Mute pings

Which are far more worse than the screaming ones...

Ok, Yes, like I said on quiet days, you can hear the pings reply, that's right... But, obviously, ITOH a rough day can be heard from miles, ping or no pings, and of course, everything can start by getting a single friendly email from your Nagios or Zabbix server.

Today there was a big problem, totally outside of our hands, it was a nationwide power outage problem -not in Argentina- that obviously affected some of the servers at work, from right on it was clear that the thing was huge.

The only 'advantage' of such a big event, like to call it Extinction Level Event (such a geek...), is that everyone is aware of the problem.

God loves me

*Offer good for this week only, until the f*cking heat rises again.

Monitor & trending, beauty style

Being pretty busy the last days with a lot of work, mostly getting some Zabbix servers up & running once again, and also, on the boxes that Zabbix wasn't an option, making a whole make up.

A sample mrtg.cfg file:

Htmldir: /var/www/mrtg
Imagedir: /var/www/mrtg/images
Logdir: /var/www/mrtg/logs

Refresh: 600
XSize[_]: 250
Ysize[_]: 67

Colours[_]: --#7aafff,--#1000ff,--#006600,--#ff00ff

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[local_tcpopen]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/stat.pl tcpopen`
Options[local_tcpopen]: nopercent,gauge,noinfo,nobanner,noi
Title[local_tcpopen]: Open TCP connections
MaxBytes[local_tcpopen]: 1000000
YLegend[local_tcpopen]: Connections
ShortLegend[local_tcpopen]:  
LegendO[local_tcpopen]: Open TCP connections: 
Legend2[local_tcpopen]: Connections
PageTop[local_tcpopen]: TCP Open connections
WithPeak[local_tcpopen]:wmy
Legend4[local_tcpopen]: Max number of open TCP connections

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[local_uptime]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/stat.pl uptime`
Options[local_uptime]: nopercent,gauge,noinfo,nobanner,noi
Title[local_uptime]: Uptime
MaxBytes[local_uptime]: 1000000
YLegend[local_uptime]: Days
ShortLegend[local_uptime]: days
LegendO[local_uptime]: Uptime: 
LegendI[local_uptime]:  
Legend1[local_uptime]:  
Legend2[local_uptime]: Server uptime (in days)
PageTop[local_uptime]: Uptime
WithPeak[local_uptime]: wmy
Legend4[local_uptime]: Server uptime (in days)

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[local_load]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/stat.pl load`
Options[local_load]: nopercent,gauge,noinfo,nobanner,noi
Title[local_load]: DB server - Load
MaxBytes[local_load]: 100
YLegend[local_load]: Load
ShortLegend[local_load]: Load
LegendO[local_load]: Load: 
Legend2[local_load]: load
PageTop[local_load]: Load
WithPeak[local_load]:wmy
Legend4[local_load]: Max system load

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[local_users]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/stat.pl users`
Options[local_users]: nopercent,gauge,noinfo,nobanner,noi
Title[local_users]: DB server - Number of logged users
MaxBytes[local_users]: 1000
YLegend[local_users]: Users
ShortLegend[local_users]:  
LegendO[local_users]:
LegendI[local_users]:
Legend1[local_users]:
Legend2[local_users]:
PageTop[local_users]: Users logged in
WithPeak[local_users]:wmy
Legend4[local_users]: Max number of users logged in

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[local_vol_eth0]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/netVol.sh eth0`
Options[local_vol_eth0]: nopercent,noinfo,gauge,nobanner
Maxbytes[local_vol_eth0]: 10000000
kMG[local_vol_eth0]: M,G,T,P
Title[local_vol_eth0]: DB server - Incoming on eth0
PageTop[local_vol_eth0]: Volume on eth0
YLegend[local_vol_eth0]: Megabytes
ShortLegend[local_vol_eth0]:o  
Legend1[local_vol_eth0]: Incoming
Legend2[local_vol_eth0]: Outgoing
LegendI[local_vol_eth0]: Incoming: 
LegendO[local_vol_eth0]: Outgoing: 
WithPeak[local_vol_eth0]: wmy
Legend3[local_vol_eth0]: Max incoming
Legend4[local_vol_eth0]: Max outgoing

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[local_perf]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/getLoad2.sh`
Title[local_perf]: DB server - CPU load & memory stats
#MaxBytes[local_perf]: 1400000
MaxBytes[local_perf]: 100
PageTop[local_perf]: CPU / memory use
Options[local_perf]: noinfo,gauge,nopercent,nobanner
YLegend[local_perf]: Percentage
ShortLegend[local_perf]: %
WithPeak[local_perf]: wmy
Legend1[local_perf]: CPU
Legend2[local_perf]: Memory usage
LegendI[local_perf]: Load: 
LegendO[local_perf]: Mem: 

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[local_traffic]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtgstat-net.sh eth0`
Title[local_traffic]: DB server - Traffic analysis
MaxBytes[local_traffic]: 1400000
PageTop[local_traffic]: Traffic analysis on network interface eth0
Options[local_traffic]: bits,noinfo,nopercent,nobanner
YLegend[local_traffic]: eth0 use
WithPeak[local_traffic]: wmy
LegendI[local_traffic]: Incoming: 
LegendO[local_traffic]: Outgoing: 
Legend1[local_traffic]: Incoming
Legend2[local_traffic]: Outgoing

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[df-root]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-df.sh /`
Options[df-root]: nopercent,nobanner,nolegend,noinfo,integer,gauge
MaxBytes[df-root]: 5162796
kmg[df-root]: KB,MB,GB
Title[df-root]: Disk usage for /
PageTop[df-root]: Disk usage /
YLegend[df-root]: Megabytes
ShortLegend[df-root]:  
LegendI[df-root]: avail 
LegendO[df-root]: used 

Target[df-boot]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-df.sh /boot`
Options[df-boot]: nopercent,nobanner,nolegend,noinfo,integer,gauge
MaxBytes[df-boot]: 101107
kmg[df-boot]: KB,MB,GB
Title[df-boot]: Disk usage for /boot
PageTop[df-boot]: Disk usage /boot
YLegend[df-boot]: Megabytes
ShortLegend[df-boot]:  
LegendI[df-boot]: avail 
LegendO[df-boot]: used 

