Provided by: xymon_4.3.30-1build2_amd64 bug

NAME

       xymond_rrd - xymond worker module for updating Xymon RRD files

SYNOPSIS

       xymond_channel --channel=status xymond_rrd [options]
       xymond_channel --channel=data xymond_rrd [options]

DESCRIPTION

       xymond_rrd  is  a  worker  module  for  xymond,  and  as  such  it is normally run via the
       xymond_channel(8) program. It receives "status" and "data" messages from xymond via stdin,
       and updates the RRD databases used to generate trend-graphs.

       Clients can send data to Xymon using both status- and data- messages. So you will normally
       run two instances of this module, once for the "status" channel and once  for  the  "data"
       channel.

       xymond_rrd  understands  data  sent  by the LARRD 0.43c client-side scripts (the so-called
       "bottom-feeder" scripts). So you still want to install the  LARRD  bottom-feeders  on  the
       clients you monitor.

       Note:  For  certain types of data, the RRD files used by Xymon are imcompatible with those
       generated by the Big Brother LARRD add-on.  See the COMPATIBILITY section below.

OPTIONS

       --debug
              Enable debugging output.

       --rrddir=DIRECTORY
              Defines the directory where the RRD-files  are  stored.  xymond_rrd  will  use  the
              location pointed to by the XYMONRRDS environment if this option is not present.

       --no-cache
              xymond_rrd  by  default  caches  updates  to  the RRD files, to reduce the disk I/O
              needed for storing the RRD data. Data is collected for a 30  minute  period  before
              being  committed  to disk in one update.  This option disables caching of the data,
              so that data is stored on disk immediately.

       --processor=FILENAME
              xymond_rrd can send a parallel copy of all RRD updates to a single external process
              as  a  stream  on  its  STDIN. The data will be in a format similar to that used by
              rrdupdate(1):      <rrdtemplate> ts:<rrdvalue(s)> host <rrdparameters>

              If the process exits, xymond_rrd will re-launch it.

       --extra-script=FILENAME
              Defines the script that is run to get the RRD data for tests  that  are  not  built
              into  xymond_rrd.  You  must  also  specify which tests are handled by the external
              script in the --extra-tests option. This option can only  be  given  once,  so  the
              script  must  handle all of the external test-data. See the CUSTOM RRD DATA section
              below. Note that this is NOT needed if your custom graphs are generated by the  NCV
              (Name  Colon  Value) module described below, it is only required for data where you
              have a custom script to parse the status message and extract the data that  is  put
              into the graph.

       --extra-tests=TEST[,TEST]
              List  of testnames that are handled by the external script. See the CUSTOM RRD DATA
              section below. Note that NCV graphs should NOT be listed here, but in the  TEST2RRD
              environment variable - see below.

       --no-rrd
              Disable the actual writing of RRD files. This is only really useful if you send all
              of the data destined for the RRD files to an external processor (the --extra-script
              or --processor options).

ENVIRONMENT

       TEST2RRD
              Defines  the  mapping  between  a  status-log  columnname and the corresponding RRD
              database format. This is normally defined in the xymonserver.cfg(5) file.

       XYMONRRDS
              Default directory where RRD files are stored.

       NCV_testname
              Defines the types of data collected by the "ncv" module in xymond_rrd.   See  below
              for more information.

       SPLITNCV_testname
              The  same  as  NCV_testname,  but  keeps  the data into separate files. That is, it
              creates one rrd file per "NAME : value" line found in the  status  message.  It  is
              useful when the list of NCV lines is varying.

       TRACKMAX
              Comma-separated  list  of  columnname for which you want to keep the maximum values
              along with the default average values. This only works
               for the NCV backend.

