and/or HTC understand and use the power of the community to make the Android even more succesfull by open it even more.

I bought a Fonera 2.0g WLAN router and I wanted to extend the functionality to have the possibility to add packages from OpenWRT. I also wanted the possibility to manage my new router with ssh.

The way to achive this is by installing developer firmware.

Installing

I followed the instructions at Fons beta/developer wiki.

The image I used can be found here.

Test

I try to connect by using ssh

peter@peter-laptop:~$ ssh -l root 192.168.10.1
root@192.168.10.1's password: 

BusyBox v1.11.1 (2009-04-17 12:45:57 CEST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

                                        __
                                    _.-~  )
                         _..--~~~~,'   ,-/     _
                      .-'. . . .'   ,-','    ,' )
                    ,'. . . _   ,--~,-'__..-'  ,'
                  ,'. . .  (@)' ---~~~~      ,'
                 /. . . . '~~             ,-'
                /. . . . .             ,-'
               ; . . . .  - .        ,'
              : . . . .       _     /
             . . . . .          `-.:
            . . . ./  - .          )
           .  . . |  _____..---.._/ ____ Seal _
     ~---~~~~----~~~~             ~~                

                      Flipper                       

--------  Fonera 2.0 Firmware (v2.2.5.0) -----------
      * Based on OpenWrt - http://openwrt.org
      * Powered by FON - http://www.fon.com
----------------------------------------------------

When using a cool router software like OpenWRT it is a good idea to monitor the network usage. This article describe howto get SNMP on your OpenWRT based router.

1. Install

The easiest way is to use the webgui, http://<your router ip>

1. Log in as root/-<your password>
2. Click on Adminstrator to enable the Advnced menues
3. System->Software
4. Click on "Update Package List" (this require Internet access).
5. Install snmpd-static

2. Configure

Log in to the La Fonera using ssh:

peter@peter-laptop:~$ ssh -l root 192.168.0.159
root@192.168.0.159's password:

BusyBox v1.11.2 (2009-12-02 11:25:47 UTC) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

  _______                     ________        __
 |       |.-----.-----.-----.|  |  |  |.----.|  |_
 |   -   ||  _  |  -__|     ||  |  |  ||   _||   _|
 |_______||   __|_____|__|__||________||__|  |____|
          |__| W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M
 KAMIKAZE (8.09.2, r18961) -------------------------
  * 10 oz Vodka       Shake well with ice and strain
  * 10 oz Triple sec  mixture into 10 shot glasses.
  * 10 oz lime juice  Salute!
 ---------------------------------------------------
root@fon:~#

Start snmpd

root@fon:~# /etc/init.d/snmpd start

Make it start when rebooted:

root@fon:~# /etc/init.d/snmpd enable

If you want to change your SNMP configuration the configuration is located in:

/etc/config/snmpd

3. Monitor

Now you can get the SNMP data and use your favorite Monitor tool, i.e. Nagios or op5 Monitor.

Below a screenshoot from op5 Monitor:

Useful links

• OpenWRT, an OpenSource router software
• Net-SNMP, an SNMP implementation
• Nagios, an OpenSource Monitoring software
• op5 Monitor, an Enterprise Class Monitoring software based on Nagios

 Background

I got an unused La Fonera router by a collegue. They can be bought from http://www.fon.com for approximately 40 Euro including freight. The purpose of the Fon community is to build a community of hotspots around the world so every owner of a La Fonera could use any other La Fonera router in the world.

I am curios about the legal aspect if someone in the Fon community uses my internet connection to do something bad, like download copyrighted software, hack CIA or whatever.

The La Fonera router is real cool because:

• Looks good so it has a high wife acceptance factor
• Hackable, the firmware could be replaced with for example OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Jasager and others…
• Even more hackable, there are several guides and howtos to modify the La Fonera hardware.
• Cheap, in the good old days it was possible to get one for free.

Install OpenWRT

I followed this guide, the only exception was that I used the latest OpenWRT in "Phase C":

 # ./ap51-flash-1.0-42 eth0 openwrt-atheros-root.squashfs openwrt-atheros-vmlinux.lzma

The files can be downloaded from OpenWRTs download section for atheros platform.

Background

It is always a good idea to monitor the server hardware, in many cases the root cause of the probblem is hardware related like: a fan stops and the temperature gets to high, dust in the machine makes it to hot, disks that fails, memory corruption and so on.  This article will describe howto enable hardware monitoring on a HP Proliant running CentOS Linux and then howto collect the data with Nagios or op5 Monitor. The procedure is the same with RedHat Enterprise Linux and similiar with Suse Enterprise server.

The HP manuals and information is bloated with irrelevant information and I had to struggle several hours, ask collegues to get it running. I hope this blog article will help others to get monitoring of HP Proliant using HP Insight Manager easier to setup.

