Zenoss Blog: No Node Left Behind

Visit Zenoss at USENIX LISA

mrhinkle@zenoss.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:59:40 GMT

This week we will be exhibiting at 23rd Annual USENIX Large Installation Systems Administration Conference. This is also the third anniversary of our first Zenoss exhibition ever (Back then our big debate was to wear jeans or khakis). On the Friday the 6th we will also be conducting our third Zenoss Community Day this year where we will be offering free training to the Zenoss Community and anyone else who wants to learn about Zenoss.

The event will be held at Waterfront Marriott in Baltimore and since the event is local to the Annapolis office we will be having a number of members from Zenoss team at the show.

If you are attending LISA or want to attend Community Day let us know by signing up.

November 4th - 11:00-12:30 - Zenoss Senior Engineer, Chet Luther, will be giving a guru talk on Zenoss
November 4th - 12:00 -7:00 - Exhibition - Stop by Zenoss booth for to say, "Hi" and grab some Zenoss schwag
November 5th - 10:00-2:00 - Exhibition - Stop by Zenoss booth for to say, "Hi" and grab some Zenoss schwag
November 5th - 8:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m - Birds of Feather - Open Source for Large Enterprise Problems led by Zenoss VP of Community, Mark hinkle
November 6th - 9:00 - 4:30 - Zenoss Community Day

By the way, we decided on jeans back then and that's still the appropriate dress code this week.

Lina Software's Cross-platform Port of Zenoss 2.5

mray@zenoss.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:10:22 GMT

Another great example of Open Source innovation, Lina Software has packaged Zenoss Core 2.5 to run on Windows, OSX and Linux with their LINA runtime environment. It's an interesting project and we're glad to see other projects having success with Zenoss. Quoted from their Community blog post: Lina Software's Cross-platform Port of Zenoss 2.5

We at Lina Software are proud to announce that we have packaged Zenoss 2.5 Core to run on Windows, Mac and Linux via our beta version of the LINA runtime environment.

LINA (Lina Is Not an Acronym) is a lightweight, invisible Linux operating system that runs in a virtual environment on Windows and Mac, and in a chroot environment on Linux. Native Linux applications running on LINA are fully integrated into the host environment - i.e. configuration files may be edited and related executables may be run directly from the host. This allows Windows and Mac users to easily use Linux applications as if they were native to those platforms.

Linux applications are packaged for LINA as "universal installers". These packages offer a simple click-through install experience on any platform where the LINA runtime environment has been installed.

The LINA runtime environment for various platforms may be downloaded from: http://openlina.com/popups/popup-lina.html , or by clicking the link at the lower left of our webpage http://openlina.com.

Our universal installer for Zenoss 2.5 Core may be downloaded using this link: http://openlina.com/download/current/apps/Zenoss-2.5.0.lpkg

While both the LINA runtime environment and the Zenoss 2.5 Core installer are betas and clearly not for use in production environments, so far they have been testing very well. We are excited to present this port to the Zenoss Community, and are looking forward to getting your feedback, especially including questions about LINA and suggestions for improvement.

Adjusting Zenoss 2.3 and Earlier Schedules for DST

mray@zenoss.com — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:29:32 GMT

NOTE: This does not apply to Zenoss 2.4 and 2.5 installations!

With Daylight Saving Time coming up this weekend in the United States, we figured it might be worth reposting this tip for users of Zenoss 2.3 and earlier:

Introduction

The versions of Zenoss listed in the Applies To section below suffer from a bug that causes all schedules to be shifted forward or backward anytime a DST (daylight saving time) shift occurs on your primary Zenoss server. Zenoss uses schedules on alerting rules to allow them to only be active at certain times of day, and on maintenance windows.

Resolution

A permanent solution for this issue will be included in Zenoss 2.4. Until that time there are two workarounds that can be used.

Option #1: Run a script to adjust all schedules

We have developed a script that will interrogate your system and find any schedules that have been shifted due to a DST change. The major caveat with this approach is that you must run the script AFTER the DST change occurs. We recommend as soon after as possible so your schedules will remain accurate.

Please follow these instructions to download and run the adjustSchedulesForDST.py script. Bear in mind that this script can be run at any time, and repeatedly without causing harm. However, it is only effective the first time it is run after a DST change occurs.
su - zenoss cd $ZENHOME/bin wget http://dev.zenoss.org/svn/trunk/bin/adjustSchedulesForDST.py chmod 755 adjustSchedulesForDST.py . zenfunctions adjustSchedulesForDST.py
If your primary Zenoss server doesn’t have outbound access to the Internet you will need to download the script from the referenced URL and copy it into the $ZENHOME/bin directory on your primary Zenoss server through some other mechanism.