Target[df-home]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-df.sh /home`
Options[df-home]: nopercent,nobanner,nolegend,noinfo,integer,gauge
MaxBytes[df-home]: 10325780
kmg[df-home]: KB,MB,GB
Title[df-home]: Disk usage for /home
PageTop[df-home]: Disk usage /home
YLegend[df-home]: Megabytes
ShortLegend[df-home]:  
LegendI[df-home]: avail 
LegendO[df-home]: used 

Target[df-tmp]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-df.sh /tmp`
Options[df-tmp]: nopercent,nobanner,nolegend,noinfo,integer,gauge
MaxBytes[df-tmp]: 2063504
kmg[df-tmp]: KB,MB,GB
Title[df-tmp]: Disk usage for /tmp
PageTop[df-tmp]: Disk usage /tmp
YLegend[df-tmp]: Megabytes
ShortLegend[df-tmp]:  
LegendI[df-tmp]: avail 
LegendO[df-tmp]: used 

Target[df-usr]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-df.sh /usr`
Options[df-usr]: nopercent,nobanner,nolegend,noinfo,integer,gauge
MaxBytes[df-usr]: 25806268
kmg[df-usr]: KB,MB,GB
Title[df-usr]: Disk usage for /usr
PageTop[df-usr]: Disk usage /usr
YLegend[df-usr]: Megabytes
ShortLegend[df-usr]:  
LegendI[df-usr]: avail 
LegendO[df-usr]: used 

Target[df-usr-ora]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-df.sh /usr/local/oracle`
Options[df-usr-ora]: nopercent,nobanner,nolegend,noinfo,integer,gauge
MaxBytes[df-usr-ora]: 14769076
kmg[df-usr-ora]: KB,MB,GB
Title[df-usr-ora]: Disk usage for /usr/local/oracle
PageTop[df-usr-ora]: Disk usage /usr/local/oracle
YLegend[df-usr-ora]: Megabytes
ShortLegend[df-usr-ora]:  
LegendI[df-usr-ora]: avail 
LegendO[df-usr-ora]: used 

Target[df-var]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-df.sh /var`
Options[df-var]: nopercent,nobanner,nolegend,noinfo,integer,gauge
MaxBytes[df-var]: 6190664
kmg[df-var]: KB,MB,GB
Title[df-var]: Disk usage for /var
PageTop[df-var]: Disk usage /var
YLegend[df-var]: Megabytes
ShortLegend[df-var]:  
LegendI[df-var]: avail 
LegendO[df-var]: used 

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[local_swap]:`/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-swap.sh`
Unscaled[local_swap]: dwym
MaxBytes[local_swap]: 2799232
Title[local_swap]:Swap memory on server
ShortLegend[local_swap]:  
kmg[local_swap]:kB,MB
kilo[local_swap]:1024
YLegend[local_swap]: Swap use
Legend1[local_swap]: Total swap
Legend2[local_swap]: Used swap
LegendI[local_swap]: Total swap: 
LegendO[local_swap]: Used swap: 
Options[local_swap]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner
PageTop[local_swap]:Swap usage

## -----------------------------------------------

Target[local_diskperf-root]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-diskperf-root.sh`
Title[local_diskperf-root]: / (sda9) partition I/O usage
Unscaled[local_diskperf-root]: dwym
MaxBytes[local_diskperf-root]: 100
PageTop[local_diskperf-root]: / (sda9) partition I/O usage
kmg[local_diskperf-root]: KB,MB,GB
LegendI[local_diskperf-root]: Disk I/O KBread/sec: 
LegendO[local_diskperf-root]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec: 
Legend1[local_diskperf-root]: Disk I/O KBread/sec
Legend2[local_diskperf-root]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec
YLegend[local_diskperf-root]:  Megabytes
ShortLegend[local_diskperf-root]:  
Options[local_diskperf-root]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner

Target[local_diskperf-boot]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-diskperf-boot.sh`
Title[local_diskperf-boot]: /boot (sda3) partition I/O usage
Unscaled[local_diskperf-boot]: dwym
MaxBytes[local_diskperf-boot]: 100
PageTop[local_diskperf-boot]: /boot (sda3) partition I/O usage
kmg[local_diskperf-boot]: KB,MB,GB
LegendI[local_diskperf-boot]: Disk I/O KBread/sec: 
LegendO[local_diskperf-boot]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec: 
Legend1[local_diskperf-boot]: Disk I/O KBread/sec
Legend2[local_diskperf-boot]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec
YLegend[local_diskperf-boot]:  Megabytes
ShortLegend[local_diskperf-boot]:  
Options[local_diskperf-boot]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner

Target[local_diskperf-tmp]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-diskperf-tmp.sh`
Title[local_diskperf-tmp]: /tmp (sda6) partition I/O usage
Unscaled[local_diskperf-tmp]: dwym
MaxBytes[local_diskperf-tmp]: 100
PageTop[local_diskperf-tmp]: /tmp (sda6) partition I/O usage
kmg[local_diskperf-tmp]: KB,MB,GB
LegendI[local_diskperf-tmp]: Disk I/O KBread/sec: 
LegendO[local_diskperf-tmp]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec: 
Legend1[local_diskperf-tmp]: Disk I/O KBread/sec
Legend2[local_diskperf-tmp]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec
YLegend[local_diskperf-tmp]:  Megabytes
ShortLegend[local_diskperf-tmp]:  
Options[local_diskperf-tmp]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner


Target[local_diskperf-usr]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-diskperf-usr.sh`
Title[local_diskperf-usr]: /usr (sda5) partition I/O usage
Unscaled[local_diskperf-usr]: dwym
MaxBytes[local_diskperf-usr]: 100
PageTop[local_diskperf-usr]: /usr (sda5) partition I/O usage
kmg[local_diskperf-usr]: KB,MB,GB
LegendI[local_diskperf-usr]: Disk I/O KBread/sec: 
LegendO[local_diskperf-usr]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec: 
Legend1[local_diskperf-usr]: Disk I/O KBread/sec
Legend2[local_diskperf-usr]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec
YLegend[local_diskperf-usr]:  Megabytes
ShortLegend[local_diskperf-usr]:  
Options[local_diskperf-usr]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner

Target[local_diskperf-var]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-diskperf-var.sh`
Title[local_diskperf-var]: /var (sda10) partition I/O usage
Unscaled[local_diskperf-var]: dwym
MaxBytes[local_diskperf-var]: 100
PageTop[local_diskperf-var]: /var (sda10) partition I/O usage
kmg[local_diskperf-var]: KB,MB,GB
LegendI[local_diskperf-var]: Disk I/O KBread/sec: 
LegendO[local_diskperf-var]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec: 
Legend1[local_diskperf-var]: Disk I/O KBread/sec
Legend2[local_diskperf-var]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec
YLegend[local_diskperf-var]:  Megabytes
ShortLegend[local_diskperf-var]:  
Options[local_diskperf-var]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner

Target[local_diskperf-home]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-diskperf-home.sh`
Title[local_diskperf-home]: /home (sda2) partition I/O usage
Unscaled[local_diskperf-home]: dwym
MaxBytes[local_diskperf-home]: 100
PageTop[local_diskperf-home]: /home (sda2) partition I/O usage
kmg[local_diskperf-home]: KB,MB,GB
LegendI[local_diskperf-home]: Disk I/O KBread/sec: 
LegendO[local_diskperf-home]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec: 
Legend1[local_diskperf-home]: Disk I/O KBread/sec
Legend2[local_diskperf-home]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec
YLegend[local_diskperf-home]:  Megabytes
ShortLegend[local_diskperf-home]:  
Options[local_diskperf-home]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner

Target[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: `/usr/local/etc/scripts/dataGathering/mrtg-diskperf-usr-oracle.sh`
Title[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: /usr/local/oracle (sda10) partition I/O usage
Unscaled[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: dwym
MaxBytes[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: 100
PageTop[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: /usr/local/oracle (sda10) partition I/O usage
kmg[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: KB,MB,GB
LegendI[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: Disk I/O KBread/sec: 
LegendO[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec: 
Legend1[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: Disk I/O KBread/sec
Legend2[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: Disk I/O KBwrite/sec
YLegend[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]:  Megabytes
ShortLegend[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]:  
Options[local_diskperf-usr-oracle]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner

## -----------------------------------------------

# EoF #

Dogtown

I simply can't stop listening to the soundtrack of this one... I'm not specially fond of skates (nor surfing), but the documentary really got me, it is entertaining, and boy, the soundtrack really kicks it.

The official soundtrack (Amazon's link) it is a bit "thin", or at least I have many of the records it includes, and it misses many of the songs that I found to be the best during the movie, so, using the soundtrack listing from the whole movie, from the IMDB page, been able to collect the songs I really like.

- Pink Floyd's "Us & them", from The Dark Side of the Moon

- Neil Young's "Old man", from Harvest

- Ted Nugent's "Wang dang sweet poontang", from Double Live Gonzo!

- Blue oyster's cult "Godzilla", from Spectres

Smoke, fog, clouds... Yes, Buenos Aires

Here we go again...
"Smoke in Bs As Round XXXX"

No, this is not a call sheet for the Blade Runner FX team, it is the weather here in Bs As.
Once again, the nice and spicy smoke is here, making everyone's live miserable. The only good thing is that, at least for the moment, the lows are like, really "low", you know, for autumn and all, is nice to have some sort of "autumn like" days once in a while.

Yz Shadow side benefit

I loved drop shadows ever since I first saw what it all that about, to me it is a natural thing, an extension, if you will, that really completes the whole "lightning effect" that all the GUIs have, except the very minimal ones, like Blackbox, which have a totally "flat" interface.

On Windows, the easiest way of achieving this was (until Aero) using Yz Shadow, a free program that was very, very popular when the XP boxes started to mimmick Os X to the max.

Found out another use for Yz Shadow, one that comes real handy, it allows to set it, so no window can get beneath the Taskbar; this is specially useful if you use the Taskbar on the top of your screen, which I do, even before I started to use Os X, I think it is far more practical up there on the screen.

Emacs on Windows has the tendency to open everytime on the top left portion of your screen, and, using the Taskbar on the top, I was forced to have to move it, a PITA, since the title bar was underneath the Taskbar, unless you use Win32WM.





Incidentally, to get to work Yz Shadow on Windows Vista, you must set the executable to run under "Windows XP compatibility", see here

Everything is going down

This 2008 really seems a strange year, I should say, even pre Doom...
Two things that I saw on the news today tend to confirm this:

- Limitan la venta de arroz en EE.UU.
I mean, c'mon, and rice??? What is is Chunking circa 1942?? We are fucked.

- Temen que el ‘comisario Colombo’ se haya vuelto loco
And not even Columbo will investigate.

Nuclear autumn

Ever since this smoke thing started to invade Bs As, I could not stop to think that would be how Bs As might look like after a nuclear war, if not blown up by an actual hit, of course.

The thing is, that instead of grass fires and an awful smoke from it; we will get and really, really toxic smoke from the burnings from all the cities, factories (people...) coming down from the civilized Northern hemisphere.

Of course, this being Argentina, where everything is upside down, instead of getting a drop on the temperature, we are getting a summer like highs in the middle of autumn.

Endless summer

When the f*ck is this summer going to die
I mean 30 degrees on Thursday... We are just around the corner from May... C'mon man, give it a rest!

Zhe cold is good, zhe cold is nice!

Outlook keeps enabling auto preview, ARGHGH!!!!

This stupid bug got really mad, I know, I know, it's for freaking Outlook 2002, but what the hell, even if it is that old of a program, it should be fixed by now.
It looks like you have to set that preference on 2 different places to make it work.

Cannot disable Auto Preview in Outlook 2002

Mouse Nirvana

Well, I finally found it: NuclearMouse, so, all my rants about Move/resize windows a la X Window on Os X are finally over.
On top of all, it is free; tested on Thor, running Tiger, all patches applied, no problems at all so far.

Polling ethernet info from Windows using Zabbix

Effing Windows keeps crawling onto my life, no matter what I do...
Today at work we incorporated the first Windows server to production duties, it is dedicated server, with a hosting company in the ole US of A.

For websites, the company is, was, actually, 100% Linux; but there is a client that used to have a prior version of their site running on Windows, so we started developing the newer products on Linux, but the legacy has to be maintained on a Windows platform for the time being...

Ok, the occasion was rather good to test a bit the monitoring side of Windows,(even more than here).
On that particular site, I have setup my favorite complex monitoring and trending solution, Zabbix, so after installing the Zabbix Agent on the Windows 2003 Server, (with SP2 installed), used one of the templates on the Zabbix server, they are an amazing way of getting all sorts of data right away, without having to spend a lot of time configuring things.