Installing the software on the target system

You need two packages from HP and can be downloaded from hp.com under "Support & Drivers". Search your hardware plattform and correct operating system:

• ProLiant Support Pack for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (i686)  The latest Proliant Support Package 2010-03-02 name is psp-8.25.rhel5.i686.en.tar.gz
• HP System Health Application and Insight Management Agents for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (x86). The latest name is hpasm-8.0.0-173.rhel5.i386.rpm

Install kernel source code and rpm tools:

# yum install kernel-devel rpm-build rpm-devel
 

Proliant Support Package is not supported on CentOS so you have to let the installer think it is a RedHat system. If you have a RHEL system skip the next steps.

# cp /etc/redhat-release /etc/redhat-release.backup

# echo "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.4 (Tikanga)">/etc/redhat-release

Untar the Proliant Support Package

 # tar xzvf psp-8.25.rhel5.i686.en.tar.gz

Install the Proliant Support Package

# cd compaq/csp/linux/

# ./install825.sh

alot of text appears and some questions, answer them.

Install HP System Health Application and Insight Management Agents, and for some stupid reason it is in conflict with some other packages just installed. I solved it in a dirty way:

# rpm -i --force  --replacefiles --nodeps hpasm-8.0.0-173.rhel5.i386.rpm

Configure by running:

# hpa/etc/init.d/hpasm configure

and answer the questions.

Do not forget to restore /etc/redhat-release

# cp /etc/redhat-release.backup /etc/redhat-release

I did modify my /etc/snmp/snmp.conf to:

dlmod cmaX /usr/lib/libcmaX.so
rocommunity public
trapsink 10.1.1.20
syscontact peter@it-slav.net
syslocation PDC, Peters DataCenter

To test that you have installation and configuration work, run a snmpwalk from your Nagios or op5 Monitor host:

# snmpwalk -c public -v1  <ip-adress of your proliant box> 1.3.6.1.4.1.232

SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.232.1.1.1.0 = INTEGER: 1
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.232.1.1.2.0 = INTEGER: 23
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.232.1.1.3.0 = INTEGER: 2
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.232.1.2.1.4.1.0 = INTEGER: 30
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.232.1.2.1.4.2.1.1.1 = INTEGER: 1
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.232.1.2.1.4.2.1.2.1 = STRING: "Compaq Standard Equipment Agent for Linux"
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.232.1.2.1.4.2.1.3.1 = ""
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.232.1.2.1.4.2.1.4.1 = Hex-STRING: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.232.1.2.1.4.2.1.5.1 = STRING: "To gather Standard Equipment data for Linux."

...
 

Install check_hpasm on the Nagios or op5 Monitor host

The check_hpasm can be downloaded from Console Labs.

Unpack the tarball

# tar xzvf check_hpasm-4.1.2.tar.gz

Configure and compile

# ./configure --prefix=/opt/plugins/custom/hp-insight --with-nagios-user=monitor --with-nagios-group=users --enable-perfdata

...

# make

...

# make install

Test

# /opt/plugins/custom/hp-insight/libexec/check_hpasm -H  -C public

OK - System: 'proliant dl360 g3', S/N: '7J31LMW6N01D', ROM: 'P31 01/28/2004', hardware working fine, da: 1 logical drives, 1 physical drives | fan_1=50% fan_2=50% temp_1_cpu=16;50;50 temp_2_cpu=15;65;65 temp_3_ioBoard=21;56;56 temp_4_cpu=20;65;65

Congratulations your plugin and hw monitoring works!

Configure Nagios or op5 Monitor
 

checkcommands.cfg

# command 'check_hpasm'
define command{
    command_name                   check_hpasm
    command_line                   $USER1$/custom/libexec/check_hpasm -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -C $ARG1$
    }

services.cfg

# service 'Insight Manager'
define service{
    use                            default-service
    host_name                      humpa
    service_description            Insight Manager
    check_command                  check_hpasm!public
    contact_groups                 call_it-slav,it-slav_jabber,it-slav_mail
    }

Screenshoot, using ninja

 Useful links

• op5, a systems and network management company
• op5 Monitor, an enterpise monitor system based on Nagios
• Ninja, Nagios is now just awesome
• Nagios, enterprise monitoring based on opensource
• Hp support & drivers, a place to start looking for the HP software used in this article

• Hard to manage without iTunes
• iTunes is crap
• Cannot play ogg and flac
• I just want to attach it and it should popup like a USB disk, drop the files into it, detach and play the songs.

I got a hint from a friend that I should try RockBox, so I download it and used the very simple installer on linux and it works perfectly well. All the drawbacks mentioned above are solved and  as a bonus the gui is much better.

