Configure Hardware Sentry KM

A. Localhost Monitoring

No specific configuration is generally required as Hardware Sentry automatically detects the components of the server it is running on along with the PATROL Agent. However, if the localhost has been removed (<Delete>) from the monitoring environment, you need to add it manually:

To add the localhost to the monitoring environment, provide the following information:

B. Remote System Monitoring

Remote monitoring allows you to monitor multiple hosts from a single Agent. This feature will prove to be useful if you lack resources or time to deploy a PATROL Agent and Hardware Sentry on several systems.

Hardware Sentry offers the possibility to add remote hosts to your monitoring environment individually or in a batch when the hosts share the same configuration settings (OS, protocol, credentials, etc.). When creating a group of hosts, you are proposed to define the group name (Internal ID) as well as the set of hosts included into a group being created. The name (Internal ID) makes it easier for you to identify the hosts that are part of a group in the Web console.

Additionally, you can associate your system to Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) of specific devices in TrueSight when you define the connection settings of your host(s). The FQDN designates the specific location of a device within the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy; it communicates the host’s position relative to the root of the DNS namespace. An FQDN enables each connected device to be uniquely identified and located within the monitored environment and therefore ensures that a device is properly identified.

Remote monitoring is required if you need to:

• Monitor the shared chassis of a group of blade servers
• Monitor the server itself through its out-of-band management card (which provides more information than the operating system in-band)
• Monitor a SAN switch, disk array or tape library, which the PATROL Agent and KM cannot be installed on.

Adding a remote host or an external device to your monitored environment consists in identifying the host(s)/device(s) you wish to monitor and configure the connection settings according to the protocol you need to use. This section provides step-by-step instructions for adding a single host/device or for adding multiple hosts/devices at a time, that will be easily identified as part of a group in the Web console.

To add remote system(s) to the monitoring environment, provide the following information:

Single System

Provide the following information for each host you wish to monitor:

Multiple Systems

It is possible to group hosts that share the same characteristics (device type, protocols, credentials, etc.) with a single system configuration. To create a host group you can use one of the methods described below:

# Comments are ignored
# Hostname TrueSight Device FQDN
node01-clusterA clusterA.acme.com
172.16.8.200 clusterA.acme.com

# Hostnames Only
node01-clusterA
172.16.8.200

# Hostname,TrueSight Device FQDN
node01-clusterA,clusterA.acme.com

node01-clusterA;clusterA.acme.com
node01-clusterA
172.16.8.200

Customizing Alert Content

Hardware Sentry allows you to customize the content of Alert Actions with macros when a hardware failure is detected. The following macros can be used to obtain more details about the problem. They will be replaced at runtime.

Alert Delay

To prevent false alerts, you can set the number of times thresholds can be breached before triggering an alert on the following parameters:

• Numeric Parameters (Temperature, Speed, Error Count, etc.)
• Discrete Parameters (Predicted Failure, Need Cleaning, Status, etc.)
• Connector Status Parameters (for MS_HW_CONNECTOR class only)
• Present Parameters (when a device is reported as missing). Note that if the Missing Device Detection option is disabled, the Present parameter is deactivated (not displayed).

Configuration Mode

Hardware Sentry can either be used with the Monitoring Studio Web console (Classic Mode) or BMC TrueSight Operations Management (CMA Mode). When the KM is used with BMC TrueSight, operation settings cannot be customized via the Web interface. To force the configuration from the Web console, turn ON the Force Classic Configuration Mode.

You will be prompted to reinitialize Hardware Sentry. Click YES to reinitialize the KM immediately or NO to save this setting in the configuration. When you are ready to reinitialize Hardware Sentry, or if you want to customize the reinitialize options, use the REINITIALIZE button at the bottom of the page. Refer to the Reinitialize section for details.

Once forced to Classic Mode, the KM stops processing the Hardware Sentry policies from BMC TrueSight.

Error Count Collection

Hardware Sentry automatically clears alerts on the Collection Error Count parameter after 2 hours and 15 minutes. You can customize this property by entering another value in Automatically Clear Alerts on the KM's Collection Error Count After….

Hosts Attachment

By default, all monitored systems are created under the Hardware Sentry icon in the Web console. However, the display in your monitoring environment can be customized to help you organize your monitoring environment and facilitate the identification of your monitored systems.

Tuning

Hardware Sentry allows you to customize several configuration properties that can impact the KM performance.

Internal Message Notification

Hardware Sentry can be configured to inform you of any internal problem that may occur or any special operation that may be performed. The internal message notifications can help resolve any potential issue, other than hardware problems – which are reported through the regular system of warnings and alerts.

Timeouts

Hardware Sentry is configured to use optimal timeouts for communication protocols and processes. Timeouts may have significant impact on the performance of your monitoring environment. We strongly recommend that you consult with Sentry Software Support before modifying these settings.