Option #2: Set your Zenoss server to UTC

This option will completely solve the issue with no further interaction required by you. The downside is that all times within the Zenoss web interface, and in alerts that are sent out will be shown in UTC time. This could be confusing for users who are used to working in local time only.

More Information

Applies To

Zenoss 2.3
Zenoss 2.2
Zenoss 2.1

Tickets

#3996: Daylight Savings (Time Changes) Shifts Maint Window and Alerting Schedules

Zenoss Newsletter - October 2009

mrhinkle@zenoss.com — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:46:23 GMT

Zenoss Core 2.5 code-named King Crab was released on October 28th. This newest release has been the result of hard work between the Zenoss Development team and the Zenoss Community. Here are the highlighed features of Zenoss Core 2.5:

Amazon Web Services (Amazon EC2) Monitoring
Over 40+ New Community Developed Innovations
New Event Console
65 Community Submitted Bugs and Feature Requests Addressed

Download Zenoss Core 2.5 today!

Last Chance for Free Training

On November 6th Zenoss will be conducting our third Zenoss Community Day. The event will be held in Baltimore, MD during the USENIX 23rd Large Installation Systems Administrator Conference (LISA). Our most recent event at the Ohio Linuxfest had over 80 attendees, who now are well-trained on how to monitor their networks with Zenoss Core. By all accounts these training events are an invaluable way to learn about monitoring your infrastructure with Zenoss Core and they're free!

Tip of the Month:Finding Unbound Devices

If you need to find all devices not currently bound to a Location, Group or System you can query the system to find these unbound devices. Read this simple tip and get your monitored devices better organized.

2010 Open Source Management Survey

For the last three years we have conducted an online management survey discussing the trends in open source systems management. This year we will be doing so again and hoping to gain as well as provide insight to open source users and potential users. All participants will get early access to the survey results and be entered for a chance to win a Dell Mini netbook.

Cloud Monitoring Contest

As enterprise infrastructure continues to evolve and move into more virtual and non-local environments, Zenoss wants to help our users expand their monitoring of their networks, devices and the services that they depend on. We've decided to help kickstart the creation of new ZenPacks for monitoring this evolving landscape with another Community ZenPack Contest, the "Zenoss in the Clouds ZenPack Contest" with not 1, but 5 great prizes!

Zenoss Community Partners

This month some of our community partners are providing some cool things to the Zenoss community. Jane Curry at Skills 1st is offering Zenoss workshops in the UK. And Plixer is providing integration with their free Scrutinizer NetFlow and sFlow Analyzer to all Zenoss users.

Do you provide support and services for Zenoss Core? Do you develop ZenPacks and want to do so for other income? Check out the new community partner portal today!

Upcoming Events

11/04 - 11/5 – USENIX LISA 2009 – Baltimore, MD
11/04 – Zenoss Enterprise Demo – Webinar
11/05 – GOSCON - Washington D.C.
11/06 – Zenoss Community Day – Baltimore, MD
11/11 – Zenoss Enterprise Demo – Webinar
11/18- 11/19 – Zenoss Administrator Training – Distance Learning
11/24 - 11/25 – Zenoss Administrator Training – Distance Learning

Is Open Source Software Saving You Money?

mrhinkle@zenoss.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:03:17 GMT

Given current economic conditions there is considerable interest in open source software and whether open source licensing can help users lower the cost of enterprise computing compared to traditional proprietary licensing.

Our friends at the 451 Group would like you to contribute to its CAOS Open Source Adoption Survey covering end user attitudes to the potential financial benefits of open source. The survey can be found at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ixpFUOfQSOxRlK13EmS_2f0A_3d_3d

In return for your contribution, you will receive a copy of the research results, which will be delivered in an update to our second Commercial Adoption of Open Source (CAOS) research report "Cost Conscious, A practical guide for understanding and calculating the financial benefits of open source for enterprise IT projects". You will also receive an invite to a special 451 Group Webinar at which we discuss these results.

Zenoss 2.5 is Now Available!

mray@zenoss.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:14:55 GMT

We are proud to announce the release of Zenoss Core 2.5! The latest Zenoss version was developed in conjunction with our community of more than 50,000 members who provided product input, monitoring extensions, patches and extensive beta testing.