The thing I noticed is that they were no stats for the Ethernet interface at all, that seemed really strange since that particular information is basically one of the most important, if not the most important information you can poll remotely from a server.

On the Windows box, add this to the bottom of the 'zabbix_agentd.conf' file:

PerfCounter = NetOut,"\Network Interface(Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet)\Bytes Sent/sec",60
PerfCounter = NetIn,"\Network Interface(Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet)\Bytes Received/sec",60

Replace 'Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet' with the one that your Windows box has! You can get the value running 'ipconfig /all' on a CMD window on the Windows box; it's the "Description" field.

Once you did that, restart the "Zabbix Win32 Service", and move onto the Linux server that runs the Zabbix server.

Login to the Zabbix's webfront, as an administrator, goto 'Configuration' -> 'Items', select you Windows Zabbix monitored box from the drop down, and then, 'Create item', and take a look at the screen shot to get the values for each field. You'll need to create one Item for the 'NetOut' and another for the 'NetIn'.
Once you save both Items, you are done, you'll begin to get information from the NIC on the Windows box.

The ICBMs wait on the silos

Well, in the end it looks like the whole Open Mac thing si shaping to be a total scam. Like the site says, the most strange thing is Apple's silence on the whole business.

So exactly who or what is Psystar? We dig a little..

Back to basics

Smoke or no smoke I had a lot of work last week.
Had to setup MRTG on some servers, and this time decided to implement it using SNMP instead of the regular way I use, executing shell scripts to get the data.

## /etc/mrtg/mrtg.cfg from
## xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Htmldir: /var/www/html/mrtg
Imagedir: /var/www/html/mrtg/images
Logdir: /var/www/html/mrtg/logs

Refresh: 600
XSize[_]: 250
Ysize[_]: 67

Colours[_]: --#7aafff,--#1000ff,--#006600,--#ff00ff

MaxBytes[_]: 125000000

LoadMIBs: /usr/share/snmp/mibs/UCD-SNMP-MIB.txt
LoadMIBs: /usr/share/snmp/mibs/HOST-RESOURCES-MIB.txt

## -----------------------------------------------

Title[local_mempercent]: Percentage free memory
PageTop[local_mempercent]: Percentage free memory
Target[local_mempercent]: ( memAvailReal.0&memAvailReal.0:RaBinG0sting7320@localhost ) * 100 / ( memTotalReal.0&memTotalReal.0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost )
options[local_mempercent]: gauge,transparent,nopercent,noinfo
Unscaled[local_mempercent]: ymwd
MaxBytes[local_mempercent]: 100
YLegend[local_mempercent]: Memory %
ShortLegend[local_mempercent]: Percent
LegendI[local_mempercent]: Free
LegendO[local_mempercent]: Free
Legend1[local_mempercent]: Percentage free memory
Legend2[local_mempercent]: Percentage free memory

Target[local_memory]: memAvailReal.0&memTotalReal.0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Title[local_memory]: Free Memory
PageTop[local_memory]: Free memory
MaxBytes[local_memory]: 100000000000
ShortLegend[local_memory]: B
YLegend[local_memory]: Bytes
LegendI[local_memory]: Free
LegendO[local_memory]: Total
Legend1[local_memory]: Free memory, not including swap, in bytes
Legend2[local_memory]: Total memory
Options[local_memory]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo
kMG[local_memory]: k,M,G,T,P,X

Target[local_load]:ssCpuRawUser.0&ssCpuRawUser.0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost + ssCpuRawSystem.0&ssCpuRawSystem.0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost + ssCpuRawNice.0&ssCpuRawNice.0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Title[local_load]: Server CPU load
PageTop[local_load]: CPU load
MaxBytes[local_load]: 100
ShortLegend[local_load]: %
YLegend[local_load]: CPU Utilization
Legend1[local_load]: Current CPU percentage load
LegendI[local_load]: Used
LegendO[local_load]:
Options[local_load]: nopercent,noinfo
Unscaled[local_load]: ymwd

Target[local_eth0]: 2:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost:
Options[local_eth0]: nopercent,noinfo
SetEnv[local_eth0]: MRTG_INT_IP="161.196.132.11" MRTG_INT_DESCR="dc0"
MaxBytes[local_eth0]: 12500000
Title[local_eth0]: Traffic analysis for ethernet card eth0
PageTop[local_eth0]: Ethernet card eth0
WithPeak[local_eth0]:wmy

Target[local_newconns]: tcpPassiveOpens.0&tcpActiveOpens.0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Title[local_newconns]: Newly created TCP connections
PageTop[local_newconns]: New TCP connections
MaxBytes[local_newconns]: 10000000000
ShortLegend[local_newconns]: c/s
YLegend[local_newconns]: Conns / Min
LegendI[local_newconns]: In
LegendO[local_newconns]: Out
Legend1[local_newconns]: New inbound connections
Legend2[local_newconns]: New outbound connections
Options[local_newconns]: nopercent,perminute,noinfo

Target[local_estabcons]: tcpCurrEstab.0&tcpCurrEstab.0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Title[local_estabcons]: Currently established TCP connections
PageTop[local_estabcons]: Established TCP connections
MaxBytes[local_estabcons]: 10000000000
ShortLegend[local_estabcons]:
YLegend[local_estabcons]: Connections
LegendI[local_estabcons]: In
LegendO[local_estabcons]:
Legend1[local_estabcons]: Established connections
Legend2[local_estabcons]:
Options[local_estabcons]: nopercent,gauge,noinfo

Target[local_df_root_boot]: dskPercent.1&dskPercent.2:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Title[local_df_root_boot]: Disk partition usage
PageTop[local_df_root_boot]: Disk partition usage / and /boot
MaxBytes[local_df_root_boot]: 100
ShortLegend[local_df_root_boot]: %
YLegend[local_df_root_boot]: Utilization
LegendI[local_df_root_boot]: /
LegendO[local_df_root_boot]: /boot
Options[local_df_root_boot]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo
Unscaled[local_df_root_boot]: ymwd

