Big Sister - README

- Big Sister

- Version
- The name
- Why was it written then
- Get Help / Sending Comments / Author(s) / Contributions
- Installation
- Directory structure
- What config files do you want to edit
- How to start it
- Overall function
- Currently implemented monitors

- Contributions
- CREDITS

## Big Sister

      (See also the HTML version in the doc subdirectory)

### Version

      This is Big Sister Version 0.98beta. Please read the
      RELEASE_NOTES-0.98a file to get some information on new
      features.

### The name

      Yes, it is called nearly like Sean MacGuire's Big Brother and
      it works nearly like it ... Actually it is even compatible
      with it.

### Why was it written then

      ... because I liked the idea behind Big Brother but did not like
          the limitations (mainly performance!) in using shell scripts ...
      ... and also because I needed a few more monitors such as sar,
          rpc and snmp ...
      ... a history would also be fine ...
      ... some way to reduce the number of alarms (e.g. when a router is
          going down I don't want to get 20 alarms stating that all the
          machines behind this router are unreachable) ...
      ... I also wanted to be able to do a more decent grouping on the
          display server ...
      ... and thought about porting BB to other platforms - such as win95
          or NT
      ... and thought about integrating it into the HP Openview/SNMP NMS running
          at our site
      So I started to rewrite BB in Perl step by step.

      In the meantime you will find that Big Sister and Big Brother still
      share some compatible concepts (e.g. the client/server protocol and
      part of the log file format) but do not have too much in common any
      more.

### Get Help / Sending Comments / Author(s) / Contributions

      The preferred way of asking for support / reporting bugs is now
      via the Support / Bug manager at

    	http://sourceforge.net/projects/bigsister/

      This makes tracking bugs and support requests much more easy.

      Big Sister was originally written by:

    	Thomas Aeby, Switzerland
    	aeby@graeff.com

      In the meantime (random order)

    	Joseph Gooch
    	Richard Cross
    	Derek Douville
    	Mike Lowe

      joined in. Many contributions have been made from interested
      people out there. Please see the CREDITS section and copyright/
      author notices in the sources.

      Feel free to sent comments or ask for help ...

      You may find the page

    	http://bigsister.graeff.com/

      helpful.

### Installation

      Please read the INSTALL document.

### Directory structure

      By default Big Sister installs in /usr/local/lib/bs (but should run
      anywhere else). Below its root directory it installs:

    	- bin	the binaries
    	- adm	the place where configuration files local to the machine
    		should go
    	- uxmon	the client software of Big Sister (Unix Monitor)
    	- etc	various configuration files (not very populated yet)
    	- www	the directory where Big Sister generates its HTML files
    	- www/logs	the directory where the client status files
    			end up
    	- www/logs/history	the directory where the history goes to
    	- var	the location where Big Sister stores any file (except
    		for the WWW files) it writes to

      Some people might want to move www to /var and place a link into
      /usr/local/lib/bs. "www" is only used on the Status Collector machine.

### What config files do you want to edit

      adm/bb-display.cfg	Tells bbdisp.pm what Web pages it should create and which
    			tables they should contain.
    			NOTE: Any host will only appear on your status web
    			      page when it is
    				- listed in bb-display.cfg
    				- or uses dynamic grouping

      adm/hosts.allow	OBSOLETE (but still active)

      adm/permissions	tell bbd which agents are allowed to connect and
    			what they are allowed to send

      adm/grouping		Grouping information for dynamic join/leave of
    			host groups (when using the generic uxmon-rules.pl)

      adm/uxmon-net		The agent configuration file
      			Do not forget to at least edit this file after
    			a new installation

      etc/syslog		If you are checking system log files ("syslog" check)

      etc/mibs.txt		If you are using snmp monitor this file is used for
    			mapping text to oids

      etc/OV		configuration file for HP Openview uxmon Monitor (only
    			if you are using the "OV" check)

      adm/bb_event_generator.cfg	The configuration file for the alarm generator

      adm/notify.cfg	If you use bb_event_generator with notify this is
    			the notify configuration file

      {adm,etc}/graphtemplates
    			The definitions in this file are used as a template
    			for creating performance data history databases

      etc/bsmon.cfg,	configures the various Big Sister server modules
      adm/bsmon_site.cfg

      see the file CONFIG for a description of these files

### How to start it

      A shell script named 'bb_start' is supplied. This should go into /etc/rc2.d
      (or /sbin/rc2.d or wherever your startup scripts usually go) so that Big Sister
      is started during system reboot.