Now I can:

• Play ogg
• Play flac
• Customize the GUI
• Change myriads of settings
• Throw away mysterious sync software like iTunes and others.
• Attach it as a USB disk, drop my media files into it, detach and play them

If you are lucky and owns a Rockbox supported media player, update it. You will not regret it.

Background

I was with my geekfriends at a ski resort and I managed to get an Internet connection using a cellphone. Of course I wanted to share it with my friends. As geeks we brought a switch and a couple of ethernetcables.

Solution

Using this script on a Ubuntu 9.10 I managed to share my connection:

sudo ifconfig eth0 10.8.16.1
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding=1
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding=1
sudo iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
sudo iptables --table nat -A POSTROUTING -o ppp0 -j MASQUERADE

Conmnect everymachine with the switch and the clients just needed to use a 10.0.0.0/8 network adress and add 10.8.16.1 as default gateway and it works!

After some Google search and reading of man pages I finally get it working.

My setup is a Nokia E52 and a IBM T60 laptop running Ubuntu 9.10. I have tested it with a Ericsson P1i and a Dell D630 aswell and I think the guidlines below will work with many other setups. One exception is probably iPhone

From a bash shell run:

peter@svarten:~$ sdptool search DUN
Inquiring ...
Searching for DUN on A8:7E:33:20:40:0F ...
Service Name: Dial-Up Networking
Service RecHandle: 0x10030
Service Class ID List:
  "Dialup Networking" (0x1103)
Protocol Descriptor List:
  "L2CAP" (0x0100)
  "RFCOMM" (0x0003)
    Channel: 5
Language Base Attr List:
  code_ISO639: 0x454e
  encoding:    0x6a
  base_offset: 0x100
Profile Descriptor List:
  "Dialup Networking" (0x1103)
    Version: 0x0100

peter@svarten:~$ sudo rfcomm connect 1 A8:7E:33:20:40:0F 5
[sudo] password for peter:
Connected /dev/rfcomm1 to A8:7E:33:20:40:0F on channel 5
Press CTRL-C for hangup

Now my phone asks if I accept the connection and I choose "yes".

And now the networkmanager has a new "Mobile Broadband connection". Just choose your operator and it will work.

Pre req

• a GPS reciever
• gpsd
• gpsd-client

In my setup I have the GPS reciever attached to my laptop which I travel around with. On my webserver I have gpsd-client and a script that generates the webpage. I use a VPN connection to allow my webserver to communicate with the laptop gpsdaemon. On the roads I use 3G attached cellphone and when I have an internet connection via cable or wifi I use that.

The script

#!/bin/sh
GPSPIPE=/usr/bin/gpspipe
OUTFILE=/home/peter/public_html/my_position.html
#GPSDIP=10.8.0.10
GPSDIP=192.168.0.153
while true
do
        GPSDATA=`$GPSPIPE -w -n 10 $GPSDIP |grep O=`
        if [ "$?" ]
        then
                LON=`echo $GPSDATA| awk '{ print $5 }'`
                LAT=`echo $GPSDATA| awk '{ print $4 }'`
        	echo "LON=$LON LAT=$LAT"
		cat > $OUTFILE <<EOF
<html>
<head>
        <title>Last know It-slav location</title>
        <!-- bring in the OpenLayers javascript library
                 (here we bring it from the remote site, but you could
                 easily serve up this javascript yourself) -->
        <script src="http://www.openlayers.org/api/OpenLayers.js"></script>
        <!-- bring in the OpenStreetMap OpenLayers layers.
                 Using this hosted file will make sure we are kept up
                 to date with any necessary changes -->
        <script src="http://www.openstreetmap.org/openlayers/OpenStreetMap.js"></script>

        <script type="text/javascript">
                // Start position for the map (hardcoded here for simplicity,
                // but maybe you want to get from URL params)
EOF
echo "var lat=$LAT" >>$OUTFILE
echo "var lon=$LON" >>$OUTFILE
cat >> $OUTFILE <<EOF
                var zoom=13

                var map; //complex object of type OpenLayers.Map

                function init() {
                        map = new OpenLayers.Map ("map", {
                                controls:[
                                        new OpenLayers.Control.Navigation(),
                                        new OpenLayers.Control.PanZoomBar(),
                                        new OpenLayers.Control.LayerSwitcher(),
                                        new OpenLayers.Control.Attribution()],
                                maxExtent: new OpenLayers.Bounds(-20037508.34,-20037508.34,20037508.34,20037508.34),
                                maxResolution: 156543.0399,
                                numZoomLevels: 19,
                                units: 'm',
                                projection: new OpenLayers.Projection("EPSG:900913"),
                                displayProjection: new OpenLayers.Projection("EPSG:4326")
                        } );