Target[local_df_data1_home]: dskPercent.3&dskPercent.4:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Title[local_df_data1_home]: Disk partition usage
PageTop[local_df_data1_home]: Disk partition usage /data1 and /home
MaxBytes[local_df_data1_home]: 100
ShortLegend[local_df_data1_home]: %
YLegend[local_df_data1_home]: Utilization
LegendI[local_df_data1_home]: /data1
LegendO[local_df_data1_home]: /home
Options[local_df_data1_home]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo
Unscaled[local_df_data1_home]: ymwd

Target[local_df_tmp_usr]: dskPercent.5&dskPercent.6:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Title[local_df_tmp_usr]: Disk partition usage
PageTop[local_df_tmp_usr]: Disk partition usage /tmp and /usr
MaxBytes[local_df_tmp_usr]: 100
ShortLegend[local_df_tmp_usr]: %
YLegend[local_df_tmp_usr]: Utilization
LegendI[local_df_tmp_usr]: /tmp
LegendO[local_df_tmp_usr]: /usr
Options[local_df_tmp_usr]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo
Unscaled[local_df_tmp_usr]: ymwd

Target[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: dskPercent.7&dskPercent.8:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Title[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: Disk partition usage
PageTop[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: Disk partition usage /usr/local/oracle and /var
MaxBytes[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: 100
ShortLegend[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: %
YLegend[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: Utilization
LegendI[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: /usr/local/oracle
LegendO[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: /var
Options[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo
Unscaled[local_df_usr_oracle_var]: ymwd

Target[local_process]: .1.3.6.1.2.1.25.1.6.0&.1.3.6.1.2.1.25.1.6.0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Options[local_process]: gauge,nopercent,noinfo
MaxBytes[local_process]: 1000
YLegend[local_process]: Processes
ShortLegend[local_process]: 
Legend1[local_process]: 
Legend2[local_process]:
LegendI[local_process]: 
LegendO[local_process]:
Title[local_process]: Number of processes
PageTop[local_process]: Number of processes

Target[local_user]: hrSystemNumUsers.0&hrSystemNumUsers.0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx@localhost
Options[local_user]: nopercent,gauge,noinfo
Title[local_user]: Logged users 
PageTop[local_user]: Logged users
MaxBytes[local_user]: 100
YLegend[local_user]: # users 
ShortLegend[local_user]: users 
LegendI[local_user]:  Users: 
LegendO[local_user]: 
Legend1[local_user]: Logged users


# EoF #

Autumn my *ss

Where is the autumn? It completely abandoned us.
Not only we are having the incredible bless of the fires and the smokes, but also, the temperatures are not dropping at all.
Where the fuck is this all going to?

Another shot

Taken from the NASA's MODIS website, the picture was taken on the 16th.

Wild fire

The fucking smoke, actually, the fires, continue.
Just like that, not an end in sight, also, the forecast doesn't predicts any rain till Monday/ Tuesday, so we'll have a pretty rough week end ahead, to say the least.
Of course, it seems like raining will be our only choice to end all of this, since no one have been able in over a week to stop the fires.

The image is taken from this site:
Realtime loops of the experimental Wildfire ABBA fire product for North and South America, the fires are the red dots, they seem like such a small and somehow distant things...

Exodus programs

A couple of programs I forgot to add to the list of the ones I have installed on my Vista sandbox.

- Win32WM (Direct link)
It gives you the most practical thing that ever came out of X Window, but on Windows -get it?- :p
The ability to move a window by grabbing it anywhere not just the title bar.
You click anywhere on the window, press the Alt key, and you can move the window.
Like I said before , I really don't understand why Os X doesn't have this built in & from the get go.


- XKeymacs
If you are an Emacs junkie -like I am-, then this is the one for you.
It gives you Emacs keyboard shortcuts on all Windows, on everything, form Notepad, to explorer.exe, amazing, I know, I know :p
The programs needs tweaking, -perhaps a lot-, but that's what Emacs is all about, and, if you add Windows to it, and a lot of different programs, well, you'll have to expect to configure a lot :D
The tweaking part is not because it is complex, but because many of the built in Emacs shortcuts, enabled globally by default will conflict with the behavior you expect from some programs; nothing extreme, but your usual keyboard shortcut might not work until you configure it a bit.

Subject intentionally left blank

I don't want to even mention the weather.
We are screwed and that is that, period.
The fucking smoke continues at full blast, nobody seems to be doing nothing, I mean the authorities, the government, etc to even try to put off the fucking fires! I don't get this, at all... We will wait till it rains??? Perhaps a huge and mean rain might put off every fire that it is burning, but meanwhile, the fucking smoke is everywhere, specially in the throats. Mi Buenos Aires Querido my arse

On top of that, the heat will return, slowly creeping up to 27C or so for the weekend, once again, heat, how nice.

Enabling SNMP on Vista

So you can monitor and graph the performance of the box over the network.
The process itself is simple enough, and doesn't even require a reboot of the box.
Start -> Control Panel -> Programs -> Turn Windows features on or off -> SNMP feature

With what I did have a little problem was getting the comunity string on all the right place, so I'll post this screen shots to get a future reference of the process.



Also, make sure to enable the SNMP access thru the Windows Firewall, the vista firewall -using it with the Advanced Security- has a very, very good GUI, and has a ton of config options extra than the XP one.

Now, setting it up and enabling it is one thing, but ITOH, getting the OIDs it is proving to be a royal PITA.

Up in smoke

Well... Really effing unbelievable, the smoke is back, the smell too...
According to the newspaper, it is caused by the shift in wind conditions, so the forest fires -actually, more like "grass fires"- head for Bs As.
Awful smell, right now; and sore throat to follow.

Even the MSN issued an alert.

More than enough Windows

These days I have more Windows than I would like to have it seems...
Had to change the HDD drive on the Sales Manager's laptop, it died the sudden death, without prior notice.

It's a Dell Latitude D610, and I haven't seeing an easier way of pulling out a laptop's HDD on my whole life, I'm completely baffled, there is not a single point of comparison with the ordeal that it was to take out the HDD from my late iBook.
On the Dell, 2 screws, and slide out the HDD "cartridge"...



Update:

One thing that I found really strange -didn't remembered from the last time I did a restore from the factory CD to my Toshiba laptop, years ago- was that this Dell laptop has not one, but 3 restore CDs.

The first one only has the OS, Windows XP Home SP2, which is perfectly fine, except for the fact that after installing the whole thing from that CD, you have to use the CD 2 to get such an essential thing as the integrated NIC to work. since the drivers are on that CD.

