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$Id: README,v 1.5 2005/05/08 12:46:01 rjroos Exp $

Massive monitoring tool for linux.
http://rjstats.sourceforge.net/

Written by Robbert-Jan Roos
FreeBSD support by Ronald Klop

Redirect all questions to the mailing list:
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rjstats-users
--

Documentation

Requirements

     * A computer with linux 2.4/linux 2.6/FreeBSD 5
     * rrdtool
     * perl
     * bash
     * A webserver with php support

   Since the program is quite modular some collectors require extra
   programs. It is impossible to collect mysql statistics if there is no
   mysql server running.

Installation for a single host

Step 1: Fix the collectors

   To install run the install script. Use 'install --prefix=/installdir'
   to install to /installdir. The install script will create a cron.sh
   file in the installation dir. Put this in a crontab to run every 5
   minutes:
*/5 * * * * /installdir/cron.sh

Step 2: Fix the viewing

   /installdir now contains a 'site' directory. Make this directory
   accessible from your webserver. I will not go into details since there
   are a lot of things that can go wrong for every particular webserver
   setup. The most simple thing you can do is create a symlink from your
   webroot to the site directory:
ln -s /installdir/site /var/www/rjstats

   You might want to put a .htaccess file in there which limits access to
   the page. If there are any problems look in the logs.

Step 3: View the graphs

   Point your browser to the location you've made rjstats available for
   and you should see a list of available graphs (Do this after the
   cron.sh entry has run). Now get some coffee and wait for 30 minutes to
   get some real values in there.

Installation for a network

   It is possible to have 1 rjstats server where other computers send
   there data to. Currently there is no form of security whatsoever so be
   warned. At my work we run this setup on all our linux servers inside a
   private network where only company administrators have access, so we
   consider it secure enough. Do not put this on an internet accessible
   host unless you know what you're doing.

   I suppose you already have a setup with 1 computer as described above.

Step 1: Fix the server

   At this time it only works with xinetd. inetd is not supported. You
   will have to add an entry to /etc/services:
rjstats 2500/tcp

   A xinetd config file is created in /installdir. Read it, adjust it to
   your situation and copy it to the correct location (probably
   /etc/xinetd.d). Restart the xinetd server and check your logs for
   errors. If everything went well xinetd is now listening on tcp port
   2500.

   Now do something creative with security. I suggest you use tcpwrappers
   or iptables to deny all connections to port 2500 except for the ip's
   you want to see graphs for. Use stunnel if you don't want others to
   see your computers' status.

Step 2: Fix the collectors

   Instead of the cron file setup earlier above, you will need to create
   a new one one each host you want to monitor:
*/5 * * * * * /installdir/cron-client.sh

   Inside this file you have to put the ip or hostname of the rjstats
   server.

Step 3: View the graphs.

   If everything worked out you can now see more computers in your
   browser (wait untill after the first rrdstats_send has run).

Known issues

     * When you have a lot of servers you want to monitor and they are
       all synchronized with ntp your rjstats server will have too many
       inbound connections every 5 minutes. Look at the cps setting from
       xinetd.conf
     * Some plugins are prone to "hanging". For example the diskusage
       program will hang if it is checking a dead mount (cifs/smb or nfs
       is a good candidate). We circumvented this by a lockfile.
       Unfortunately other graphs do not get updates when 1 process
       hangs.
     * peak values. Some of the plugins are prone to peak values. I have
       not yet figured out whether this is a rjstats or rrdtool bug. What
       i do know is that rrdtool 1.2 (released april 2005) has support
       for filtering out peak values.
       Until then your graphs will sometimes get ruined by peaks. There
       is a solution, but it is not a very nice one. On the server:
      rrdtool dump ruined_graph.rrd > ruined_graph.xml
      edit ruined_graph.xml and change the abnormal high value.
      rrdtool restore ruined_graph.xml ruined_graph.rrd

TODO

     * Make it portable to other unices (Only works on linux/FreeBSD)
       (think snmp here).
     * Think of more things to monitor
     * Add support for other rrd-functions then AVERAGE. (users should be
       MAX)
     * Add change capability to rrd datastores. (now they can only be
       created or updated, if one changes you will have to throw away the
       graph)
     * Write a dedicated server instead of relying on xinetd.
     _________________________________________________________________
Documentation

Requirements

     * A computer with linux 2.4/linux 2.6/FreeBSD 5
     * rrdtool
     * perl
     * bash
     * A webserver with php support

   Since the program is quite modular some collectors require extra
   programs. It is impossible to collect mysql statistics if there is no
   mysql server running.

