|
|
HipCheck Mobility Service
|
This document contains important information for the current release of the HipCheck mobility service, including:
| Important: The Auto Update feature of HipCheck only works between different release numbers, e.g. Release 1.0.3 to Release 1.1. Versions that only different by a string after the release number, e.g. 1.1beta1 to 1.1beta2, must be installed by hand. |
| Important: Now available for HipCheck Release 1.1 are powerful new features and wider platform support. See below for details. |
Revision history
Check this document occasionally, as it is updated with new and resolved issues on a regular basis.
17 February 2009 -- First published for Update Release 1.1-UP2
2 October 2007 -- First published for Update Release 1.1
19 July 2007 -- First published for Update Release 1.0.3-UP2
1 February 2007 -- First published for Update Release 1.0.3
20 December 2006 -- First published for Update Release 1.0.2
24 October 2006 -- Updated for Release 1.0.1
19 October 2006 -- First Published for Update Release 1.0.1
4 October 2006 -- First Published for Release 1.0.0
In addition, HipCheck 1.1-UP2 contains a fix for proper alert message contents for all types of Linux agent.
The 1.1-UP2 update does not involve any change to the version number in the software,
i.e. it will still show as 1.1.
New Enhancements in HipCheck 1.1
The HipCheck Windows Mobile and Windows native client has undergone some readily apparent user interface changes. Graphical icons and buttons are more prevalent everywhere. The view menu has been removed, instead the mechanism for selecting a view has now been combined with changing the monitored system via a horizontal drop-down bar. In addition, a "refresh view" icon has been added to the right of the view timestamp for refreshing the view.
The startup options have been removed (None, Summary, First system). Instead HipCheck always defaults to None, allowing users to pick the system and view they want.
The account edit screen has been simplified, as modifying the Mobility Server endpoint has been moved to a sub-screen.
In the Summary view, a system with an agent that has an old version now gets a different icon (square with a small exclamation point) instead of the same red circle icon when a system is unreachable, making it easy to see which systems are unreachable, which have an old agent, and which have triggered alerts. Also in the Summary view, if the number of triggered alerts was not obtained (either due to the monitored system being unreachable or an old agent version being present), the number of alerts is shown as "?" instead of zero.
However, this capability does potentially constitute a reliability risk, since typing on mobile phones is subject to error. Accordingly, there is a setting in the HipCheck Portal Settings page that allows a HipCheck administrator to turn off client-typed commands on a per-account basis.
Furthermore, it is now possible to see the output of executed commands. A check-box on the execute command screen specifies whether to capture the output of the command. When capturing the command output, the command will be executed in the background and the output will show up in the new Tasks Results view. The Task Results view will show output for any commands executed in the past 24 hours. As before, executed commands must not be interactive, and if output is not requested, they should be able to execute in less than 30 seconds.
As an added security measure, it is now possible to specify that re-authentication is required before performing any actions (such as stop service, execute command, etc.). This is done on the HipCheck Portal Settings page, where a HipCheck administrator can turn off the default setting of allowing actions without re-authentication. If this setting is made, the client user will experience a password prompt screen being displayed, requesting the HipCheck account password (do not enter the root/admin password of system being monitored).
On Windows Servers systems, there is now improved performance for running the HipCheck Windows agent on a Domain Controller with large numbers of users.
When authenticating Windows systems via the admin pages, the username and password can now be authenticated via Active Directory in addition to the local Administrator account on the Windows system.
