IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 > Administrator's Guide > Agent-based services > Private situations

IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2

Exported enterprise situation XML specification

Use the situation definitions from the situation_name.xml files that result from the CLI tacmd bulkExportSit and tacmd viewSit commands to populate the agent's private situation configuration file. See IBM Tivoli Monitoring Command Reference for the tacmd syntax and examples.

If you already have enterprise situations for a Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Agent, you can run the bulk export situation command or the view situation command to get situation definitions for the specified agent in the XML format that is acceptable to the private situation configuration file. Not all exported situations are valid; only those that use the *VALUE or *MISSING formula functions. See Situation limitations for other restrictions.


Elements

XML tags are case-insensitive. All other parameters are case-sensitive. For example, you can enter <SITNAME>, <SitName>, or <sitname>.

<TABLE>

This is the root element of the exported situation XML file. In the private situation configuration file, the TABLE tagging (and everything between) from the exported situation is processed as a private situation definition.

<ROW>

This is the child element to follow TABLE.

<SITNAME>

Monitor situation name. The situation name must begin with a letter and can be up to 31 letters and numbers and _ underscores. Within each set of SITNAME begin and end tags is the complete situation definition. Example: 

    <SITNAME>Free_DiskSpace_Low</SITNAME>

Be aware that all situations, whether private or enterprise, must have unique names. Otherwise, actions invoked upon one situation are applied to the other situation with the same name.

<PDT>

The situation criteria is specified within the <PDT> predicate element and the <![CDATA[   ]]> element. Each expression has three parts, starting with *IF *VALUE or *IF *MISSING, followed by attribute-table-name.attribute-name, the logical operator (such as *NE), and the attribute threshold value or, for the MISSING function, a comma-separated list. Exported enterprise situations always begin with *IF and it is acceptable, but not required to include *IF in the formula.

For the attribute, the detailed attribute name is used in the format of attribute-table- name dot attribute-name. The product attribute file defines the agent product attribute tables and associated attributes, for example, knt.atr or kux.atr files residing in the ATTRIB directory for a distributed agent installation.

The operator defines the logical operation of filter value and data. The supported operators are: *EQ for equal, *NE for not equal, *GE for greater than or equal to, *LE for less than or equal to, *LT for less than, and *GT for greater than. Within the <PDT> element, the command is enclosed in Character Data tags to exclude it from XML parsing. This example shows a formula that triggers an alert when the available disk space is 35% or below: 

    <PDT> <![CDATA[*IF *VALUE NT_Logical_Disk.%_Free *LE 35]]> </PDT>

For multiple expressions, use the *AND and *OR connectors. All connectors in the formula must be the same, either all *AND or all *OR. A mix of logical *AND and *OR connectors is not supported. Example: 

    <PDT> <![CDATA[*IF *VALUE NT_Process.%_Processor_Time *GE 65 *AND 
*VALUE NT_Process.Priority_Base *NE 0 *AND 
*VALUE NT_Process.Process_Name *NE _Total]]> </PDT>

Wildcards are not supported in private situations. For example, *VALUE NT_Process.Process_Name *EQ DB2* to find all processes that start with "DB2" is invalid. Exported enterprise situations with scaled attributes are not normalized when running as private situations. You must normalize the values manually. For example, this enterprise situation expression Avg Disk Queue Length >= 0.004 is for a floating point attribute with a scale of 3. When the situation is exported with the tacmd viewSit command, the export monitoring criteria is shown as: 

    <PDT>  <![CDATA[*IF *VALUE NT_Physical_Disk.Avg_Disk_Queue_Length 
*GE 0.004]]> < PDT>

When this same definition is specified in a private situation, the value comparison value is interpreted as a zero value. 

    <PRIVATECONFIGURATION> 
<PRIVATESIT> 
<SITUATION>SCALE_TEST</SITUATION> 
<CRITERIA><![CDATA[ *IF *VALUE NT_Physical_Disk.Avg_Disk_Queue_Length
*GE 0.004 ]]></CRITERIA>
<INTERVAL>000030</INTERVAL> 
</PRIVATESIT>
</PRIVATECONFIGURATION>

Normalize the value by shifting the decimal point to the right by three places: 0.004 is 4 or a value such as the one shown here. 

    <CRITERIA><![CDATA[ *IF *VALUE NT_Physical_Disk.Avg_Disk_Queue_Length
*GE 4.123 ]]></CRITERIA>

<CMD>

Optional. Defines the action command or script to invoke when the situation is true. Enclose the command in the <![CDATA[   ]]> section. Example: 

    <CMD><![CDATA[netstat >.\logs\netstat.dat]]></CMD>

<AUTOSOPT>

This is required if an action command <CMD> is specified. It defines reflex automation action command execution options, in order XYZ, between begin and end tags. The default is NNN:

  • Only take action on first item

  • Don't take action twice in a row (wait until situation goes false then true again)

  • Execute the Action at the Managed System (Agent)

  •  
  • X=Y Run command for each item.
  • X=N Run command on first item only.
  • Y=Y Run command for each sample interval.
  • Y=N Do not run command twice in a row.
  • Z=N This is always set to N for private situations, and means to run the command at the agent. If the exported option is set to Y, the setting will be ignored and be treated as N.