                        // Define the map layer
                        // Note that we use a predefined layer that will be
                        // kept up to date with URL changes
                        // Here we define just one layer, but providing a choice
                        // of several layers is also quite simple
                        // Other defined layers are OpenLayers.Layer.OSM.Mapnik, OpenLayers.Layer.OSM.Maplint and OpenLayers.Layer.OSM.CycleMap
                        layerMapnik = new OpenLayers.Layer.OSM.Mapnik("Mapnik");
                        map.addLayer(layerMapnik);
                        layerTilesAtHome = new OpenLayers.Layer.OSM.Osmarender("Osmarender");
                        map.addLayer(layerTilesAtHome);
                        layerCycleMap = new OpenLayers.Layer.OSM.CycleMap("CycleMap");
                        map.addLayer(layerCycleMap);
                        layerMarkers = new OpenLayers.Layer.Markers("Markers");
                        map.addLayer(layerMarkers);

                        // Add the Layer with GPX Track
                        //var lgpx = new OpenLayers.Layer.GML("MB Bruderholz", "mb_bruderholz.GPX", {
                        //    format: OpenLayers.Format.GPX,
                        //    style: {strokeColor: "green", strokeWidth: 5, strokeOpacity: 0.5},
                        //    projection: new OpenLayers.Projection("EPSG:4326")
                        //});
                        //map.addLayer(lgpx);
                        var lonLat = new OpenLayers.LonLat(lon, lat).transform(new OpenLayers.Projection("EPSG:4326"), map.getProjectionObject());
                        map.setCenter (lonLat, zoom);

                        var size = new OpenLayers.Size(21,25);
                        var offset = new OpenLayers.Pixel(-(size.w/2), -size.h);
                        var icon = new OpenLayers.Icon('http://www.openstreetmap.org/openlayers/img/marker.png',size,offset);
                        layerMarkers.addMarker(new OpenLayers.Marker(lonLat,icon));
                }
        </script>

</head>
<!-- body.onload is called once the page is loaded (call the 'init' function) -->
<body onload="init();">
        <!-- define a DIV into which the map will appear. Make it take up the whole window -->
        <div style="width:90%; height:90%" id="map"></div>
</body>
</html>
EOF
	else
		echo "No GPS data"
	fi
	sleep 10
done

Gpsdaemon

To enable the gpsdameon to allow another host to attach to it start it with -g i.e.

sudo gpsd -N -n -D 3 -G /dev/rfcomm1

The result

The result can be found here or a screenshot below:

Links

• gpsd
• how to attach the bluetooth GPS reciever
• OpenStreetMaps

In situations like this I recommend a USB SATA/PATA interface i.e. Plexgear at Kjell&Company, the adapter looks like it is OEM:ed so there probably several with different brands.

Features:

• USB-SATA
• USB-PATA 2.5"
• USB-PATA 3.5"
• Power Supply for normal devices and SATA devices

The only thing I miss is that it does not contain a SCSI interface aswell

I have used it to backup files on a LVM disk, transfer files from old disk to a new when upgrading, reinitialize a disk that refused to install Windows 7, attach a DVD-Rom to a blade server and so on.

In my opinion every geek and sysadmin should have one.

When I worked as a Tivoli Consultant I spend a lot of time investigating the customer processes and workflow and try to make the monitoring solution to support this. It was often long term projects and involved alot of people like, project managers, support staff, maintenance staff, application owners, applicataion engineers, operating systemens managers, DBAs and so on.

Very often the investigation followed the following principles:

1. Investigate the problem management workflow
2. Document the different parts that builds up the system
3. Find spots where a probe could be inserted to monitor a particular part in the system
4. Define the thresholds for the probe
5. Iterate 3 and 4 until all possible problems in the system could be detected
6. Define who should have which alarm and when ifthe probes shows abnormal behavior.
7. Write the ruleset that implements 7
8. Test
9. Document and hand over to the customer

When it comes to a product like Nagios or op5 Monitor, the product has a built in rule engine that fullfills most of the requirements in the steps above. In most cases it is just a matter of configuration and in some cases some extra scripting.

Solution

I have run into rare cases where the builtin rule engine is not good enough and I have looked for a rule engine that fullfill the following requirements:

• Gnu Public Licence or another acceptable license
• Standalone
• Advanced enough
• Possible to integrate with other solutions like Nagios or op5 Monitor

Now I think I have found a good candidate, NodeBrain and right now I’m testing it.

I will do a follow up article where I describe howto integrate NodeBrain with Nagios or op5 Monitor.