Weather Nirvana

What can I say? I love cold weather, and that's it. Period. And, at last, it looks like "the cold" it is certainly starting for good.

The weather and temperature today certainly made it to the "Top 5 Kind of Days That I Like The Most", just like that.
Mostly because:

1- it's Cold (no sh*t, Einstein)
2- it's Dry (humidity is for tarantulas)
3- it's Sunny (but our friend the Sun doesn't boil your blood)

So, here's for a nice, dry, sunny & long winter.

Apple's ICBMs are target acquiring

I read on the MacRumors site about this courageous folks who are selling a PC clone built to spec, but also, they sell you the box with a Leopard installed on it...

Don't even bother trying to access Psystar site, it's slash dotted, or might already been closed by Apple Legal.

'OpenMac' Promises $399 Headless Mac... But Not From Apple
Psystar Homepage
Open Computer

Update:

Actually made it to the page of the "Apple Alternative", the traffic seems to be falling down, IMHO, they have to either a joke, a scam, or they are completely and utterly crazy...

You did your best, darling...

...But there are things beyond your control...
Last night a blackout knocked down Judith, it was a shame since it topped at 15 days, the longest uptime to date.
Usually there are not that many electricity problems where I live, but sometimes they do cut it -once every 3 months, or so, I have noticed-, they tend to do it very, very late on Sundays, actually, very early on Mondays, and luckily only for a few minutes at a time.

Time for some facts

I'm copying some of the files from Thor to Tango. so I can feel more at home using it, nothing strange :p

Today I have transfered everything from '~/Pictures', on Thor; to '%USERPROFILE%\Pictures' on Tango -I'm such a dork... -, or I should say Imágenes, incidentally Operating Systems in another language than English seem so phony to me... Anyway, I have noticed 2 things:

- The dreaded .DS_STORE files use 18 MB of HDD space.

- I have 1971 of such files on the Pictures directory of Thor, which is the year I was born.





The other thing I learned, thanks to the OS being in Spanish, go figure, is that "indizar" is the correct way of saying "indexar", and that the later, actually, is the Computational Spanglish from the first one, which is the correct way.

The whole etymology of the word is here: Indizar

Favorite Firefox tweaks & add ons

Altough I preffer Safari as my favorite browser, since this days I have been using more Vista than Os X, I have switched to Firefox as the default Internet browser, since I can't even see Internet Explorer 7.

Actually I really, really enjoy all the tweaking and configuring possibilities that Firefox has over Safari, but using Os X, I find that Safari integrates way better with the whole OS; but since I'll be using Windows Vista for the next weeks, or more maybe, I'll list my favorite tweaks & extensions.


Tweaks, via about:config:

Fire up Firefox, and on the URL box, type about:config and have a blast...

- Get only one close tab button:

"browser.tabs.closeButtons", set to '3'.
So instead of having a close button on each tab, you'll get only one at the foremost right, really useful to avoid closing a tab by mistake.

- Disable the 'Install Missing Plugin' bar:

"plugin.default_plugin_disabled", set to 'false'.
Always hated it this feature... It is one of the first things I disable, specially when I use Firefox on any of my slow computers

The "Minimize", "Back Button", "Cache" & the "Network" hack from Firefox Tweaks, Extensions and Optimizations, really useful too.



Add-ons:

Nothing really revolutionary here, but extremelly useful ones.

- Adblock Plus
Blocks images and frames, everywhere except in Ars!!


- DownThemAll!
Super handy add on, allows you to download all the content within a page. Specially useful if used in conjunction with...


- Save Image in Folder
Allows you save images to specific directories with just one click.


- FlashBlock
Allows you block every and any Flash animation until you click on those to specifically enable.

The lows are getting lower & lower

Now, things are really getting better, weather wise. This is the Bs As I love to live in, typical autumn weather, sore throat city, but who gives an effing sh*t?
The awful heat is off, travelling 'upwards', to punish the civilized world in the North :D
With lady luck on my back, the higher marks won't pass 23 C deegres for the rest of the cold season. (Wishful thinking, not even I believe that... Thanks a lot, Industrial Revolution)

Love the smell of napalm in the morning

A couple of links with more info regarding the smoke that plagued Bs As during the later part of last week. At first, it was believed to be garbage burning, but the all the garbage processing companies denied the charges (of course :D ).

Right now, the belief is that the awful smoke and smell was caused by fires on the islands on Tigre.

BTW, doen't the picture (taken from a local newspaper website) look a lot like is it was stolen from Blade Runner? Those tower should be one of the many ultra luxury towers built on the most expensive parts of town, mostly for US & European expats.

Buenos Aires invadida por fuerte olor y humo
Este es el incendio que causó el mal olor en Capital Federal

Vista Starter: Become a marathonist

Or, HOWTO run more than 3 programs on a plain vanilla Vista Starter installation.
Being really busy this last days, but specially today, with a lot of work.

But, I had a little time to make some experiments :)
Found a way of running more than the palsy 3 programs (at the same time) that Windows Vista Starter allows.
Not sure if it is illegal, but nevertheless, I'll post it here, perhaps someone might find this handy.

I'd noticed that Vista seems to count opened programs if they use any Task Bar real state (actually, I think it is far more complicated, but the basis seem to be similar to that idea), so I have Googled for a program -free, if possible- that would eventually, minimize a running program not to the Task Bar, but to the Tray.

It turns out that there is such a program, it is called Tray It!, and not only exists, but on top of that, it is free.

The trick is, when you are going to minimize an opened program, also press the Ctrl key while you are clicking the Minimize button on the window.
The program will goto to the Tray, and you'll be able to open as many programs as your box can handle.



On this screenshot, there are running eight programs in parallel, from left to right:
Irfan View, Outlook, Emacs, Notepad, VLC, Firefox, PuTTY & FileZilla.

So far, the only program that I found that couldn't be 'trayed it' was Internet Explorer, but I hardly ever use it, the version 7 release seems like small monster, in terms of "the snappy".

The story of my life

And once again, what happens every time... A rain storm, followed by a drop on the temperature, this time, the drop seems to be rather abrupt, to say the least.
The thing is, will it last? Will the effing autumn stay with us for once and for all?

There is (another) new box in town

With all the installing & Vista testing going on around here, I forgot to post that there is a new box on the LAN.
So here it is, Tango (a bit of local color would do no harm, I'd like to believe), a Compaq Presario F700 model.