<DISTRIBUTION>

Required for products with subnodes (subagents). Specifies a managed system name or multiple managed system names separated by a comma (,). The default is the agent managed system name or all known subagents. Managed system groups are not supported including the predefined managed system groups, which are prefixed with an asterisk (*).

<LSTCCSID>

Optional. Specifies the IBM Code Character Set ID. en_US is the only value allowed.

<LSTDATE>

Optional. Situation last updated timestamp. If it is unspecified then the current data time is automatically generated. The format is CYYMMDDHHMMSSmmm (as in 1090715074501000 for July 15, 2009 at 07:45:01) where:

  • C = Century (1 for 21st)

  • Y = Year

  • M = Month

  • D = Day

  • H = Hour

  • M = Minute

  • S = Second

  • m = millisecond

<LSTRELEASE>

Optional. Specifies the situation version.

<LSTUSRPRF>

Optional. This is the ID of the user who last updated this situation definition. If it is unspecified then the current logon user ID is used.

<SITINFO>

Optional. Defines the situation qualifiers for EIF events. Within the <SITINFO> element, enclose the situation formula in <![CDATA[   ]]> tagging, such as <![CDATA[ SEV=Critical ]]>. Alternatively, this defines qualifiers using parameters. Multiple qualifiers are delimited by a semicolon (;).

  • ATOM= Optional. For multiple-row attribute groups. This is the catalog COLUMN name to use as the display item, which causes an event to be generated for each subset of rows with the same display item value.
  • COUNT= Optional. This is called "situation persistence" in the Tivoli Enterprise Portal. Specify the number of intervals that the situation must remain true before an event is opened. Valid values are positive numbers greater than 0.
  • SEV= Optional. The severity to assign to the EIF event: Fatal, Critical, Warning, Minor, Harmless, Informational, or Unknown.
  • TFWD=[Y|N] Optional. Y is the default. If you want to send only SNMP alerts and no EIF events, set this attribute to N.
  • TDST= Optional. Specify one or more EIF receiver destinations to send the event to. You can enter up to five valid destination server IDs, each separated by a comma (,). Valid destinations are defined in the pc_eventdest.xml file. If no TDST parameter is specified, the EIF event is sent to all default event destinations defined (destination entries with a default="Y" setting) in the event destination configuration file.

<TEXT>

Situation description. Within the <TEXT> element, enclose the situation formula in <![CDATA[   ]]> tagging.

<REEV_TIME>

Specifies the situation sample interval in HHMMSS format. A value of 0 zero indicates a pure-event situation. The default interval is 15 minutes, 001500; the minimum is 30 seconds, 000030; and the maximum is 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds, 235959. Example: 

    <REEV_TIME>000500</REEV_TIME>

Ignored elements

The following elements in the exported XML specification are not used except where noted:

  • <FULLNAME> (processed for EIF)

  • <ADVISE>

  • <AFFINITIES>

  • <ALERTLIST>

  • <AUTOSTART>

  • <DESTNODE />

  • <HUB />

  • <LOCFLAG />

  • <NOTIFYARGS>

  • <NOTIFYOPTS>

  • <OBJECTLOCK>

  • <PRNAMES>

  • <QIBSCOPE>

  • <REEV_DAYS> (over 1 day unsupported)

  • <REFLEXOK>

  • <SENDMSGQ>

  • <SITINFO> (processed for EIF)

  • <SOURCE>


Exported enterprise situation example

The NT_System_File_Critical situation exported with tacmd bulkExportSit or tacmd viewSit is saved in the file, NT_System_File_Critical.xml:

In the private situation configuration file, a set of <PRIVATESIT> and </PRIVATESIT> tags are created, then the contents of NT_System_File_Critical.xml pasted inside the tags. This is an nt_situations.xml private situation configuration file after the exported NT_System_File_Critical situation definition was added above another private situation definition, Check_Process_CPU_Usage. The redundant elements (see "Ignored elements" earlier), and unused elements (AUTOSOPT and CMD, LSTCCSID, LSTRELEASE, DISTRIBUTION) from the exported situation were removed, although leaving them in the file does no harm because the XML parser ignores them:

Tip: Each exported situation is given its own XML file. If your private situations will initially result from an export of the enterprise situations, create an XML with PRIVATECONFIGURATION begin and end tags, then paste the TABLE begin and end tags and everything contained in them into the file for each situation that you want to include. For exported situations, the TABLE tags are equivalent to the PRIVATESIT tags.


Parent topic:

Private situations

+

Search Tips   |   Advanced Search