An example

This is as an example of what a rule engine can do:

Webshop example

•  5 webfrontends, 1 or 2 down is OK, 3 is down is WARNING, 4 or 5 down is CRITICAL
• 2 appservers, 1 down is OK, 2 DOWN is CRITICAL
• 3 database backends, 1 down is OK, 2 down is WARNING, 3 down is CRITICAL
• Overall, the layer with the highest severity is the total severerity.

 Implementation:

The ruleset

#Start with webservers
#Set OK
assert weba=0;
assert webb=0;
assert webc=0;
assert webd=0;
assert webe=0;
assert  webserversstatus=0;

#Total rules
assert webshopstatus=0;
#If all serverstatus ok, the whole webshop is ok
define webshopok on(webserversstatus=0 and appserversstatus=0 and dbserversstatus=0) webshopstatus=0;
#If any serverstatus is critical the whole webshop is critical
define webshopscritical on(webserversstatus=2 or appserversstatus=2 or dbserversstatus=2) webshopstatus=2;
#If not any serverstatuscritical and in warning, the whole shop is warning.
define webshopwarning on((!webserversstatus=2 and !appserversstatus=2 and !dbserversstatus=2) and (webserversstatus=1 or dbserversstatus=1)) webshopstatus=1;

Testing:

./nb webshop.nb -
> assert weba=2;
> assert webb=2;
> assert webc=2;
2009/10/02 09:44:42 NB000I Rule webserverswarning fired (webserversstatus=1)
2009/10/02 09:44:42 NB000I Rule webshopwarning fired (webshopstatus=1)
> assert webd=2;
2009/10/02 09:45:06 NB000I Rule webserverscritical fired (webserversstatus=2)
2009/10/02 09:45:06 NB000I Rule webshopscritical fired (webshopstatus=2)
> assert webd=0;
2009/10/02 09:46:27 NB000I Rule webserverswarning fired (webserversstatus=1)
2009/10/02 09:46:27 NB000I Rule webshopwarning fired (webshopstatus=1)
> assert weba=0;
2009/10/02 09:46:32 NB000I Rule webserversok fired (webserversstatus=0)
2009/10/02 09:46:32 NB000I Rule webshopok fired (webshopstatus=0)
> assert appa=2;
> assert appb=2;
2009/10/02 09:47:12 NB000I Rule appserverscritical fired (appserversstatus=2)
2009/10/02 09:47:12 NB000I Rule webshopscritical fired (webshopstatus=2)
> assert weba=2;
2009/10/02 09:47:40 NB000I Rule webserverswarning fired (webserversstatus=1)
> assert webd=2;
2009/10/02 09:48:07 NB000I Rule webserverscritical fired (webserversstatus=2)
> assert appb=0;
2009/10/02 09:49:08 NB000I Rule appserversok fired (appserversstatus=0)
> assert weba=0;
2009/10/02 09:49:33 NB000I Rule webserverswarning fired (webserversstatus=1)
2009/10/02 09:49:33 NB000I Rule webshopwarning fired (webshopstatus=1)
> assert dba=2;
> assert dbb=2;
2009/10/02 09:51:05 NB000I Rule dbserverswarning fired (dbserversstatus=1)
> assert dbc=2;
2009/10/02 09:51:09 NB000I Rule dbservercritical fired (dbserversstatus=2)
2009/10/02 09:51:09 NB000I Rule webshopscritical fired (webshopstatus=2)
> show -t
@ = ! == node
webshopwarning = ! == on(((!(webserversstatus=2))&((!(appserversstatus=2))&(!(dbserversstatus=2))))&((webserversstatus=1)|(dbserversstatus=1))) webshopstatus=1;
webshopscritical = ! == on((webserversstatus=2)|((appserversstatus=2)|(dbserversstatus=2))) webshopstatus=2;
webshopok = ! == on((webserversstatus=0)&((appserversstatus=0)&(dbserversstatus=0))) webshopstatus=0;
webshopstatus = 2
dbservercritical = ! == on(dbservers>=6) dbserversstatus=2;
dbserverswarning = ! == on((dbservers>=4)&(dbservers<6)) dbserversstatus=1;
dbserversok = ! == on(dbservers<=2) dbserversstatus=0;
dbservers = 6 == ((dba+dbb)+dbc)
dbserversstatus = 2
dbc = 2
dbb = 2
dba = 2
appserverscritical = ! == on(appservers>2) appserversstatus=2;
appserversok = ! == on(appservers<=2) appserversstatus=0;
appservers = 2 == (appa+appb)
appserversstatus = 0
appb = 0
appa = 2
webserverscritical = ! == on(webservers>=8) webserversstatus=2;
webserverswarning = ! == on((webservers>4)&(webservers<8)) webserversstatus=1;
webserversok = ! == on(webservers<=4) webserversstatus=0;
webservers = 6 == ((((weba+webb)+webc)+webd)+webe)
webserversstatus = 1
webe = 0
webd = 2
webc = 2
webb = 2
weba = 0