COLLECTED DATA

       The following RRD-file datasets are generated by xymond_rrd:

       la     Records the CPU load average. Data is  collected  from  the  "cpu"  status  report.
              Requires that a Xymon client is running on the monitored server.

       disk   Records  the  disk  utilization.  Data  is collected from the "disk" status report.
              Requires that a Xymon-compatible client is running on the monitored server.

       memory Records memory- and swap-utilization. Data is collected from  the  "memory"  status
              report.  If  no  "memory"  status  is reported, it will use the data from the Win32
              client "cpu" status report  to  generate  this  dataset.  Requires  that  a  Xymon-
              compatible client is running on the monitored server.

       netstat
              Records TCP and UDP statistics. Data is collected from the "netstat" status report;
              however, this data is often sent via the Xymon "data" protocol, so there  need  not
              be  a  "netstat"  column visible on the Xymon display. To get these data, the LARRD
              netstat bottom-feeder script must be running on the monitored server.

       vmstat Records system performance metrics from the "vmstat" command.   Data  is  collected
              from  the  "vmstat"  status  report; however, this data is often sent via the Xymon
              "data" protocol, so there need not be  a  "vmstat"  column  visible  on  the  Xymon
              display.  To  get these data, the LARRD vmstat bottom-feeder script must be running
              on the monitored server.

       tcp    Response-time metrics from all of the Xymon network tests are recorded in the "tcp"
              RRD.

       apache Apache  server  performance  metrics,  taken from the "apache" data report. See the
              description of the apache keyword in hosts.cfg(5) for details.

       sendmail
              Sendmail server performance metrics, taken from  the  "mailstats"  output.  To  get
              these  data,  the  LARRD  sendmail  bottom-feeder  script  must  be  running on the
              monitored server.

       mailq  Mail queue size. To get these data, the LARRD nmailq bottom-feeder script  must  be
              running on the monitored server.

       bea    BEA  Weblogic  performance data. This is an experimental set of data collected from
              BEA Weblogic servers via SNMP, by the "beastats" tool included with Xymon.

       iishealth
              IIS webserver performance data, collected by the "iishealth" script.   This  script
              is a client-side add-on available from the www.deadcat.net archive.

       temperature
              Temperature  data,  collected  with the temperature script from www.deadcat.net. To
              get these data, the temperature script must be running on the monitored server.

       ntpstat
              Tracks the deviation between the local system time and an  NTP  server,  using  the
              output  from  the  "ntpq  -c rv" command.  A simple script to collect these data is
              included in the Xymon contrib/ directory.

       citrix Tracks the number of active sessions on a Citrix server using the  "query  session"
              command.  An extension for the BBNT client that generates data for this graph is in
              the Xymon contrib/ directory.

CUSTOM RRD DATA IN NAME-COLON-VALUE (NCV) FORMAT

       Many data-collection scripts report data in the form "NAME : value" or "NAME = value".  So
       a generic module in xymond_rrd allows for easy tracking of this type of data.

       The  "ncv" module will automatically detect all occurrences of a "NAME : value" or "NAME =
       value" string in a status message, and generate an RRD file holding all of the  name/value
       data  found  in the message (unless you use SPLITNCV, see above). The colon- or equal-sign
       must be present - if there is only whitespace, this module will fail.

       Only the valid letters (A-Z, a-z)  and  digits  (0-9)  are  used  in  the  dataset  names;
       whitespace  and  other  characters  are  stripped  off  automatically.  Only  the first 19
       characters of a dataset name are used (this is an RRD limitation). Underscore '_'  is  not
       allowed, even though RRDtool permits this, and will be stripped from the name.

       When  using  the alternative SPLITNCV_testname, the dataset name is not limited in length,
       and non-valid characters are changed to underscores instead of  being  stripped  off.  The
       dataset inside the resulting rrd file is always "lambda".

       Note  that  each  "NAME  : value" must be on a line by itself. If you have a custom script
       generating the status- or data-message that is fed into the  NCV  handler,  make  sure  it
       inserts a newline before each of the data-items you want to track.

       Any  lines  in  the status message prepended with a "<!-- ncv_skip -->" will be skipped by
       the module. This can be used to prevent unneeded RRD files from an existing  dataset  from
       being created.

       A  line  prepended  with  a  "<!--  ncv_skipstart  -->"  will  be  ignored, along with all
       subsequent lines until a line starting with "<!-- ncv_skipend  -->"  is  found,  at  which
       point  processing will resume. This can be used to ignore explanatory or other text with a
       mostly-ncv message.

       "<!-- ncv_ignore -->" can be used to ignore certain text at the beginning of  a  line,  up
       until  a closing '</-->' tag on the same line, at which point the line will continue to be
       processed as usual. Wrapping is not supported; but skipstart/skipend can be used to handle
       multiple lines.