      Of course you can use bb_start manually:

    	bin/bb_start start		start Big Sister
    	bin/bb_start stop		stop Big Sister
    	bin/bb_start restart		stop/restart Big Sister

### Overall function

      Big Sister comes in two parts: The "Status Collector" (bbd & bsmon)
      and the "Agent" (uxmon). Uxmon is meant to run on one or more machines. It's
      purpose is to check the local status on the machine (e.g. CPU load, disk usage,
      ...) it is running and the network status of neighbouring machines (e.g. ping,
      RPC, telnet to specific ports, etc.). It reports the status periodically to
      the "Status Collector". The "Status Collector" saves the reported stati,
      creates Web pages showing them, generates alarm messages on pre-configured
      status changes, collects, stores and displays trend data and so forth.

### Currently implemented monitors

      - oracle: Oracle database check
      - tripwire: Tripwire system consistency check
      - bbscript: for re-using Big Brother monitoring scripts
      - statusfile: as a simple interface to simple monitors
      - cpuload: CPU load as reported by uptime
      - eventlog: monitoring NT EventLog
      - logfile: generic log file monitor
      - procs: checking running processes
      - ping: checking reachability of a host
      - fs: checking file system usage
      - rpc_ping: checking RPC responses
      - tcp: generic TCP monitor
      - sar: checks sar output against limits
      - snmp: does snmp polling
      - dumpdates: check for last dump/ufsdump backup
      - syslog: check system log files
      - OV: HP Openview trap monitor
      - metastat: check Solstice DiskSuite RAID-Systems
      - dns: check DNS servers
      - radius: Radius
      - http/realhttp: Web Server
      - ... many more (see CONFIG)

## Contributions

## CREDITS

    	Sean McGuire		author of Big Brother

    	Sylvio Svensson		he suggested the name Big Sister and is THE
    				HP Openview crack

    	Bernhard Stalder	for always being there when I needed an
    				experienced system administrator to talk to

    	Peter Stevens		for some suggestions, e.g. dynamic grouping

    	Russell Mosemann	from whom I have borrowed parts of Monitor::ping.pm

    	Philip Nyffenegger	for his support

    	Rudolf Meyer		for sharing his NT know how
    				and offering connectivity for the
    				Big Sister web server

    	(just some person)	who unfortunately did not want me to quit the
    				project :-)

    	Andreas Disteli		for finding more bugs than I ever wrote :-)

    	Peter Sorensen		for many good suggestions

    	Roland Roberts		for his contributions

    	Torben Sorensen		for his contributions

    	Joseph Gooch		for many contributions

    	Pius Sabathy		for his support and willingness to
    				test new patches/releases

    	Kevin O'Donnell		for his contributions

    	Tim Powell		for his contributions

    	Markus Boss		for his work on the prototype RRDTool support

    	Tobi Oetiker		for RRDTool

    	Philip Markwalder	for his contributions

    	Boris Bellorini		for his contributions

    	Eduardo Tarasiuk	for his contributions and support

    	Steve Chan		for his contributions

    	Manuel de Vega Barreiro	for his contributions

    	Richard Ward		for his contributions

    	Richard Cross		for his contributions

    	Brandon S. Allbery	for his contributions

    	brendanb@mission.data	for his contributions

    	Neal Rigney		for his contributions

    	Simon Clift		for his contributions

    	Derek Douville		for his contributions

    	T. Taguchi		for his contributions

    	everyone else who contributed and is not listed here