Netcool Tips

 OMNIBus users are divided into two groups, external and internal authenticated. internal authenticated user have their user name and password stored in security.users table. passwords are encrypted for obvious reason.

those passwords can be encrypted using different algorithm. you have choice between DES and AES mode. DES is the default.

Which encryption algorithm to use is totally up to security compliment requirement. for example I use plan taxt password in all my Netcool vmware images. However, in a production environment,  one should always use AES(or AES_FIPS) instead of DES, this is because that WEBTOP (WEBGUI) doesn't support DES encryption algorithm. if you ever want to encrypt the password stored in Webtop datasource definition file, then you have to run objectserver with PasswordEncryption property set to "AES".

Things might change with new releases, above is only true to current version. OMNIBus 7.3.0 and WEBGui 7.3

webtop chart can present some nice high-level event summarization information in graphic form, however, it does not automatic refresh. neither chartview portlet or chart itself provides a refreshing mechanism.

I find a way of doing chart refreshing by using smart pages.  following are general steps:

1. create a customized HTML, using smartpage to create a chart, then use java script to do auto refreshing.

2.copy this html file into $TIPHOME/systemApps/isclite.ear/Webtop.war/customhtml directory

3. create an iFrame and set the URL to the file, eg /ibm/console/webtop/customhtml/hello.html

To make it easy, I've attached my example html here: Chart Test Page

 ITNM has so many component and sometimes it is hard to know which ports do they listen on. following one liner will help you find out which port do they use, please be notified that this is only tested on Redhat Linux:

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[netcool@bgpvtnm1 precision]$ ps -ef|grep netcool|grep -v grep|tr -s " "| cut -d" " -f 2|while read line ; do /usr/sbin/lsof -p ${line}; done|grep LIST
ncp_virtu 1486 netcool   11u  IPv4 23484198                 TCP bgpvtnm1.bbl.int:50022 (LISTEN)
java    9003 netcool   57u  IPv6           22198475               TCP *:ibm-mqisdp (LISTEN)
ncp_d_hel 9831 netcool   11u  IPv4 22199184               TCP bgpvtnm1.bbl.int:52789 (LISTEN)
ncp_confi 9834 netcool   11u  IPv4 22199181               TCP bgpvtnm1.bbl.int:7969 (LISTEN)
ncp_disco 15464 netcool   12u  IPv4 22207696               TCP bgpvtnm1.bbl.int:60958 (LISTEN)
-----------------------------------------------------

started ncp as root by accident?

ITNM as a general application should run as non-root user. follow step by step guide to setup ITNM auto-start as non-root user

ITNM writes a list of files after startup, if you've started you ITNM as root user by accident you will not be able to start it using normal user again as the owner of those files has been changed to root.

you can not simply change owner of all the files in $ITNMHOME to normal user because some special binaries should be run as root, eg ncp_poller.

following one line script will create a list of command you should run as root to restore the original owner:

find $NCHOME -user root|grep -v bin| while read line ; do echo "chown netcool ${line}"; done

please double check before you apply the change.

 I recently find a bug related to Network Polling Interface filter. if you are building a filter that uses more than one field in interface filter section, the polling policy won't work. you will find following message  from your ncp_poller debug log:
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05/14/2010 02:42:27 PM: Warning: [1879833504t] CPolicyMonitorMap.cc(327) A database 'execute' operation has failed : CNcpODBCSth.cc line 654 : (no error message)( statement: 'SELECT DISTINCT chassis.ENTITYID AS MAINNODEENTITYID,chassis.ACCESSIPADDRESS AS MAINNODEADDRESS,chassis_entity.ENTITYNAME AS MAINNODEENTITYNAME,chassis.CLASSNAME AS ENTITYCLASS,lingerTime.lingerTime AS lingerTime,msc.STATUS AS CHASSISMANAGED,interface.ENTITYID AS ENTITYID,interface_entity.ENTITYNAME AS ENTITYNAME,interface_entity.ENTITYTYPE AS ENTITYTYPE,interface.ACCESSIPADDRESS AS ACCESSIPADDRESS,interface.IFINDEX AS IFINDEX,interface.IFTYPESTRING AS IFTYPESTRING,interface.IFNAME AS IFNAME,interface.IFDESCR AS IFDESCR,interface.IFALIAS AS IFALIAS,interface.IFINDEX AS INSTANCESTR,msi.STATUS AS ENTITYMANAGED FROM chassis INNER JOIN entity chassis_entity ON chassis_entity.ENTITYID=chassis.ENTITYID AND chassis_entity.DOMAINMGRID=? INNER JOIN lingerTime ON lingerTime.ENTITYID= chassis_entity.ENTITYID INNER JOIN classMembers ON classMembers.ENTITYID= chassis_entity.ENTITYID INNER JOIN ncmonitor.policyClass pc ON pc.CLASSID=classMembers.CLASSID AND pc.POLICYID=? AND pc.INCLUDE<>0 LEFT JOIN managedStatus msc ON msc.ENTITYID= chassis_entity.ENTITYID INNER JOIN entity interface_entity ON interface_entity.MAINNODEENTITYID= chassis_entity.ENTITYID AND interface_entity.DOMAINMGRID=? INNER JOIN interface ON interface.ENTITYID=interface_entity.ENTITYID LEFT JOIN managedStatus msi ON msi.ENTITYID=interface_entity.ENTITYID  INNER JOIN interfaces ifilt1 ON ifilt1.entityId = interface.entityId AND ( ifilt1.ifAdminStatus = 'up' AND ifilt1.ifName like 'Fa%' or ifName like 'Gi%' or ifName like 'Te%' ) WHERE  ( chassis_entity.CHANGETIME >= ? ) AND chassis.accessIPAddress IS NOT NULL  AND ( interface_entity.CHANGETIME >= ? ) ORDER BY lingerTime.lingerTime ASC' varbinds: 1,35,1,1970-01-01 10:00:00,1970-01-01 10:00:00 )
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

after trying this sql statement in my database's command line interface(replacing question mark with corresponding 'varbind'), I find that the interface filter bit have some error:

INNER JOIN interfaces ifilt1 ON ifilt1.entityId = interface.entityId AND ( ifilt1.ifAdminStatus = 'up' AND ifilt1.ifName like 'Fa%' or ifName like 'Gi%' or ifName like 'Te%' )

I use ifName field in my filter few times, the first ifName is prefixed with 'iflit1', the later two are not.

after changing the filter text from " ifName like 'Fa%' or ifName like 'Gi%' or ifName like 'Te%' " to " ifName like 'Fa%' or ifilt1.ifName like 'Gi%' or ifilter1.ifName like 'Te%' ", the policy works.

I will update this blog with APAR number once I get it.

Don't forget to install 32bits libraries.

 I recently encountered a very strange problem installing ITNM on 64bits linux.

The installation script  fails with following message:
--------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================
Problem installing COI/DE Components
------------------------------------
 
The installation of the COI/DE components failed with the following message:
 
Component:
Message:
 
For more information, please review
/opt/IBM/tivoli/netcool/log/install/Configuration.log and the logs found in
/opt/IBM/tivoli/tip/logs, and correct any problems described therein before
continuing.
-------------------------------------------------------------

the logfile mentioned does not contain much valuable information, one strange thing is that it contains lots of components I did not choose.

I decide to go through the installation guide before raising PMR . the installation guide says that compat-libstdc++33 and compat-libstdc++-296 must be installed. I then run 'rpmquery -a|grep compat-libstdc++' and find the packages I've installed are 64 bits.

From the lesson I learned from Configure Objectserver PAM authenticatoin on 64bits linux, I installed the 32bits version and the installation completed happily this time.