> assert dbc=0;
2009/10/02 09:52:12 NB000I Rule dbserverswarning fired (dbserversstatus=1)
2009/10/02 09:52:12 NB000I Rule webshopwarning fired (webshopstatus=1)
> assert webb=0;
2009/10/02 09:52:31 NB000I Rule webserversok fired (webserversstatus=0)
> assert dba=0;
2009/10/02 09:52:45 NB000I Rule dbserversok fired (dbserversstatus=0)
2009/10/02 09:52:45 NB000I Rule webshopok fired (webshopstatus=0)

Links

• NodeBrain
• NodeBrain tutorial

To start a script in the default run levels:

sudo update-rc.d appname defaults

To remove a script from all runlevels:

sudo update-rc.d appname remove

I have read the book "Cacti 0.8 Network Monitoring, Monitor your network with ease!" by Dinangkur Kundu and S.M.Ibrahim Lavlu. The book is 116 pages.

According to the book the target audience for this book is for anyone who wants to manage a network using Cacti. To read the book you do not need to be a Linux Guru. And I agree, even if it probably helps if you have basic knowledge of Linux/UNIX, RRD, MySQL and SNMP.

Many of the OpenSource software projects out there is excellent but usually require a rather skilled person or a very interested person with alot of time to start working. Downloading the software and start reading the manual that comes with the software is often quite hard and a book like this narrow that gap and make a complex software like Cacti easier to use.

I find the Cacti GUI sometimes very cumbersome and this book, with its step by step guides to setup, makes graphing of network attached devices easy. The book explains how Cacti works and the underlaying technology like RRD well. RRD is the excellent Round Robin Database and tool and it is created by Tobias Oetiker. What I’m lacking is that when it has described the basics, it stops.  I would really like a deeper explanation of RRD because Cacti is a graphing tool which uses RRD and a deeper knowledge of RRD would make your graphs better and give you the information you want.

I also lack the deeper explanation of advanced Cacti topics like SNMP query XML syntax and other topics.The book is only 116 pages and in my opinion the book would be much more valuable if 50 extra pages would have been used to dig deeper into more advanced topics and explain more extensive what al the options in Cacti means.

I really miss a howto for Cacti addons like wethermaps, weathermaps is taking Cacti another step in visualiation of complex data.

I would recommend this book for newbies into Cacti that will get ther first graphs implementation a boost, for anyone that has used Cacti I would go for the RRD homepage, Cacti homepage and Cacti forums, blogs and other sources on internet.

Links:

• To buy the book Cacti 0.8 Network Monitoring, Monitor your network with ease!
• An example Chapter 4, creating and using templates
• Cacti homepage
• Cacti Forum
• RRD tools
• op5 Statistics, a supported version of Cacti

op5 Monitor is based on Nagios*, the industry standard for enterprise-class IT infrastructure monitoring. Until now, op5 Monitor has had to rely on the basics of standard Nagios Graphical User Interface (GUI) for presentation and overall user experience. With the release of op5 Monitor 4.2 we include a fully functional preview of a brand new GUI, now based on the Ninja Open Source project. The new GUI is based on a modern PHP architecture and is now shipped for real operation testing.

Usability, flexibility and visualization probably stands for more then 80% of overall customer value. Our solutions for full control of our customers IT systems hold a huge amount of both historical data and instant events. Making this information accessible and easy to understand for as many as possible is the single most effective value for our customers. And who is better to give us important feedback on GUI related features and functions then our customers? This is why we now choose to include an early version for test, evaluation and feedback purposes, all to secure the best for the coming official release of Monitor 5.0 later this year, says Jan Josephson, CEO op5 AB.

The new GUI with its flexible interface based on the PHP framework makes it much easier to provide customizations for customers specific needs. With the introduction of widget and support session based authentication it is now possible to fully personalize views and settings. The widget technology further provides a future standard way for two way synchronization and presentation of customer unique data and the presentation of it.

The ability to search, sort and filter vast data volumes has been greatly improved with pagination for views of hosts and services and the possibility to sort by column. The new improved search feature includes auto suggestion and let you search on hosts, services host groups and service groups.
These changes greatly improves the possibilities to answer to customer needs and to develop customized features that has not been possible until now due to the restrictions from the old GUI.
A new module for network visualization (the NagVis project) has been included in op5 Monitor 4.2. You can now visualize your infrastructure using three different map types;

• Auto map, a auto drawn topology map using parent / child relationships.
• Static Map makes it possible to put any object (host, service, host group or service group) on an image of choice.
• Geo map, uses Google maps API, drawing a map by using addresses or gps coordinates on your monitored objects. Object and status information as well as links can be included in the map. The maps can be visualized as widgets on the tactical overview or be used on big monitors in operation centers.
• Largest OSS-project in Network Monitoring, Nagios.