Which locale HipCheck uses to display user interfaces in is determined by context:
The properties, with their default values, are as follows:
The first four are used in mails sent out for general Mobility Server events. The "From" address used the mails will be constructed as "email.from.name <email.from.user@email.from.domain>", except for support-specific mails, which will replace the user part with email.from.support.user. These names can be significant in terms of where any recipient replies to the mails go to, and possibly in terms of avoiding spam filters and the like. Note that the email.from.domain property is distinct from the email.server property set during installation time: the latter specifies which system processing outgoing mail, while the former specifies the domain name to which incoming mail goes to; these may well be the same name for the same system, two different systems, or two different names for the same system, depending upon an organization's email configuration.email.from.name=MeInc Mobility Central email.from.user=MeIncCentral email.from.domain=<mail server name given at installation; if none, hostname> email.from.support.user=MeIncSupport mainapp.name=HipCheck mainapp.email.from.name=HipCheck Central mainapp.email.from.user=HipCheckCentral mainapp.email.from.support.user=HipCheckSupport
The second four properties are used for the same purpose but for mails originating from a specific, named application on the server, which by default is HipCheck. The mainapp.name property gives the name of the application to use in these emails; note that even for the default HipCheck application, a reseller or deployed customer could, if desired, change or augment this product name. The email.from.domain property is reused from the general set of properties; thus, emails will carry a "From" address of "mainapp.email.from.name <mainapp.email.from.user@email.from.domain>", except for the support case in which a similar substitution is done.
To modify these properties, edit the mobility-server.properties file,
which for Windows 2003 Server deployed cases is located in
C:\HipcheckMobilityServer\ecp\components\jboss-4.0.4.GA\server\default\data\
(remove "Hipcheck" from the path if this is just a
generic SCO Mobility Server installation),
and which for SCO OpenServer 6 and SCO UnixWare 7 is located in
/usr/jboss/server/default/data/. Then restart the Mobility Server,
so that the modified properties file is read.
New Enhancements in HipCheck 1.0.3
The following platforms are now supported for HipCheck 1.0.3, that were not supported previously as monitored systems:
The first step to doing this is to change the port that the installed Apache Tomcat app server listens on from the default 8080 to something else. This is done by modifying the standard Tomcat configuration file /usr/lib/apache/tomcat/conf/server.xml.
Next, make sure that the TOMCAT_PORT value in file /usr/lib/scox/hipcheck/hipcheck.conf matches the port Tomcat is using prior to installing (or reinstalling) HipCheck. If this file does not exist, it can be created with these commands:
mkdir -p /usr/lib/scox/hipcheck echo "TOMCAT_PORT=nnnn" > /usr/lib/scox/hipcheck/hipcheck.confWhere nnnn is the actual port that Tomcat is using.
To add commands for UNIX agents, the monitored system's administrator can edit the file /usr/lib/scox/hipcheck/CommandTable:
This file should contain these comments: # Hipcheck Command Table # These commands can be used through the Execute Command interface on the # hipcheck clients. Commands will be executed in the background. Output # will not be captured. # # The format of this file is: # CMDTag [TAB] command line to execute # ...
where CMDTag is a user-specified name that gives some mnemonic meaning to that particular command, and [TAB] is the Tab key. An example command line would be:
deltmp [TAB] rm /tmp/foofar
To add commands for Windows agents, the monitored system's administrator can edit the file C:/Program Files/Me Inc/HipCheck Agent for Windows/commands.cfg. The format of the file contents is identical to the UNIX case above. Please note that when editing this file, do not use DOS Edit, as it does not handle the TABs correctly. Use a Windows tool such as Notepad or Wordpad instead.
For both UNIX and Windows, the command will run in the background on the monitored system, the HipCheck client will not wait for the command to finish, the command's output will not be captured in the HipCheck client, and the command should be command-line only and not be interactive, for example it should not pop up a window or require a user response.
While as just stated the command's output is not directly captured by the HipCheck client, there are a couple of tricks that can be used to see the output:
id [TAB] id | mailx -s Output_of_ID user@domain.com
Please note the following issues in this release. All of these problems will be corrected in a future release.
There is a behavioral characteristic that delays the HipCheck agent's monitoring functions on UNIX systems. When a monitored UNIX system is restarted, the agent does not begin checking for error conditions until it is first contacted with a HipCheck operation request. This delay also happens if the HipCheck agent is restarted.
As of HipCheck Release 1.0.3, a solution exists to counteract this.
If you specify an unreachable event for the monitored system,
it will be polled periodically by the HipCheck Mobility Server,
and the act of that polling constitutes a HipCheck operation request
that will cause the HipCheck agent there to also begin checking
for error conditions.