Zenoss Core 2.5

Zenoss Core 2.5 includes the following new features:

Event Console - With a new look and feel, the Event Console makes it even easier for IT operators to complete their most common tasks. The primary design features were based on a set of usability interviews and include streamlined navigation, inline event filtering and a preview pane.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Monitoring - New Amazon EC2 monitoring provides dynamic snapshots of both the individual and collective performance of the instances within an account. In addition, Zenoss Core now includes the ability to immediately track performance without user intervention and to drill deep on performance issues with “inside-the-instance” monitoring.
Over 40+ New Community Developed Extensions - Since the release of Zenoss 2.4, the community has significantly extended the capabilities of Zenoss Core in the form of over 40+ new ZenPacks.
- Egor Puzanov's ODBC Data Source ZenPack provides a new data source for monitoring databases via ODBC. This ZenPack is the basis for the MS SQL ODBC Database Monitor, MySQL ODBC Database Monitor and PostgreSQL ODBC Database Monitor ZenPacks.
- David Nicklay's Community NetApp ZenPack merges three existing ZenPacks into a single source, providing comprehensive monitoring for NetApp devices.
- Eric Edgar provides new monitoring threshold functions via Point, Range and Predictive Threshold ZenPacks.
Site Window Portlet that provides easy access to Zenoss information resources on the dashboard, adopted from the Community ZenPack (Thanks Ian!).
Community Submitted Bugs, Feature Requests and Testing - The Zenoss Community provided significant testing and feedback during this release cycle submitting over 65 bugs and feature requests that have been addressed in version 2.5.

In addition to the new features, the documentation has all been refreshed and substantially updated. For this release, there were over 300 external tickets closed, greatly improving the overall stability and reliability of Zenoss Core. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank and highlight the 120+ community-contributed ZenPacks that are currently available.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the Zenoss 2.5 “King Crab” beta program as well!

Release Notes for Zenoss 2.5.0 HTML | PDF

Downloads and evaluations are available at Zenoss Downloads.

Zenoss in the Clouds ZenPack Contest

mray@zenoss.com — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:24:51 GMT

As enterprise infrastructure continues to evolve and move into more virtual and non-local environments, Zenoss wants to help our users expand their monitoring of their networks, devices and the services that they depend on. We've decided to help kickstart the creation of new ZenPacks for monitoring this evolving landscape with another Community ZenPack Contest, the "Zenoss in the Clouds ZenPack Contest" with not 1, but 5 great prizes!

What's this ZenPack Contest About?

We're looking for users to develop ZenPacks that monitor cloud infrastructure and service providers, the tools for deploying and the technologies used there. Here are a few suggested examples:

Infrastructure and Service Providers:

Deployment and Cloud-based Technologies:

We’re looking for as many useful submissions as possible, monitoring something not yet covered, improvements to existing ZenPacks or extending Zenoss to provide new functionality. It doesn’t have to be overly complex, but don’t let that stop you from going wild. There are a lot of ZenPacks that are being tested or have yet to been submitted to Zenoss for hosting, so this contest is your chance to show off your chops and possibly win a great prize. To help foster the discussion we've created a new Zenoss-Cloud forum.

Developer Resources

These resources should help anyone looking to develop a ZenPack. Feel free to contact community@zenoss.com with any questions you may have.

The Prizes

To encourage slightly more ambitious entries, we're raising the stakes a bit with some monetary bounties.

The Grand Prize is $2000 for the best ZenPacks
There will be 4 runner-up prizes of $500, 3 will be selected by the judges, 1 will be chosen randomly.

The Rules

Winners will be selected by a panel of Zenoss judges from the Zenoss open source community.
Contributed ZenPacks should be Zenoss 2.2-style .eggs. So that we would be able to potentially include the ZenPack in a future release of Zenoss, please consider filling out our contribution form. If you’ve previously filled it out, you do not need to do so again.
To enter the contest send an email to community@zenoss.com with the title “Cloud ZenPack Contest” with your name, the attached ZenPack and any documentation you would like to include.
Submissions for the Zenoss Submit a ZenPack Contest are open until February at which time our judges will select a grand-prize winner, 3 runner-ups and and draw randomly from all entries for the final prize. Multiple entries are allowed and encouraged. You will get one entry for each ZenPack submitted.
Prize winners are responsible for any tax implications of their prizes and may be asked to furnish a U.S. IRS W-9 for tax purposes.

Zenoss IRC session Thursday October 29 at 11am EDT UPDATED

mray@zenoss.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:50:43 GMT

Zenoss developers will be available for questions on Thursday, October 29 at 11am EDT in the #zenoss IRC channel on irc.freenode.net (port 6667). Please drop in and bring your questions, answers, suggestions and feedback. Community Manager Matt Ray and Developer Chip Holden will be available to answer your questions on Zenoss, the upcoming "King Crab" 2.5 release and any other events in the Zenoss Community.

We’ll log the session and repost it here if you can’t make it.

Don’t forget you can search for answers to common questions by visiting the Zenoss Forums.

UPDATED: Here's the log: Dev chat 10/29/2009

Tip of the Month: Finding Unbound Devices

mray@zenoss.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:17:07 GMT

If you need to find all devices not currently bound to a Location, Group or System you can query the system to find these unbound devices.