About op5 AB op5 AB is a world leading OSM – Open Source Management – company that delivers software based on open source for control of IT systems and networks. Its main products are op5 Monitor, op5 Statistics and op5 LogServer. The products are based on open source code that op5 further develops, packages, and sells as complete products and systems with services and support. p5 has a large selection of primarily European clients from different market segments for example AGA Linde Gas, The Swedish Customs Service (Tullverket) and other parastatals, several county councils, municipalities and municipal companies. op5 was founded in 2003. The company is based in Sweden with offices in Stockholm and Gothenburg.

www.op5.com

As a former Novell employee there is one software I really miss and that is iFolder. It is an excellent file syncronization software. You configure iFolder where your local iFolder files are located and what server to syncronize against. Do a sync and now they are avilable at any iFolder instance if you sync against the same server. It works almost magical. You can have several machines where you create files, sync them. After that go to a fresh machine do a iFolder sync and volá there is the files.

According to Novell iFolder is OpenSourced but the installation is horrible on any other plattform then SuSE.

Solution

After some investigation I finally stumbled on Unison. Unison works on Unix like operating system like, Linux, BSD, OS X and also on Windows. It is in the Ubuntu repository and RHEL rpm package can be found here.

Simple example

Syncronize one directory testunison containing two files

peter@peter-laptop:~$ unison -ui text -contactquietly testunison ssh://zelda/testunison
peter@zelda's password:
Looking for changes
  Waiting for changes from server
Reconciling changes

local          zelda.mynet       
new file —->            a  [f]
new file —->            b  [f]

Proceed with propagating updates? [] y
Propagating updates

UNISON 2.27.57 started propagating changes at 21:56:43 on 27 Aug 2009
[BGN] Copying a from /home/peter/testunison to //zelda.mynet//home/peter/testunison
[BGN] Copying b from /home/peter/testunison to //zelda.mynet//home/peter/testunison
[END] Copying a
[END] Copying b
UNISON 2.27.57 finished propagating changes at 21:56:43 on 27 Aug 2009

Saving synchronizer state
Synchronization complete  (2 items transferred, 0 skipped, 0 failures)

Links

• Unison homepage: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
• Unison tutorial

I have to admitt that most of the presentations was to deep into the kernel to my knowledge but I liked the conferances anyhow.

The Slackathon was the end of a Hackathon mostly founded by NIC.SE, so many of the OpenBSD core developers was there including Theo De Raadt see pic below.

Welcome to this years Slackathon!

It will be held August 15th, at the Stockholm University, though not in

the same conference room as the previous years, since it couldn’t hold

all visitors anymore!

As previous years, the website is slowly getting into shape, and

probably wont hold the complete “truth” until afterwards, since we

update it as we get more correct info. Be sure to check the web more

frequently as we get closer to the event.

The url is http://www.slackathon.se:2009/

The description still points to the old location, but I’ll spank some

sense into the web slaves so they make a better “how-to-get-here” that

actually shows you are going to “Hörsal B3″ and not the old conference

room. We’ll put some blowfishes up to point people that come from the

subway station in the right direction.

This year, there will be even more OpenBSD developers attending, since

the Slackathon 2009 is right after the f2k9 Filesystem Hackathon which I

am hosting at my work using a grant from the IIS foundation (the guys

and gals running the .SE top level domain)

Also note, that since there doesn’t seem to be an OpenCon this year, the

Slackathon probably is the only major OpenBSD-only conference held, so

even if it collides with HAR2009 and the Stockholm “midnight run”, you

don’t want to miss it!

Get them begging skills warmed up and draw donations from friends,

employers, parents or other rich entities that you think should donate

to OpenBSD and OpenSSH! It would also be nice if you help spread the

word around on various forums and communities.

As with previous years there will be no entrance fee and dinner will be

served for free to everyone, but I’d still need you to pre-announce if

you want it so I can make the correct amount of food, and also if you

want the vegan version.

For all of you who don’t live nearby, we can probably find you a couch

to sleep on here, just send a heads-up and we’ll dig up a few

“volunteers” to share their living quarters with you.

Hope to see you all there!

I use MythTV quite frequently and noticed that it is instable when using sasc-ng as a decoder to decrypt encrypted DVB-T channels. So approximatly every third day the MythTVbackend server stops and need to be started again. I have wriiten an earlier article about howto monitor MythTV with Nagios or op5 Monitor so I get noticed that it has stopped. But I need to manually start it again. This article describe howto make Nagios or op5 Monitor to start a stopped MythTVbackend. It can be used for starting almost any service.