(ID: 2836)
The HipCheck agent running on SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7 systems may not deliver alerts due to the format used in the /etc/resolv.conf file. The Java networking utilities do not follow the resolution order and only look in the first location specified. If "hostresorder local bind" is used, then Java only checks /etc/hosts and doesn't check DNS; if "hostresorder bind local" is used, then Java only checks DNS and doesn't check the /etc/hosts file.
This problem shows up in /usr/lib/scox/hipcheck/OSAgent-log.txt as an exception, like the following example:
SEVERE: sendAlertToECP to http://servername:8080/edgeclick-hipcheck-service/AgentAlertReceiver : Exception! java.net.UnknownHostException: servername ... SEVERE: PrinterJobWatcher sendAlert for process p1 returned failure
To fix the problem, insert the following line into the file /etc/hosts:
216.250.128.216 hipcheck.me-inc.com
(ID: 3078)
Subscribers in your Me Inc. account who have been set up as HipCheck users either receive HipCheck alerts as SMS messages on their mobile devices or in email messages. The method of alert delivery that is used depends on the choices made in the subscriber's profile, which is set and maintained at the Account Portal, on the "Manage Subscribers" page.
Currently, it is not possible for the same subscriber to receive HipCheck alerts both in email and via SMS. This ability will be provided in a future release.
Until then, you can work around this limitation by creating
two subscriptions for the same person -- in the first
subscriber profile, set the "SMS/Alert Messages" field
to Use Smart Phone Number/Carrier or
Use Custom SMS Email Address (depending on the
subscriber's wireless account),
and in the second subscriber profile,
select Use Email Address Entered Above.
Then log in to
the HipCheck Portal and assign the same HipCheck
user privileges and alert responsibilities to both
subscribers.
(ID: 3054)
For this release, best-looking results come from using the Internet Explorer web browser when accessing any of the Account Portal or HipCheck Portal administration pages. Some of these administration pages render correctly but in a somewhat misaligned fashion when viewed with other browsers (such as Firefox). This problem will be corrected in a future release.
Note that when you run "patchck -u", it will also offer to install a number of
other operating system updates. If you do not want these, you can quit
from the patchck download menu after patchck itself has been updated.
Or, if you do choose to install the other packages, do NOT install any Java 1.3.1
packages that are offered, as this risks back-revving your Java on the system
and rendering the HipCheck agent nonfunctional.
After patchck is updated, using "patchck -hipcheck" should get the needed package.
These are innocuous warnings from the Java middleware being used and may be ignored.log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly.
If this is not sufficient to find the command you are executing, you can modify this path. By changing the path here, it will be changed for the execute command feature. When doing so, be sure to only add new directories and do not remove any of the existing directories.PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/etc:/usr/gnu/bin"; export PATH
Each log monitor has a configuration file, /usr/lib/monlog.d/conf/LOG/conf. Timestamps can be added by setting these features in the configuration file:
Then as entries are filtered by the log monitor the timestamp is added and then viewable on the HipCheck client.# Additions to log entries ADD_DATETIME=Y ADD_HOSTNAME=Y ADD_TAG="- LOGNAME"
Accordingly, if View Software does not work, and in the HipCheck log you see the error "GetSoftwareInfo failed: invalid class", you will need to install the missing support from your original Windows 2003 Server media. You can install it via "Add/Remove Programs" on the Control Panel. Select the "Add/Remove Windows Components" button on the left. Then under "Management and Monitoring Tools", select "Details", which allows you to select the "WMI Windows Installer Provider" component. Select "OK", then "Next" to begin the install.
will all fail, with a popup box stating "Command was not executed: Mobility server returned an error: The system cannot find the file specified". This is because these are all shell-builtin commands as opposed to standalone executable commands and cannot be executed - this a limitation of the way the .NET process class works (which the HipCheck agent relies upon).cd .. cd c:\ dir c:\ copy c:\boot.ini c:\boot.ini.bak
To work around this, create a .bat file that executes those types of commands.
