How To setup Windows centralized Monitoring
Article created 2005-04-21 by
Hamid Ali Raja
Last Updated 2005-08-02 by Timm Herget.
Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 systems monitoring is really important for all small to large sized enviroments. MonitorWare
line of products helps to accomplish this important task. This article is to help you establish a small setup to
monitor your Windows NT/2000/XP and 2003 systems.
This article is strictly task focused. It does not describe why the systems should be monitor nor does it
provide any further background. Please see the respective backgrounders or each of the products documentation on this.
This article is a step-by-step description of what you need to do in order to centrally monitor your Windows
NT/2000/XP and 2003 systems.
This article has been extracted from the
MonitorWare Agent documentation. Please be sure to check the MonitorWare Agent online help
if a newer version is available.
Centralized Event Reports
In this step-by-step guide, MonitorWare Agent is configured to work together with
Adiscon’s MonitorWare Console to automatically
generate event summaries for the monitored servers and other devices.
This
guide focuses on a typical small to medium business topography with a single
geographical location and 5 Windows clients and a central hub server. All
systems are well connected via a local Ethernet. Event reports from all machines
should be stored in a database. The administrator shall receive daily
consolidated event reports.
What you need
In
this guide, I am focusing on building a solution with Adiscon's MonitorWare
Agent and MonitorWare Console. This combination allows you to centralize all your event logs
and report events from them. Free 30 day trial versions are available at the
respective product sites (links below), so you can try the system without the
need to buy anything.
You
need to run the following products:
You
need administrative privileges on each of the machines. This is required both
for installation and configuration. Make sure you log on with a sufficiently
privileged user account.
Step 1 - Download Software
As you read the MonitorWare Agent
manual, you most probably downloaded the MonitorWare Agent. If you haven’t,
please visit www.mwagent.com/en/download
to do so. In addition to the agent, you also need MonitorWare Console. A free,
full-featured 30 day trial is available at
http://www.mwconsole.com/en/download/.
Step 2 - Install MonitorWare Agent
Run the MonitorWare Agent setup
program on all systems that should be monitored. This means you need to run it
on all 5 clients and the central hub server. Take a note of the central hub
server IP address or host name. You’ll need this value when configuring the
agents on the client machine. For our example, we assume this system has an IP
address of 192.168.0.1.
For larger installations (with many
more servers) there are ways to set it up in a simpler fashion, but in a
scenario like ours, it is faster to install it on each machine manually. You can
install it with the default settings. When setup has finished, the program
automatically is configured to operate as a simple syslog server. However, it
does not yet create the log in our database we need. So we will go ahead and
change this on each of the machines or by launching it on one machine and
remotely connecting to the others. It is your choice. In this sample, I use the
MonitorWare Agent on each machine (it is easier to follow).
Step 3 – Create a RuleSet for Forward by SETP
The steps to configure the agents are
as follows (repeat this on each of the 5 client machines). This step needs not
to be done on the central hub server!:
1.
Start the application.
2. Selected language is English.
3.
Then define a new rule set, right click
"Rules". A pop up menu will appear. Select "Add Rule Set" from this
menu. On screen, it looks as follows:
4.
Then, a wizard starts. Change the name of the
rule to whatever name you like. We will use "Forward SETP" in this example.
The screen looks as follow:
Click "Next". A new wizard page appears.
5.
Select only Forward by SETP. Do not select any
other options for this sample. Also, leave the "Create a Rule for each of the
following actions" setting selected. Click "Next". You will see a
confirmation page. Click "Finish" to create the rule set.
6.
As you can see, the new Rule Set "Forward
SETP" is present. Please expand it in the tree view until the action level of
the "Forward SETP" Rule and select the "Forward by SETP" action to
configure.
7.
Now, type the IP address or host name of our
central hub server in the "Servername" field:
8.
Make sure you
press the "Save" button - otherwise your changes will not be applied.
Step 4 – Create a RuleSet for database logging
This
step needs only to be done on the central hub server!
1.Start the Application.
2.
Again, you can select the language to use. And
again, I suggest using English, as this makes the guide easier to follow.
3. Then define a new rule set, right click
"Rules". A pop up menu will appear. Select "Add Rule Set" from this
menu. On screen, it looks as follows:
4. Then, a wizard starts. Change the name of the
rule to whatever name you like. We will use "Database Logging" in this
example. The screen looks as follow:
Click "Next". A new wizard page appears as appeared in the case of EventReporter. Select only Database Logging here. Do not select any other options for this example. Also, leave the "Create a Rule for each of the following actions" setting selected. Click "Next". You will see a confirmation page as showned in the case of EventReporter and there you have to click Finish.
5. After above steps you will see that the new Rule Set "Database
Logging" is present. Please expand it in the tree view until the action level
of the "Database Logging" Rule and select the "Database Logging" action
to configure.