I have used the examples provided by Ethan at Nagios official documentation describing eventhandlers.

Normally it is not recommended to let a tool like Nagios or op5 Monitor start a service that has stopped, because it is probably a reason why the service has stopped and the correct procedure is to fix the root cause of the problem, not the symptom.

The MythTV backend runs on one machine called lala (after a character in Teletubbies) which is not the same as the Nagios or op5 Monitor server. I use nrpe to run the start script i.e.

 /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend start

There is several options here but I already setup the nrpe agent and it is simple to make Nagios or op5 Monitor to use nrpe to run a script.

Implementation

I used the script I found at Nagios documentation about eventhandlers as a base and modiied it slightly.

At my op5 Monitor machine

/opt/plugins/custom/restart-mythtv-lala.sh

#!/bin/sh
#
# Event handler script for restarting the mythTVbackend server on lala
#
# Note: This script will only restart the mythtvbackend if the service is
#       retried 2 times (in a "soft" state) or if the service somehow
#       manages to fall into a "hard" error state.
#

# What state is the mythbackend service in?
case "$1" in
OK)
	# The service just came back up, so don't do anything...
	;;
WARNING)
	# We don't really care about warning states, since the service is probably still running...
	;;
UNKNOWN)
	# We don't know what might be causing an unknown error, so don't do anything...
	;;
CRITICAL)
	# Aha!  The HTTP service appears to have a problem - perhaps we should restart the server...

	# Is this a "soft" or a "hard" state?
	case "$2" in

	# We're in a "soft" state, meaning that Nagios is in the middle of retrying the
	# check before it turns into a "hard" state and contacts get notified...
	SOFT)

		# What check attempt are we on?  We don't want to restart the web server on the first
		# check, because it may just be a fluke!
		case "$3" in

		# Wait until the check has been tried 3 times before restarting the web server.
		# If the check fails on the 4th time (after we restart the web server), the state
		# type will turn to "hard" and contacts will be notified of the problem.
		# Hopefully this will restart the web server successfully, so the 4th check will
		# result in a "soft" recovery.  If that happens no one gets notified because we
		# fixed the problem!
		2)
			echo "`date` Restarting mythtv service (2rd soft critical state)..." >> /tmp/mythtvstart
			# Call the init script to restart the mythbackend server
			#/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart
			#date >> /tmp/mythtvstart
			/opt/plugins/check_nrpe -H lala -c start_mythtvbackend
			;;
			esac
		;;

	# The mythtvbackend service somehow managed to turn into a hard error without getting fixed.
	# It should have been restarted by the code above, but for some reason it didn't.
	# Let's give it one last try, shall we?
	# Note: Contacts have already been notified of a problem with the service at this
	# point (unless you disabled notifications for this service)
	HARD)
		echo "`date` Restarting mythtv service (hard state)..." >> /tmp/mythtvstart
		# Call the init script to restart the HTTPD server
		#/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart
		#date >> /tmp/mythtvstart
		/opt/plugins/check_nrpe -H lala -c start_mythtvbackend
		;;
	esac
	;;
esac
exit 0

/opt/monitor/misccomands.cfg

# command 'restart-mythtv-lala'
define command{
    command_name                   restart-mythtv-lala
    command_line                   /opt/plugins/custom/start-mythtv-lala.sh $SERVICESTATE$ $SERVICESTATETYPE$ $SERVICEATTEMPT$
    }

/opt/monitor/etc/services.cfg

# service 'Mythbackend'
define service{
    use                            default-service
    host_name                      lala
    service_description            Mythbackend
    check_command                  check_tcp!6543
    servicegroups                  MythTV,it-slav
    event_handler                  restart-mythtv-lala!$SERVICESTATE$ $SERVICESTATETYPE$ $SERVICEATTEMPT$
    contact_groups                 it-slav_sms,it-slav_jabber,it_slav_mail
    }

At my mythbackend machine lala

/etc/nrpe.d/mycommands.cfg
command[start_mythtvbackend]=/usr/bin/sudo /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend start

/etc/sudoers
nobody ALL= (root) NOPASSWD:/etc/init.d/mythtv-backend start

Test

I stopped the mythtvbackend by running:

peter@lala:/etc/nrpe.d$ date
Mon Jun 15 20:40:55 CEST 2009
peter@lala:/etc/nrpe.d$ sudo /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend stop
 * Stopping MythTV server: mythbackend

And run

[root@op5 ~]# tail -f /tmp/mythtvstart
Mon Jun 15 20:47:09 CEST 2009 Restarting mythtv service (2rd soft critical state)...

YES it works!

Links:

• op5 Monitor a Nagios based supported enterprise Monitoring software.
• MythTV a free OpenSource Digital Video Recorder
• Nagios Open Source Monitoring