Installation for a single host

Step 1: Fix the collectors

   To install run the install script. Use 'install --prefix=/installdir'
   to install to /installdir. The install script will create a cron.sh
   file in the installation dir. Put this in a crontab to run every 5
   minutes:
*/5 * * * * /installdir/cron.sh

Step 2: Fix the viewing

   /installdir now contains a 'site' directory. Make this directory
   accessible from your webserver. I will not go into details since there
   are a lot of things that can go wrong for every particular webserver
   setup. The most simple thing you can do is create a symlink from your
   webroot to the site directory:
ln -s /installdir/site /var/www/rjstats

   You might want to put a .htaccess file in there which limits access to
   the page. If there are any problems look in the logs.

Step 3: View the graphs

   Point your browser to the location you've made rjstats available for
   and you should see a list of available graphs (Do this after the
   cron.sh entry has run). Now get some coffee and wait for 30 minutes to
   get some real values in there.

Installation for a network

   It is possible to have 1 rjstats server where other computers send
   there data to. Currently there is no form of security whatsoever so be
   warned. At my work we run this setup on all our linux servers inside a
   private network where only company administrators have access, so we
   consider it secure enough. Do not put this on an internet accessible
   host unless you know what you're doing.

   I suppose you already have a setup with 1 computer as described above.

Step 1: Fix the server

   At this time it only works with xinetd. inetd is not supported. You
   will have to add an entry to /etc/services:
rjstats 2500/tcp

   A xinetd config file is created in /installdir. Read it, adjust it to
   your situation and copy it to the correct location (probably
   /etc/xinetd.d). Restart the xinetd server and check your logs for
   errors. If everything went well xinetd is now listening on tcp port
   2500.

   Now do something creative with security. I suggest you use tcpwrappers
   or iptables to deny all connections to port 2500 except for the ip's
   you want to see graphs for. Use stunnel if you don't want others to
   see your computers' status.

Step 2: Fix the collectors

   Instead of the cron file setup earlier above, you will need to create
   a new one one each host you want to monitor:
*/5 * * * * * /installdir/cron-client.sh

   Inside this file you have to put the ip or hostname of the rjstats
   server.

Step 3: View the graphs.

   If everything worked out you can now see more computers in your
   browser (wait untill after the first rrdstats_send has run).

Known issues

     * When you have a lot of servers you want to monitor and they are
       all synchronized with ntp your rjstats server will have too many
       inbound connections every 5 minutes. Look at the cps setting from
       xinetd.conf
     * Some plugins are prone to "hanging". For example the diskusage
       program will hang if it is checking a dead mount (cifs/smb or nfs
       is a good candidate). We circumvented this by a lockfile.
       Unfortunately other graphs do not get updates when 1 process
       hangs.
     * peak values. Some of the plugins are prone to peak values. I have
       not yet figured out whether this is a rjstats or rrdtool bug. What
       i do know is that rrdtool 1.2 (released april 2005) has support
       for filtering out peak values.
       Until then your graphs will sometimes get ruined by peaks. There
       is a solution, but it is not a very nice one. On the server:
      rrdtool dump ruined_graph.rrd > ruined_graph.xml
      edit ruined_graph.xml and change the abnormal high value.
      rrdtool restore ruined_graph.xml ruined_graph.rrd

TODO

     * Make it portable to other unices (Only works on linux/FreeBSD)
       (think snmp here).
     * Think of more things to monitor
     * Add support for other rrd-functions then AVERAGE. (users should be
       MAX)
     * Add change capability to rrd datastores. (now they can only be
       created or updated, if one changes you will have to throw away the
       graph)
     * Write a dedicated server instead of relying on xinetd.
     _________________________________________________________________