To work around this, define your own text logfile(s) that represent the actual system log files that you are interested in viewing or monitoring (for example, /var/log/messages, which captures much of the system log traffic), and define your own criteria for such logfiles.
Problems that have been fixed in the HipCheck update releases are listed here:
The following sections describe the fixes that are unique to each update release. HipCheck update releases are cumulative, so Release 1.0.2 includes all fixes originally provided in Release 1.0.1, and so forth.
The following problems have been fixed in HipCheck Release 1.0.2:
Two options have been added to make it easier for subscribers in non-U.S. countries to receive HipCheck alerts via SMS messages. These new options are available in the "SMS/Alert Messages" field on the "Add Subscriber" and "Update Subscriber Information" pages. (reference 3295)
The Use Custom SMS Email Address option is provided for subscribers whose wireless providers use custom Email Gateways that require the use of special SMS message email addresses not based on mobile device phone numbers.
The Use Clickatell Global SMS Gateway option offers support for accounts that are using the Clickatell SMS Gateway for delivery of SMS messages.
To use this option, purchase SMS credits from Clickatell at http://www.clickatell.com. You must use Clickatell's SMTP API connectivity option.
The problems associated with monitoring a SCO UNIX system installed with any of the OS-supported language packages have been resolved. (reference 3254)
The mobile HipCheck client is now capable of displaying multibyte characters. (reference 3182)
The following problems have been fixed in HipCheck Release 1.0.1:
The javasoap package for UnixWare 7.1.4 agent systems has been updated so that the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition prerequisite can be satisfied by either the 1.4.2 or 1.5.0 versions of J2SE. This updated package, javasoap-1.2.a.pkg, is available on the HipCheck Downloads page. (reference 3213)
The web pages for creating new accounts, and the subscriber management pages at the Account Portal have been modified to provide more control over configuring how account members receive HipCheck alert notices. A new Use Custom SMS Email Address option is now available, for delivering alert notices via SMS to subscribers whose wireless accounts require the use of special SMS message email addresses (as provided by the subscribers' wireless carriers). Additionally, a subscriber who does not have a mobile device can now be configured to receive HipCheck alerts via email messages. (reference 3066, 3156)
The Account Portal and HipCheck Portal have been modified so that you cannot create subscribers or set up systems to be monitored if your account's license has not been fully activated or if your account is expired. Additionally, these administration web pages prevent you from creating more subscribers or monitored systems than are supported by your current HipCheck license. (reference 3200)
The method by which subscribers are deleted has been changed so that a deleted subscriber's user name can now be re-used in the Me Inc. account. (reference 3155, 3162)
The "Manage Account License" pages at the HipCheck Portal have been fixed so that the number of server months displayed when adding a HipCheck Server Month Upgrade license now shows the total number of server months available to your account, not just the number of server months provided by the upgrade license. (reference 3142)
HipCheck alert notices are now tagged as coming from HipCheckCentral@me-inc.com to minimize the possibility of alert email messages being diverted by e-mail spam and junk filters. (reference 3206)
The HipCheck clients have been fixed so that changes made on the Account Edit screen (accessed by EdgeClick»Accounts) are now retained. (reference 3153)
The "Domain" field on the HipCheck client's Account Edit screen now correctly displays hipcheck.me-inc.com. (reference 3197)
The HipCheck clients now display numeric formatting correctly when running in non-U.S. locales. (reference 3133)
(c) Copyright 2006-2007 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
SCO, the SCO logos, HipCheck, Me Inc., EdgeClick, EdgeClickPark,
HipCheck Mobility Server, Edge Processor, SCO OpenServer, SCO Open
Server, and Skunkware are trademarks or registered trademarks of
The SCO Group, Inc. in the USA and other countries.
UNIX and UnixWare are used pursuant to an exclusive license with
The Open Group and are registered trademarks of The Open Group
in the USA and other countries.
All other brand and product names are or may be trademarks or
registered marks of their respective companies.
Version: 1.1