       A  bare  "<!--  ncv_end  -->"  on  its  own  line will stop further NCV processing of that
       message.

       All of these ncv_ terms are case-sensitive. Note that if you have full control  over  your
       NCV  output,  it  is  most efficient to have NCV data near the top of your message and use
       "<!-- ncv_end -->" once your data is complete.

       To enable the ncv module for a status, add a "COLUMNNAME=ncv" to the TEST2RRD setting  and
       the  COLUMNNAME  to  the  GRAPHS setting in xymonserver.cfg(5) , then restart Xymon. Xymon
       will now send all status-messages for the column COLUMNNAME through  the  xymond_rrd  ncv-
       handler.

       The  name of the RRD file will be COLUMNNAME.rrd. When using SPLITNCV, the name of the RRD
       file will be COLUMNAME,DATASETNAME.rrd.

       By default, all of the datasets are generated as the RRD type "DERIVE" which works for all
       types  of  monotonically increasing counters. If you have data that are of the type GAUGE,
       you  can  override  the  default  via   an   environment   variable   NCV_COLUMNNAME   (or
       SPLITNCV_COLUMNAME).

       E.g. if you are using the bb-mysqlstatus script from www.deadcat.net to collect data about
       your MySQL server, it generates a report in the column called "mysql". One  data  item  is
       the  average  number  of  queries/second,  which  must  be  logged in the RRD file as type
       "GAUGE". To do that, add the following to xymonserver.cfg:
           NCV_mysql="Queriespersecondavg:GAUGE"
       If you have multiple datasets that you myst define, add them to the  environment  variable
       separated by commas, e.g.
           NCV_mysql="Uptime:NONE,Queriespersecondavg:GAUGE"

       The  dataset  type  "NONE"  used  above  causes  xymond_rrd to ignore this data, it is not
       included in the RRD file.

       You can use "*" as the dataset name to match all datasets not listed.  E.g.
           NCV_weather="Rain:DERIVE,*:GAUGE"
       will cause the "Rainfall" dataset to be of type DERIVE, and all others of type  GAUGE.  If
       you  want  to track only a few of the variables in your data, you can use "*:NONE" to drop
       any dataset not explicitly listed.

       For a more detailed "how to" description, see the on-line HTML documentation  of  "How  to
       create graph custom data" available in the Help menu section on your Xymon server.

SENDING METRIC DATA TO AN ADDITIONAL PROCESS

       xymond_rrd  provides  a  mechanism  to  send  a  copy  of isolated metric data to a single
       external processor for further processing. This can be used to  inject  metric  data  that
       xymond_rrd  has  prepared into other storage systems, such as OpenTSDB, graphite, etc. The
       data is printed in a format nearly suitable for injection using  rrdupdate(1)  and  easily
       transformable  to  other  formats.  If  the  process  exits,  xymond_rrd will re-launch it
       automatically.

CUSTOM RRD DATA VIA SCRIPTS

       xymond_rrd provides a simple mechanism for  adding  custom  graphs  to  the  set  of  data
       collected  on  your  Xymon  server.  By  adding  the  "--extra-script" and "--extra-tests"
       options, data reported to Xymon from selected tests are  passed  to  an  external  script,
       which can define the RRD data-sets to store in an RRD file.

       NOTE:  For  performance  reasons,  you  should not use this mechanism for large amounts of
       data. The overhead involved in storing the received message  to  disk  and  launching  the
       script is significantly larger than the normal xymond_rrd overhead. So if you have a large
       number of reports for a given test, you should consider implementing it in C and including
       it  in  the xymond_rrd tool or writing a separate stream listener that injects appropriate
       "trends" data messages back to xymond.

       Apart from writing the script, You must also  add  a  section  to  graphs.cfg(5)  so  that
       showgraph.cgi(1) knows how to generate the graph from the data stored in the RRD file.  To
       make the graphs actually show up on the status-page and/or the "trends" page, add the name
       of the new graph to the TEST2RRD and/or GRAPHS setting in xymonserver.cfg(5).

       The  script  is  invoked for each message that arrives, where the test-name matches one of
       the testnames given in the "--extra-tests" option. The script receives three  command-line
       parameters:

       Hostname
              The name of the host reporting the data.