The cosmetics seem really nice on this baby, but I'm afraid that, since is everything made out of plastic, the whole laptop will begin to feel cracky and wobbly in a couple of months of real, day to day, usage.

Nevertheless, the thing looks nice, I mean for the price; with all the effing stickers removed, looks kinda serious, actually.

Point of Vista (I)

Yes... It's here... I mean Vista
Not much else to say... I guess...
Being really busy installing & configuring everything on the laptop; specially, getting rid of HP crapware, and humongous programs that I won't use at all on the box (like a 300 MB program to make CD labels), the Office test drives, the HP Games (????), etc., etc.

Installed the stuff I couldn't live without, for good or bad, except for PC Anywhere, everything else installed without any problems.

I can't really be fair on judging Vista (at least this particular version/ distribution), since the pre-installed version on the laptop is the dreaded "emerging markets" version, that is, the Starter version, which comes crippled in many, many ways (because is cheaper), but the most annoying of those non=working features is that you can't run more than 3 programs at the same time.

This what I have been installing so far:

Emacs
PuTTY
Miranda
VLC
Irfan View
Sound Forge
FileZilla
Firefox
True Transparency (I really miss the drop shadows...)

The best way to put it, for the moment at least, would be taking a look at this (old) Joy of Tech webcomic

Personally, I think that Microsoft has lost its mind.

Cherry on top: smoke

Not only the we are having a sh*ty weather, with no cold temperature on sight, but now we're also having a smoky, not foggy, weather...
I have never seeing this on Bs As before -saw exactly the same thing a couple of years ago on Caracas, during a drought of Biblical proportions-, needless to say, it is really, really annoying.
I effing hope it starts to rain soon, and then, for once and for all, be the cold weather start!


Update:

A couple of links, since the thing got to the media:
Vecinos denuncian fuerte olor a quemado en la ciudad
Un fuerte olor a quemado invade a la Capital y el Conurbano

Keep on rockin'

And Judith simply keeps going and going. It looks like the crashes were network related, ever since I added a cap to all the network related ops, she started to behave like a good girl.
Will see if she makes to 20 days of CPU crunching.

The autumn is dead

It's official now, the cold weather has died, and we're royally f*cked.
Don't want to even think what would be of us on the December/ January/ February of 2009... We'll be able to kayak on the asphalt downtown.

Currently (Re) reading books

American Psycho:    link

  Maybe it was because I got the DVD during the holidays (it was on sale on a Blockbuster on Key Largo, 9 bucks) or maybe because of the traveling accounts from a Miami trip that I have been reading here No se sabe, the thing is that I have been re-reading it.

(Also got my DVD for 'Less than zero', but I didn't find that much fun in re-reading that book, ITOH, seeing the movies after all this years was really an eye opener, IIRC, 'Less than zero' was maybe the first serious & contemporary book I read when I was a "young person", I read it on 1989)

But, my all time favorite Ellis' (contrary to all the critics, it seems) is 'The rules of atraction', I simply devoured that book when I read it, less that a year after reading 'Less than zero'.


Where wizards stay up late:    link

  Bought this one last year, I must have read it for the first time around 1997/ 98, taken it out of a library somewhere (and returning it, of course).
It is the history, not only of the "origins of the Internet", but specifically of the creation of the first router.
Remember that with out a router:

"every single system connected to the network would have to know how to contact every other system on the network"

and that also:

"every package would have to go every other system on the network"

Simply replace 'network' for 'internet', and you'll get the importance of routers.

I love re-reading books -maybe it's because I'm getting old- but I specially love re-reading technical (or technical related) books, particularly those that deal with hard to grasp concepts, I mean, for the first time that I read those.
Not to mention on a field like computers, where everything is -rather, seems like to be- re-written every so often, except for the The Art of Unix Programming :D

Zhe Vista has landed (maybe)

It is very likely that my employeer (it sounds like if I were working for the CIA :p ) will give me a Windows laptop, with Vista on it.

Never really used Vista before, saw it installed on many boxes at work (but never on mine... ) and I have to say that I'm sort of looking forward to really kick the sh*t out of it test it. I have to say that, IMHO, the GUI looks like real dog doodoo (I'm not a designer, but what the hell, I'm entitled to my design opinions as well :p

Anyways, want to use it a bit, to be informed so I'm able to criticize it with some hardcore facts ;)

Nevertheless, I found a couple of links for Visual Styles to transform the Vista GUI onto something more useful, or perhaps, something more nicer looking.

Leopard 1.0a by ~MaStErHACk
WIN ZEUS OSX THEME FOR VISTA by ~ZEUSosX

Don't know how resource intensive these might be; or what uxtheme.dll magic -or nay other Vista variant out there- you'll have to pull thru to get them up and running, but I'd like to keep the links handy,
come Tuesday.

This autumn state of mind

this weather thing going on, It is really, really crappy...
This week looks like is gonna gonna suck rat's ass, and I mean the highs, not the slightest hint of an autumn, any autumn, at all.
Yes, of course, it is better to have a 14 C for the lowers, no doubt about it, but nevertheless, we are in the freaking autumn here...

As usual, the forecast for the highs on the Dashboard's Weather Widget seem to be fed by an Al Gore's nemesis.

Got me a new mousy

It's official, I have a rodent fetish, and no matter what, I'm proud of it.
Today bought a new one, because, not only my fight to death, and later defeat; but also it is very likely that my employer will give a Windows laptop on the next days, one of those that comes with Windows Vista pre-installed (and I hope) not too much crapware beneath it.