1) First find all the devices and remove those with a set Location. Write the following to a text file called "unbound":

#all devices
allset = set(dmd.Devices.getSubDevices())
#devices with the Location set
boundset = set(dmd.Devices.Locations.getSubDevices())
#remove the bound devices
allset - boundset

2) Run zendmd with the "unbound" file and the output lists your unbound devices:

zenoss@calculon:~$ zendmd < unbound
Welcome to zenoss dmd command shell!
use zhelp() to list commands
set([<Device at /zport/dmd/Devices/Discovered/devices/ 
10.0.111.5>, <Device at /zport/dmd/Devices/Discovered/devices/ 
10.0.111.100>, <Device at /zport/dmd/Devices/Discovered/devices/ 
10.0.111.11>, <Device at /zport/dmd/Devices/Ping/devices/xbox>])

3) You could modify the above for Groups or System similarly. Feel free to clean it up however you need or turn it into a report.

Getting Started with Zenoss Core Webinar October 27

mray@zenoss.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:25:26 GMT

Have you recently downloaded Zenoss Core, or do you have questions implementing the solution in your environment? If so, please register to attend our bi-weekly Getting Started with Zenoss Core Webinar. The October 27 session is still open for sign-up, if you can’t make this session, the next one will be in about 2 weeks. You can register for here:

Tuesday, October 27 1:00 p.m. EDT

Here’s what you’ll get out of the session:

An overview of the resources available
Installing the software properly
Preparing your environment
Logging in to get started
Getting and staying organized
Adding, classifying and auto-discovering your devices
Seeing the “big picture” (dashboard, network map, event console, Google Maps, etc.)
Avoiding common mistakes

We also have a Zenoss engineer available to answer questions live – and there are plenty of questions submitted! If you’re interested in seeing past Q&A logs, take a look at some of the previous sessions on the Zenoss blog where we document and upload the questions submitted along with answers. We will update this post with the Q&A from the webinar after the session is over.

A Peek into the Developer Environment

community@zenoss.org — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:56:12 GMT

The developers at Zenoss have used a variety of ways to configure their development environment. Several of us use the Eclipse IDE, but it take special consideration on using it effectively with the Zenoss source tree.

In a series of blog posts, I've described my personal Zenoss development environment and how it is configured.

In Part 1, I discuss how to initially check out Zenoss from source and get a working instance on either Mac OS X or Ubuntu.

In Part 2, I discuss how to install and configure Eclipse to use this checked out version of Zenoss.

And in Part 3, I discuss how I work with the Zenoss source for day-to-day activities using branch-based development.

Plixer Scrutinizer ZenPack now Available to All Zenoss Users

mray@zenoss.com — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:57:49 GMT

Plixer International has made their Scrutinizer ZenPack now available free of charge! The Scrutinizer NetFlow & sFlow Analyzer ZenPack provides direct integration between Zenoss and Scrutinizer. This integration allows network engineers to quickly switch between viewing the event details in Zenoss and the detailed network traffic analysis view in Scrutinizer. Network engineers need to quickly find and resolve network performance bottlenecks before they impact customers and end-users. One of the most effective ways to diagnose network performance problems is by analyzing NetFlow data.

Thanks again to Plixer for making this ZenPack widely available to all Zenoss users!

Zenoss 2.5 Release Candidate 1 is Now Available

mray@zenoss.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:41:22 GMT

We're getting ever closer to our 2.5 release and have updated the artifacts available for testing for theZenoss 2.5 "King Crab" release. This is our first "Release Candidate", indicating we currently do not have any blocking tickets opened against it, but it still needs more testing. There are installers available for allplatforms and VMware. Please refer to the original beta announcement for testing instructions, the downloads are available at http://community.zenoss.org/community/beta. Please test upgrades with all installers if possible. TheDellMonitor, HPMonitor, LinuxMonitor, LDAPMonitor, MySQL and ZenJMX ZenPacks have all been updated for this beta. Please test this releaseif you can, we're shooting to release soon and are more than happy to send out t-shirts for testing.

Thanks,

Matt Ray

Zenoss Community Manager

Geeks for the Cure - "Storm" Baltimore

mrhinkle@zenoss.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:16:36 GMT

The weather intimidated some but the Zenoss crew was out in force this weekend representing the Zenoss Geeks for the Cure - see the
photo of Zenoss CEO, Bill Karpovich sporting his Zenoss running gear. The Zenoss-Annapolis office personnel and their friends and family braved the stormy weather this weekend to run for the Susan M. Koman Race for the Cure.

Central PA Open Source Conference

mrhinkle@zenoss.com — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:21:07 GMT

Today we are exhibiting at the Central PA Open Source Conference in Harrisburg, PA. We got to see Mike Badger, author (on the right) of the Zenoss Network Monitoring and Systems Management book by Packt Publishing and meet a lot of cool people. We would like to thank our hosts and hope everyone enjoyed the conference.