       Testname
              The name of the test being reported.

       Filename
              File  containing  the  data  that  was  reported. This file is generated for you by
              xymond_rrd, and is also deleted automatically after your script  is  finished  with
              it.

       The script must process the data that is reported, and generate the following output:

       RRD data-set definitions
              For  each  dataset  that  the  RRD  file holds, a line beginning with "DS:" must be
              output.  If multiple data-sets are used, print one line for each dataset.
              Data-set definitions are described in the rrdcreate(1) documentation, but a  common
              definition   for   e.g.   tracking   the   number  of  users  logged  on  would  be
              "DS:users:GAUGE:600:0:U". "users" is the  name  of  the  dataset,  "GAUGE"  is  the
              datatype,  "600"  is  the  longest  time allowed between updates for the data to be
              valid, "0" is the minimum value,  and  "U"  is  the  maximum  value  (a  "U"  means
              "unknown").

       RRD filename
              The  name  of the RRD file where the data is stored. Note that Xymon stores all RRD
              files in host-specific directories, so unlike LARRD  you  should  not  include  the
              hostname in the name of the RRD file.

       RRD values
              One  line,  with  all  of  the  data values collected by the script. Data-items are
              colon-delimited and must appear in the same sequence as your data-set  definitions,
              e.g.  if your RRD has two datasets with the values "5" and "0.4" respectively, then
              the script must output "5:0.4" as the RRD values.
              In some cases it may be useful to define a dataset even though you will not  always
              have data for it. In that case, use "U" (unknown) for the value.

              If  you want to store the data in multiple RRD files, the script can just print out
              more sequences of data-set definitions, RRD filenames and RRD values. If the  data-
              set  definitions  are  identical to the previous definition, you need not print the
              data-set definitions again - just print a new RRD filename and value.

       The following sample script for tracking weather data shows how to use this mechanism.  It
       assumes the status message include lines like these:

              green Weather in Copenhagen is FAIR

              Temperature: 21 degrees Celsius
              Wind: 4 m/s
              Humidity: 72 %
              Rainfall: 5 mm since 6:00 AM

       A shell-script to track all of these variables could be written like this:

              #!/bin/sh

              # Input parameters: Hostname, testname (column), and messagefile
              HOSTNAME="$1"
              TESTNAME="$2"
              FNAME="$3"

              if [ "$TESTNAME" = "weather" ]
              then
                   # Analyze the message we got
                   TEMP=`grep "^Temperature:" $FNAME | awk '{print $2}'`
                   WIND=`grep "^Wind:" $FNAME | awk '{print $2}'`
                   HMTY=`grep "^Humidity:" $FNAME | awk '{print $2}'`
                   RAIN=`grep "^Rainfall:" $FNAME | awk '{print $2}'`

                   # The RRD dataset definitions
                   echo "DS:temperature:GAUGE:600:-30:50"
                   echo "DS:wind:GAUGE:600:0:U"
                   echo "DS:humidity:GAUGE:600:0:100"
                   echo "DS:rainfall:DERIVE:600:0:100"

                   # The filename
                   echo "weather.rrd"

                   # The data
                   echo "$TEMP:$WIND:$HMTY:$RAIN"
              fi

              exit 0

COMPATIBILITY

       Some of the RRD files generated by xymond_rrd are incompatible with the files generated by
       the Big Brother LARRD add-on:

       vmstat The vmstat files with data from Linux based systems are  incompatible  due  to  the
              addition  of  a  number  of  new  data-items  that  LARRD  0.43 do not collect, but
              xymond_rrd does. This is due to  changes  in  the  output  from  the  Linux  vmstat
              command, and changes in the way e.g.  system load metrics are reported.

       netstat
              All  netstat  files  from LARRD 0.43 are incompatible with xymond_rrd.  The netstat
              data collected by LARRD is  quite  confusing:  For  some  types  of  systems  LARRD
              collects  packet-counts,  for  others  it  collects byte- counts. xymond_rrd uses a
              different RRD file-format with separate counters for packets and bytes  and  tracks
              whatever data the system is reporting.

SEE ALSO

       xymond_channel(8), xymond(8), xymonserver.cfg(5), xymon(7)