Big Brother help
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Big Brother - Help

A free support mailing is available to help you out with this software product. You can join by sending mail to majordomo@bb4.com with the body of the message set to "subscribe bbntd" (without the quotes). Other support options are available at http://www.bb4.com/support.html

Product License
Installation and Configuration Manual
About the bb-hosts.cfg file
About the bbdef.cfg file
Purple problems
Changing the look of BB
Acknowledgements


Color codes by order of severity

Trouble
Bad things are happening.
No report
No report from this client in the last 30 minutes. The client may have stopped executing.
Attention
The reporting system has reached a threshold you should know about
OK
Everything is fine. Have a nice day.
Unavailable
The associated test has been turned off, or does not apply. A common example is connectivity on disconnected dialup lines
Disabled
Notification for this test has been disabled. Used when performing maintenance (feature unavailable)

All connections are checked every 5 minutes

Trouble

Most severe conditions result in the administrator being notified. These include loss of network connectivity, loss of HTTP access, and disk conditions over 95% full (default), since these can result in a system hang. Furthermore, any "error" messages in the message/event logs causes a notification since this may signal a fault.

Under these circumstances, the screen should turn red. Click on the corresponding red dot for additional information about the condition.

If a severe situation is occurring that is not being noticed by Big Brother, use the PAGE/ACK button on the main screen to notify the administrator manually (feature currently unavailable).

Attention

These include HTTP server errors, disks 90-94% full (default), the death of important processes, and "WARNING" messages in the system/event logs.

The screen should turn yellow if this is the most severe situation at the time. Click on the corresponding yellow dot for additional information, and notify the administrator manually if necessary(feature currently unavailable).

No Report

Each report is checked for freshness. If any report is more than 30 minutes old (configurable), it is marked with a purple dot, and the screen turns purple, assuming that it is the most serious situation at the time.

These may be the result of heavily loaded systems, but may also indicate a more serious loss of communication within the Big Brother system itself.

Disabled

Notification for this test has been disabled.Used when performing maintenance tasks on a host. (feature currently unavailable)

Unavailable

Under some conditions, the administrator may elect to disable some tests, in which case the reported condition becomes clear.

OK

Green dots indicates that all is well. Green screens represent a seldom achieved state of administrative bliss.

Pager Codes

The administrator will be notified when conditions merit. The numeric message is formatted as follows: [3 DIGIT CODE] [IP-ADDRESS]

  • 100 - Disk Error. Disk is over 95% full...
  • 200 - CPU Error. CPU load average is unacceptably high.
  • 300 - Process Error. An important processes has died.
  • 400 - Message file contains a serious error.
  • 500 - Network error, can't connect to that IP address.
  • 600 - Web server HTTP error - server is down.
  • 7-- - Generic TCP server error - 7 + server port number i.e. 721 = ftp down
  • 800 - DNS server on that machine is down
  • 911 - User Page. Message is phone number to call back. (feature currently unavailable)
  • 999 - The service reported in an error could not be found in the svcerrlist token in etc/bbwarnsetup.cfg file.

System Information

Click on any server name for additional details about the machine. Information about all components are available, including serial numbers, partition sizes, SCSI addresses, and the physical locations of the devices. This information lives in the www/notes directory.

General Information

The current status of any individual component is always available by clicking the appropriate dot in the display matrix. You may have to hit Reload to get the most recent entry.

Occasionally the screen changes color for CPU or HTTP warnings. These can usually be disregarded since Big Brother has been instructed to be very sensitive during this initial test. Similarly, internet connections may turn yellow when the network is heavily loaded. Although it should be checked out, this is usually not a problem unless the whole Internet section goes yellow.

Big Brother Column Information

conn

The conn column denotes the ping check performed periodically. (not yet implemented).

nntp

The nntp column denotes the nntp check performed periodically. It makes sure the news server is alive and well.

cpu

The cpu column denotes the cpu check performed periodically. This figure is based on the 5 minute load average as reported by the BBNT client.

disk

The disk column denotes the disk check performed periodically. The warning amount is 90% by default, and the system is set to panic at 95%.

dns

The dns column verifies the status of the DNS server on that machine. The test is basically an nslookup with the server name and IP address as arguments.

ftp

The ftp column denotes the ftp check performed periodically. It is part of the new group of generic server tests performed. To test this service on a given machine, just include 'ftp' on the line in the bb-hosts.cfg file.

http

The http column denotes the http check performed periodically. It will return OK if the server is there and does not return a string containing the word 'Error'. Note that password-protected and https pages aren't supported for now.

msgs

The msgs column denotes the system/event logs check performed periodically.

pop3

The pop3 column denotes the pop3 check performed periodically. It checks that the pop3 server is alive and well. To test a machine for the pop3 server, put the word 'pop3' on that server's line in the bb-hosts.cfg file. You may have to put pop-3 instead on certain platforms.

procs

The procs column denotes the processes check performed periodically. It makes sure that the defined processes exist on the local machine.

smtp

The smtp column denotes the smtp check performed periodically. It makes sure that the SMTP process (usually sendmail) is alive and well.




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