Synopsis

A nice feature which isn’t publicized too much in ITM for Linux and Unix agents is the ping capability.

They’re refrerred to as “Host Availability” for Linux and “Ping Attributes” for Unix

Both will accept an input file containing a list of servers to “ping”, and both will return status and response time.

Enabling the ping hosts file

Linux

$CANDLEHOME/config/lz.ini: KLZ_PINGHOSTLIST=<path_to_list>
# e.g. KLZ_PINGHOSTLIST=$CANDLEHOME/config/my_hostlist
# Add this to the lz.config if you want to avoid having to reconfig the agent

Unix

$CANDLEHOME/config/ux.ini: KUX_PINGHOSTLIST=<path_to_list>
# e.g. KUX_PINGHOSTLIST=$CANDLEHOME/config/my_hostlist
# Add this to the lz.config if you want to avoid having to reconfig the agent

Extra feature difference

One minor, but important, difference is that the Linux component will only ping servers in the list, while the Unix component has the additional feature using a situation to ping any target host from any managed system.

This makes every managed system (agent) a ping source to target critical servers.

Attribute Group: UNIX Ping
Situation Definitions: System_Name == $NODE$, Target_Host == webserver1

Par for the course with IBM Tivoli’s porting of aqcuired products and their attempt at integrating them together, the ITM Agent for the a Netcool’s Omnibus  does not install in the expected $CANDLEHOME.

IBM has opened an enhancement request based on the PMR I opened. My workaround below.

Problem title
TEMA for Omnibus does support optional $CANDLEHOME paths
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Problem description Read the rest of this entry »