Red Hat NETWORK 3.7 Reference Manual

Also see for NETWORK 3.7 -: Manual Configuration guide

Contents

Red Hat NETWORK 3.7 Reference Manual Manual pdf 131 page image

Chapter 7.MonitoringThe Red Hat Network Monitoring entitlement allows you to perform a whole host of actions designedto keep your systems running properly and efficiently. With it, you can keep close watch on sys-tem resources, network services, databases, and both standard and custom applications. (During theMonitoring technology preview, Provisioning-entitled systems are treated as if they have Monitoringentitlements.)Monitoring provides both real-time and historical state-change information, as well as specific metricdata. You are not only notified of failures immediately and warned of performance degradation beforeit becomes critical, but you are also given the information necessary to conduct capacity planningand event correlation. For instance, the results of a probe recording CPU usage across systems wouldprove invaluable in balancing loads on those systems.Monitoring entails optionally establishing notification methods, installing probes on systems, regu-larly reviewing the status of all probes, and generating reports displaying historical data for a systemor service. This chapter seeks to identify common tasks associated with the Monitoring entitlement.Remember, virtually all changes affecting your Monitoring infrastructure must be finalized by updat-ing your configuration, through the Scout Config Push page.7.1. PrerequisitesBefore attempting to implement RHN Monitoring within your infrastructure, ensure you have all ofthe necessary tools in place. At a minimum, you need:• Monitoring entitlements — These entitlements are required for all systems to be monitored (andare currently bundled with Provisioning entitlements). Monitoring is supported only on Red HatEnterprise Linux systems. Entitlements may be obtained through the Buy Now links on the RHNwebsite.• RHN Satellite Server with Monitoring — Monitoring systems must be connected to a Satellite witha base operating system of Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 Update 3 or later only. Refer to the RHNSatellite Server Installation Guide within Help for installation instructions. Contact a Red Hat salesrepresentative to purchase Satellite.• Monitoring Administrator — This role must be granted to users installing probes, creating notifi-cation methods, or altering the monitoring infrastructure in any way. (Remember, the OrganizationAdministrator automatically inherits the abilities of all other roles within an organization and cantherefore conduct these tasks.). Assign this role through the User Details page for the user.• Red Hat Network Monitoring Daemon — This daemon is required on systems for probes moni-toring internal processes to be executed. You may, however, be able to run these probes using thesystems’ existing SSH daemon (sshd). Refer to Section 7.2 Red Hat Network Monitoring Daemon(rhnmd) for installation instructions and a quick list of probes requiring this secure connection.Refer to Appendix C Probes for the complete list of available probes.7.2. Red Hat Network Monitoring Daemon (rhnmd)To get the most out of your Monitoring entitlement, Red Hat suggests installing the Red Hat NetworkMonitoring Daemon on your client systems. Based upon OpenSSH, rhnmd enables the RHN SatelliteServer to communicate securely with the client system to access internal processes and retrieve probestatus.