6. Now click on the Data Sources (ODBC) button to
open the ODBC Data Source Administrator. Then choose the "System DSN" tab and
click the "Add" button to add a new System-DSN (Select the Microsoft Access
driver like in the screenshot below).
8. In the next step, click the "Select button" and go
to the application installation directory (Usually C:\program files\instalationfolder\)
and choose the sample database called sample97.mdb. After that name the new DSN
with "MyDatabaseDSN" like in the following screenshot and press OK.
9. Now close the ODBC Data Source Administrator
and switch back to the application client and insert "MyDatabaseDSN"
in the DSN field. Leave all other settings in their default and save the
changes.
Step 5 – Create an Event Log Monitor Service
The steps to configure the MonitorWare Agents are as follows (repeat this
step on each of the 5 client machines and the central hub server!):
1. First, right click on "Services", then select "Add Service" and then "Event Log Monitor".
Once you have done so, a new wizard starts.
2. Again, you can use either the default name or any one you like. We will use
"My Event Log Monitor" in this sample. Leave the "Use default settings" selected
and press "Next".
3. As we have used the default, the wizard will immediately proceed with step
3, the confirmation page. Press "Finish" to create the service. The wizard
completes and returns to the configuration client.
4. Now, you will see the newly created service beneath the "Services" part of
the tree view. To check its parameters, select it:
As you can see, the service has been created with the default parameters.
If you want to generate reports (using MonitorWare Console) on the data via this service i.e. EventLogMonitor, then you have to uncheck the "Use Legacy Format" option. This is recommended. If you don't uncheck this option then meaningful reports aren't generated (i.e. reports are not properly consolidated by MonitorWare Console).
Now, if you click Advanced Options button, you will see a pop up window as shown below:
If you want to generate reports (using MonitorWare Console) on the data via this service i.e. EventLogMonitor, then you have to uncheck the "Use Legacy Format" option. This is recommended. If you don't uncheck this option then meaningful reports aren't generated (i.e. reports are not properly consolidated by MonitorWare Console).
Now you must differentiate between clients and central hub server. In clients use the "Forward SETP" RuleSet we have created in Step 3, select it as rule set to use. In central hub server select the "Database Logging" RuleSet we have created in Step 4. Leave all other settings in their default.
Finally, save the change.
Step 6 – Create a SETP Server Service
The
steps to configure the agents are as follows (only central hub server!):
1.
First, right
click on "Services", then select "Add Service" and the "SETP
Server".
Once you have done so, a new wizard starts.
2.
Again, you can use either the default name or any one you like. We will use "My SETP
Server" in this sample. Leave the "Use default settings" selected and
press "Next".
3.As we have used the default, the wizard will
immediately proceed with step 3, the confirmation page. Press "Finish" to
create the service. The wizard completes and returns to the configuration
client.
4. Now, you will
see the newly created service beneath the "Services" part of the tree view.
To check its parameters, select it:
As you can see, the service has been created with the default parameters.
5. To use the "Database Logging" RuleSet we have created in Step 4, select it as rule set
to use.
6. Last, save the change and then restart the application. This procedure completes the
configuration of the SETP server.
Application cannot dynamically read changed configurations. As such, it
needs to be restarted after such changes.
Step 7 – Preparing Web Server for MonitorWare Console
MonitorWare Console publishes its reports through the local web server (central hub server). To avoid confusion, we recommend creating a separate directory on the web server for MonitorWare Console. Let us assume that you use Microsoft Internet Information Server and run it with the default configuration. Then, your web pages are stored in the c:\inetpub\wwwroot directory. Create a subdirectory "MonitorWareConsole" directly under this directory.
Step 8 – Installing and Configuring MonitorWare Console
Step 9 – Generating Reports with MonitorWare Console Manually
This section explains how the reports can be generated with MonitorWare Console manually. Since "System Status" Report is most comprehensive report that tells a detailed description about the network, in this section I will explain this report only. Please note that, the procedure for generating any report is almost the same.
Step 10 – Scheduling the Generation of Reports with MonitorWare Console
This section explains how the reports can be generated with MonitorWare Console automatically using Job Manager. With Job Manager, you can generate all the reports based on a pre-defined schedule and ask it to either store it in some location on the hard disk or send it to specified recipient via email. Once again, I will explain the scheduling of System Status Report in this section. Please note that, the procedure for scheduling any report is the same.
You are done!
Well, this is all you need to do to
configure the basic operations. Once you are comfortable with the basic setup,
you can enhance the system with local pre-filtering of event, enhanced logging
and alerting (with MonitorWare Agent) and changing report options (with MonitorWare Console).
I hope this article is helpful. If you have any questions or remarks, please do not
hesitate to contact us at support@adiscon.com.
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