Monitoring Tiger via SNMPD over the network (III)

Changed the way that the used percentage from the HDDs are being polled from Thor, because the old way was way too cumbersome, changed from using 'snmpdf' (and having to parse the result) to use 'snmpget' to poll only the necesary data.
Querying the 'dskPercent' MIB, in which, 'dskPercent.1' will be the first partition (whether is a disk or not) that you defined on your '/etc/snmpd.conf' file


From this:

/usr/local/bin/snmpdf -v 2c -Cu -c XXXXXXXXX thor | awk '{print $5}' | tail -r -n 2 | tail -n 1 | cut -d% -f 1

To this:

/usr/local/bin/snmpget -v 2c -Oqv -c XXXXXXXXX thor dskPercent.2

Where, 'dskPercent.2' is the disk/ partition that you want to query. Leaner, faster and easier on the eyes :D

So, the snip from the /etc/mrtg.cfg file on Judith looks like this now:

Title[thor_root_df]: Percentage use /dev/disk1s3 file system
PageTop[thor_root_df]: Use /dev/disk1s3/ file system
Target[thor_root_df]: `/usr/local/bin/snmpget -v 2c -Oqv -c XXXXXXXXXXXX thor dskPercent.1`
options[thor_root_df]: gauge,transparent,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner
Unscaled[thor_root_df]: ymwd
MaxBytes[thor_root_df]: 100
YLegend[thor_root_df]: Use %
ShortLegend[thor_root_df]: Percent
LegendI[thor_root_df]: Use
LegendO[thor_root_df]: Use
Legend1[thor_root_df]: Use /dev/disk1s3/ file system
Legend2[thor_root_df]: Use /dev/disk1s3/ file system

Title[thor_root_data1]: Percentage use /dev/disk1s5/ file system
PageTop[thor_root_data1]: Use /dev/disk1s5/ file system
Target[thor_root_data1]: `/usr/local/bin/snmpget -v 2c -Oqv -c XXXXXXXXXXXX thor dskPercent.2`
options[thor_root_data1]: gauge,transparent,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner
Unscaled[thor_root_data1]: ymwd
MaxBytes[thor_root_data1]: 100
YLegend[thor_root_data1]: Use %
ShortLegend[thor_root_data1]: Percent
LegendI[thor_root_data1]: Use
LegendO[thor_root_data1]: Use
Legend1[thor_root_data1]: Use /dev/disk1s5/ file system
Legend2[thor_root_data1]: Use /dev/disk1s5/ file system

Title[thor_root_data2]: Percentage use /dev/disk0s3/ file system
PageTop[thor_root_data2]: Use /dev/disk0s3/ file system
Target[thor_root_data2]: `/usr/local/bin/snmpget -v 2c -Oqv -c XXXXXXXXXXXX thor dskPercent.3`
options[thor_root_data2]: gauge,transparent,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner
Unscaled[thor_root_data2]: ymwd
MaxBytes[thor_root_data2]: 100
YLegend[thor_root_data2]: Use %
ShortLegend[thor_root_data2]: Percent
LegendI[thor_root_data2]: Use
LegendO[thor_root_data2]: Use
Legend1[thor_root_data2]: Use /dev/disk0s3/ file system
Legend2[thor_root_data2]: Use /dev/disk0s3/ file system

You made it, girl

Indeed, you did; now let's see if you can keep going & going...

Monitoring Tiger via SNMPD over the network (II)

Today while I was over looking some looooooong backups from server to server, continued enabling/ testing the hard disk drive monitoring with SNMPD on Tiger, the plain vanilla one, not the server version.

After enabling SNMPD on Thor, I'm using it to report the percentage of HDD used, running snmpdf, one of the programs from the net-snmp suite.
On Thor I have 2 HDDs, spliced onto 3 partitions.

When executed, the command returns info on all of the HDDs that box you are monitoring has, so the biggest annoyance it parsing the result, but it only takes a couple of minutes to figure it how to get the desired result printed.

This is the result, without parsing:

$ /usr/local/bin/snmpdf -v 2c -Oqv -Cu -c XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX thor
Description              size (kB)            Used       Available Used%
/                         25952256         4844504        21107752   18%
/Volumes/data1            51936304        21595244        30341060   41%
/Volumes/data2            79912152        60396756        19515396   75%

And here is the snip from the /etc/mrtg.cfg file from Judith:

Title[thor_root_df]: Percentage use /dev/disk1s3 file system
PageTop[thor_root_df]: Use /dev/disk1s3/ file system
Target[thor_root_df]: `/usr/local/bin/snmpdf -v 2c -Cu -c XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX thor | awk '{print $5}' | tail -r -n 3 | tail -n 1 | cut -d% -f 1`
options[thor_root_df]: gauge,transparent,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner
Unscaled[thor_root_df]: ymwd
MaxBytes[thor_root_df]: 100
YLegend[thor_root_df]: Use %
ShortLegend[thor_root_df]: Percent
LegendI[thor_root_df]: Use
LegendO[thor_root_df]: Use
Legend1[thor_root_df]: Use /dev/disk1s3/ file system
Legend2[thor_root_df]: Use /dev/disk1s3/ file system

Title[thor_root_data1]: Percentage use /dev/disk1s5/ file system
PageTop[thor_root_data1]: Use /dev/disk1s5/ file system
Target[thor_root_data1]: `/usr/local/bin/snmpdf -v 2c -Cu -c XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX thor | awk '{print $5}' | tail -r -n 2 | tail -n 1 | cut -d% -f 1`
options[thor_root_data1]: gauge,transparent,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner
Unscaled[thor_root_data1]: ymwd
MaxBytes[thor_root_data1]: 100
YLegend[thor_root_data1]: Use %
ShortLegend[thor_root_data1]: Percent
LegendI[thor_root_data1]: Use
LegendO[thor_root_data1]: Use
Legend1[thor_root_data1]: Use /dev/disk1s5/ file system
Legend2[thor_root_data1]: Use /dev/disk1s5/ file system

Title[thor_root_data2]: Percentage use /dev/disk0s3/ file system
PageTop[thor_root_data2]: Use /dev/disk0s3/ file system
Target[thor_root_data2]: `/usr/local/bin/snmpdf -v 2c -Cu -c XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX thor | awk '{print $5}' | tail -n 1 | cut -d% -f 1`
options[thor_root_data2]: gauge,transparent,nopercent,noinfo,nobanner
Unscaled[thor_root_data2]: ymwd
MaxBytes[thor_root_data2]: 100
YLegend[thor_root_data2]: Use %
ShortLegend[thor_root_data2]: Percent
LegendI[thor_root_data2]: Use
LegendO[thor_root_data2]: Use
Legend1[thor_root_data2]: Use /dev/disk0s3/ file system
Legend2[thor_root_data2]: Use /dev/disk0s3/ file system

I'm looking at other options available, so I can avoid making all those operations to parse the data.

Dear Judith,

Please, please, try to stay up for more than a week...
7 days uptime is nothing for an OpenBSD box, don't be a bitch, please; we all know that you can & want to make it longer out there.