Step 7: Installing and configuring the Syslog probe and the Syslog daemon

This step consists of a number of substeps, which you must perform on the targethost computer.

Configuring the Syslog daemon

Use this step to configure the Syslog daemon to log debug messages from the target application. Proceed as follows:

On the targethost computer, enter the following command:
touch /var/log/ncolog
Edit the /etc/syslog.conf file. Add the following line:
*.debug /var/log/ncolog

The separator between the selector and the action must be a tab character for the entry to be accepted by syslog.

Note: This line must not be the first line of the /etc/syslog.conf file. If it is, it will activate a bug in the syslogd daemon, where it attempts a check on the first file in the first entry in the /etc/syslog.conf file, and this will make the syslog system unstable. Also note that some implementations of syslogd are limited to 20 valid entries in the /etc/syslog.conf file.
Restart the syslog daemon. Find the process identifier of the syslog daemon and issue a kill -HUP command to that process. For example:
```
targethost# ps-ef | grep syslogd
	root	169	1	0	Dec 12	?		0:47 /usr/sbin/syslogd
	root	26429	25748	0	16:13:13 pts/13 	0:00 grep syslogd
targethost# kill -HUP 169
```
This causes the Syslog daemon to re-read the /etc/syslog.conf file.
Check that the syslog daemon is sending messages to the /var/log/ncolog file, by using the command:
```
logger -p debug testing
more /var/log/ncolog
```
The following message appears at the end of the log file:
```
timestamp targethost netcool: testing
```

The syslog daemon is now configured to log debug messages from the target application.

To install and configure the Syslog probe:

On the targethost computer, download the Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus installation bundle and the Syslog probe (nco_p_syslog) for Solaris from Passport Advantage®.
Install Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus and select Administrator GUI, Administrator tools, Process agent, and Probe Support as installable features.
Install the probe as documented in the install.txt file, provided for each probe. This file shows how to install the probe in the various installation modes.
Copy $NCHOME/etc/omni.dat from the computer running the ObjectServer (nchost01) to the $NCHOME/etc directory on the targethost computer.
Run $NCHOME/bin/nco_igen on the targethost computer to create the interfaces.solaris2 file.
Edit the $NCHOME/omnibus/probes/solaris2/syslog.props file. Copy and paste the Manager, Server, and LogFile properties to the end of the file. This enables you to keep a commented default configuration within the file.
Uncomment and edit the pasted Manager, Server, and LogFile properties. Use the following values:
```
Manager 		:	 'Syslog@targethost'
Server 			:	 'AGG_P'
LogFile 		:	 '/var/log/ncolog'
```
Start the probe, using the command: $NCHOME/omnibus/probes/nco_p_syslog &

You have finished installing and configuring the Syslog probe.

To ensure the Syslog probe is working properly:

On the targethost computer, check that the Syslog probe is reading messages from the /var/log/ncolog file, using the command:
logger -p debug "testing the probe"
Log in to the ObjectServer using the SQL interactive interface, nco_sql. Use the following command:
$NCHOME/omnibus/bin/nco_sql -server AGG_P -user root
Enter the ObjectServer root password at the prompt.
Determine whether an alert with a summary of testing the probe is present in the alerts.status table. To do this, enter:
1> select * from alerts.status where Summary like 'testing the probe'; 2> go
If the Syslog probe has read the event and forwarded it to the ObjectServer, the last line of text output reads as follows:
```
(1 row affected)
```
You can also confirm this by checking the event list.

You have finished testing the Syslog probe.