Monitor arbitrary OIDs

[stratlbai]

I'd like to migrate my MRTG monitoring into Hyperic; however this requires me to be able to define arbitrary OIDs to monitor. Is this possible in Hyperic? I see where I can add services to platforms, but what I need is one level lower (to define a metric or a cluster of metrics).

Thanks!

[dougm_hyperic]

A platform, server or service type can contain any number of
arbitrary OIDs to monitor. Not clear what you need, can you describe
in more detail?

On Sep 11, 2006, at 7:07 PM, Luigi Bai wrote:

> I'd like to migrate my MRTG monitoring into Hyperic; however this
> requires me to be able to define arbitrary OIDs to monitor. Is this
> possible in Hyperic? I see where I can add services to platforms,
> but what I need is one level lower (to define a metric or a cluster
> of metrics).
>
> Thanks!

[stratlbai]

Yes, and my apologies for taking so long.

First, the setup. I have some SNMP network devices to which voice PRIs are connected. I'm using MRTG to monitor the devices to watch call clearing statistics, and I'm evaluating Hyperic to do the same. I have OID names set up (from parsed MIBs) for inbound/outbound calls (trending up) for each PRI, and for the total across related groups.

Second, the solutions as I see them?

1. I thought I'd wanted the ability to create an arbitrary SNMP OID service (a one-metric service?) on a network device (much like TCP Socket is on a host platform). I realize that to make a GUI for it you'd have to have OID plus metric type; type would have to include both units and the "trending" qualifier.

2. I looked through the code for the netdevice plugin, and I think that's what I really want to copy and modify. I would like to model each PRI as a service, and include the call metrics on it. I can then auto-discover the PRIs from the OID table. I can even include my MIBs and use the SNMPSession to refer to OIDs by name, which will be handy.

If anything like #1 is available in Hyperic I'd like to do that as a Q'n'D solution until I can get some time to clone the whole netdevice plugin. Maybe I can clone the plugin and just add to the .xml the numeric OIDs, maybe make a new platform to keep it separate from the others?

Thanks for any pointers!

[dougm_hyperic]

On Sep 14, 2006, at 1:59 PM, Luigi Bai wrote:

> Yes, and my apologies for taking so long.
>
> First, the setup. I have some SNMP network devices to which voice
> PRIs are connected. I'm using MRTG to monitor the devices to watch
> call clearing statistics, and I'm evaluating Hyperic to do the
> same. I have OID names set up (from parsed MIBs) for inbound/
> outbound calls (trending up) for each PRI, and for the total across
> related groups.
>
> Second, the solutions as I see them?
>
> 1. I thought I'd wanted the ability to create an arbitrary SNMP OID
> service (a one-metric service?) on a network device (much like TCP
> Socket is on a host platform). I realize that to make a GUI for it
> you'd have to have OID plus metric type; type would have to include
> both units and the "trending" qualifier.

This is correct. However, we could do this by using multiple service
types, for example:
SNMP OID Counter (collectionType="trendsup")
SNMP OID Value (collectionType="dynamic")

But then you still can't specify the units (bytes, time, etc.)

> 2. I looked through the code for the netdevice plugin, and I think
> that's what I really want to copy and modify. I would like to model
> each PRI as a service, and include the call metrics on it. I can
> then auto-discover the PRIs from the OID table. I can even include
> my MIBs and use the SNMPSession to refer to OIDs by name, which
> will be handy.

If your device supports IF-MIB, you can extend the Network Device
platform services without modifying the existing netdevice plugin.
This will require the upcoming 2.7.4 release (soon), here's a working
example:
http://svn.hyperic.org/trunk/plugins/examples/wxgoos-plugin.xml?
revision=70&root=Hyperic+HQ&view=markup

This provides both monitoring and auto-discovery of the services you
define.

> If anything like #1 is available in Hyperic I'd like to do that as
> a Q'n'D solution until I can get some time to clone the whole
> netdevice plugin. Maybe I can clone the plugin and just add to
> the .xml the numeric OIDs, maybe make a new platform to keep it
> separate from the others?

You can reference OIDs by name in a service-plugin.xml without any
Java code, such as in the example above:
<property name="MIBS"
value="/usr/local/share/snmp/mibs/itw_mib.mib"/>

You can also just drop your mib files into the agent's pdk/mibs
directory.

Hopefully the 2.7.4 changes will meet your needs. If not, let's work
on a clean solution so you don't have to clone the netdevice plugin.

[stratlbai]

Thanks. I looked at the wxgoos-plugin.xml and it looks like what I'd want to try. I'll wait for 2.7.4 and try it again.

Thanks!

[cwitt_hyperic]

Marking as answered.