BB Client for Mac OS ==================== 1.0b7 June 16, 2000 What is this? ============= Big Brother is a highly-redundant web-based monitoring and notification program. Although originally designed to operate only on UNIX machines (and the server still only does), reporting clients are available for Windows NT, Novell, and now the Mac OS. Go to http://bb4.com/ and take a look around. This will make a lot more sense after you've been there. Installation ============ Download the following files: Unix Time*, available at http://www.pasoftware.com/products/ (displays date/time in unix format) NetEvents, available at http://www.biap.com/downloads/netevents.html (provides the TCP/IP heavy lifting and connection) *Be sure you're using 1.2.5 or higher. - Drag all the support files/scripting additions (Akua Sweets, TickCount, Unix Time, and NetEvents) to your System Folder. The Scripting Additions will go in the right spot and NetEvents will be placed in your Extensions folder (although technically it's a background-only app). - Restart your Mac! - Use the Script Editor to open the "BB Client" script and change the settings as appropriate. (See below for descriptions.) - Save, close and launch the script. After a minute it should send the first batch of data out to the display servers. Notes ===== If you're getting memory errors with BB Client, increase the amount of memory given to it in the Finder to 1 MB. Updating to Applescript 1.4.3 if you have Mac OS 9 fixes the problem. Standard "Use at your own risk..." disclaimers apply. Please be satisfied of it's stability before you put it on a production server If NetEvents seems to be a little unstable, try giving it more memory in the Finder. Licensing ========= This product is authorized to be used according the the general Big Brother license (http://bb4.com/license.html). Commercial licenses are sold at the same price as BB NT Client licenses. For more information, please visit the Big Brother site at http://bb4.com/ Please send bug reports, comments, suggestions, and questions to cleaver@rohan.sdsu.edu Japheth "J.C." Cleaver San Diego State University cleaver@rohan.sdsu.edu http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~cleaver/software/ Version History ================= 1.0b7 Expanded on the refinements in b6 so that the "status header" given out on pages and on the main line of status pages is the same (the b6 ones). These should be more descriptive of the problems in general. Includes AkuaSweets 1.4.1, which fixes a crashing bug in its text-prsing routines. Fixes a bug where it would quit if more than one volume went offline. Tried to make code more legible :) Added option to not check read-only disks. 1.0b6 Refined the error messages sent out on pages to include information on specific processes/disks that are down/full. Also includes upgraded versions of various scripting additions, with accompanying bug-fixes. Change default "warn after reboot" period to 30 minutes instead of 1 hr. 1.0b4 Added support for checking the "Error" (yellow) and "Critical" (red) logs made by syslogd. They are located in the "Logs" folder of the System Folder. BB now waits 60 seconds before sending data to the server. This gives other apps a chance to start up (if they come alphabetically after "BB Client"). (This should prevent the initial red dot.) 1.0b3 Added support for uptime/cpu reports (via TickCount OSAX). Added support for sending reports directly to BBPAGERS. Changed default behavior to *not* post notifications on unreachable display/pager hosts 1.0b2 Actually, I don't remember... I think it was a minor bug somewhere :) 1.0b1 Initial release Future Directions ================= Clean up the msgs code and make it more configurable. Find some way to monitor cpu/memory load and report back under ".cpu" (any suggestions?) "Uses Unix Date Scripting Addition from Public Access Software" Settings in Depth ================= -- General Settings displayServers -- a list of display servers, preferably in dotted form (you can specify more than one) pageServers -- a list of bbpager servers, preferably in dotted form (you can specify more than one) myHostname -- if you're using FQDN, you should specify the whole thing here using comma form (ie, "host,domain,com"). If you're using 1.2b, leave it in dotted form, and if you're not using FQDN just use your hostname BBport -- duh, normally 1984 frequency -- Frequency of testing for all tests (in seconds) notifyOnError -- Post a notification request if it can't reach a display server. You shouldn't enable this if you're using pre-Mac OS 9.0 (Mac OS 9+ uses non-blocking alerts) myIP -- this will change automatically when the script runs, each time you recompile it will be reset (don't worry) -- Pager Settings doPaging -- set to false to disable pageonYellow -- set to true to have BB Client send out a page if a yellow condition is noticed, otherwise it will only page on red. -- CPU Monitor doCPUMonitor -- set to false to disable warnFor -- how long after a reboot will it flag yellow with "Machine Recently Rebooted" -- MSGS Monitor doMsgsMonitor -- set to false to disable Note: if you really use this, tell me if there are any other options you'd like to see configured here -- Process Monitor doProcessMonitor -- set to false to disable procsWarn -- list of processes to check for. Note that it checks for these by doing a string compare to whatever is listed in the Application menu, case doesn't matter and partial names are valid. Note you can also check for background only apps (appe) procsRed -- ditto -- Disk Monitor doDiskMonitor -- set to false to disable diskWarn -- default yellow-flag disk percentage diskRed -- default red-flag disk percentages diskOverride -- specify a list of Volume names to look for along with their specific yellow and red threshholds. The script expects a list of lists (so don't forget the outer pair of brackets!) ex: {{"Argon", 60, 80}, {"Wonder Woman", 90, 95}} to test 2 different vols {{"Lonely", 80, 90}} to test only this one {{"Lonely", 80, 90}, {"Wonder Woman", 0, 0}} test "Lonely" and ignore "Wonder Woman" complainIfOffline -- if a volume that has a specific threshhold listed above is missing, turn red. It won't turn red for an ignored volume. clearIgnores -- even though we don't flag on it, still display data (with clear indicators) for volumes we're ignoring? onlyLocalVols -- don't test space on any mounted server volumes testAllVols -- set to "false" to totally ignore all volumes not listed in diskOverride. Useful if the server is used as a workstation, too, or has a lot of mounting and dismounting locally *** new for 1.0b7 *** dontTestReadOnlyVolumes ‹ ignore CD-ROM's, locked disks, and other read-only volumes? defaults to true. This does not affect volumes in diskOverride, however.