Chapter 3 - Using Enterprise Management Services
This chapter provides administrators with instructions for using and managing the enterprise management services of the DeMarc Server Agent option. Managing enterprise management services involves performing the following tasks:
![]()
Adding the SNMP service and HCS service to the network. (EVS is added automatically as part of the server software installation.) ![]()
Configuring the individual services. ![]()
Maintaining the services. ![]()
Troubleshooting problems.
Before proceeding with this chapter, refer to Chapter 1. It describes the concepts of the Server Agent architecture and describes how to plan for setting up the enterprise management services on your server.
The tasks involved in using and managing enterprise management services are described in the sections that follow.
To Add the SNMP and HCS Services
1. Enter MANAGE at the command line and choose Services. (For a shortcut, you can enter MSERVICE at the command line.)
Note: Use the VINES 6.0 version of the MANAGE and MSERVICE programs.
The Manage Services menu appears.
2. Choose ADD a Server-based Service. The Add a Service screen appears.
3. Enter the name and description of the new service.
It is recommended that you follow existing company standards for naming services. Otherwise, try to create a service name that helps to identify the new service. You can make the item names of related services easy to recognize by beginning them with the same combination of letters. For example, you might use "SNMP" for SNMP master agent and "HCS" for the HCS service.
The Select a Server menu appears.
4. If your network has only one server, skip this step. Choose the server on which you want to add the new service.
The Select Type of Service menu appears.
5. If you are adding the SNMP service, choose the Banyan SNMP Master Agent.
If you are adding the HCS service, choose the Banyan History Collector.
6. If you are adding the HCS service, a screen appears prompting you to choose the disk on which you want the service to reside.
For best performance, select a disk with ample space for current needs, as well as for future growth. For example, to maximize performance on a server that has multiple disks, choose the disk that is used the least.
7. At the verification screen, either:
- Choose YES to start the service and make it immediately available.
- Choose NO if you want the service created, but not started. To start the service at a later date, use the MSERVICE program.
You supply configuration information for the SNMP service, the HCS service, and the EVS service. Each service's configuration information is stored as StreetTalk attributes.
The following section describes the general steps involved in creating configuration attributes for a service. For details on how to create the configuration attributes for the particular service (SNMP service, HCS service, or EVS service), refer to the appropriate section later in this chapter.
To create or edit configuration attributes, you must be on the AdminList of the server that maintains the service.
General Steps To Create Configuration Attributes
1. Enter the MATTR command at the command line using the following command format:
MATTR object-name
where object-name is the StreetTalk name of the service. The Select Access Method screen appears, as shown in Figure 3-1.
2. Choose SPECIFY <v:a> identifier. This option allows you to select attributes by their specific vendor attribute pair.
The Specify Attribute Identifier screen appears, as shown in Figure 3-2.
3. Enter the Vendor Number and Attribute Number for the attribute you want to create or edit. The vendor attribute pair you use depends on which particular service (SNMP service, HCS service, or EVS service) you are configuring. For details, refer to the appropriate section later in this chapter.
The Edit Attribute screen appears (see Figure 3-3), showing the current information for the attribute you are editing or creating, as follows:
- Attribute Name - Displays the name of the attribute.
- ID - Displays the vendor attribute pair.
- Type - Displays the current data type. Data types include boolean, string, binary, integer, and X.500 ASN.1 binary representations.
4. Select an editing option. Available editing functions include:
- EDIT attribute value - Displays the attribute editing screen in which you enter up to 4096 bytes of configuration information.
- DELETE value - Lets you delete a previously defined attribute value. This option is useful if any configuration value is incorrect and you want to delete the attribute and recreate it with the correct value.
- READ from file - Lets you read a specified file containing configuration information. This option is useful when the configuration information you want to apply to a particular attribute is greater than the size limit of the attribute editing screen (4096 bytes).
- WRITE to file - Lets you write configuration information to a specified file.
Each of these functions is described in the sections that follow.
To Edit an Attribute Value
1. At the Edit Attribute screen, choose EDIT attribute value. The attribute editing screen appears.
2. Use the arrow keys to position the cursor anywhere in the attribute editing screen and enter or change the appropriate values.
3. Press F10 to save the changes. You return to the Edit Attribute screen. The Size and Value fields of the Edit Attribute screen reflect any changes you made during editing.
To Write an Attribute Value to a File
1. At the Edit Attribute screen, choose WRITE to file. The Write Attribute Value to a File screen appears.
2. Enter the pathname where you want the attribute file written. You return to the Edit Attribute screen.
3. Press ESC to exit the MATTR program.
4. You can add the configuration information you want to the attribute file, using a program that edits ASCII-based text.
To Read an Attribute from a File
1. At the Edit Attribute screen, choose READ from file. The Read Attribute Value from a File screen appears.
2. Enter the pathname of the file that contains the attribute value. You return to the Edit Attribute screen. The Size and Value fields of the Edit Attribute screen reflect any changes you made by the Read command.
3. Press ESC to exit the MATTR program.
4. You can delete the temporary file you created that contains the attribute value.
To Delete an Attribute Value
1. At the Edit Attribute screen, choose DELETE attribute. The Confirmation of Delete screen appears.
2. Use the arrow key to select YES and press ENTER. You return to the Edit Attribute screen.
3. Press ESC to exit the MATTR program.
Once you have deleted the configuration attribute that was incorrect, you can recreate the attribute with the correct value. To do so, follow the procedure "General Steps To Create Configuration Attributes" earlier in this section.
To Create SNMP Configuration Attributes
1. Before you create or edit configuration attributes, make sure that the SNMP service has been started at least once.
When the SNMP service is started, it retrieves the SNMP configuration information and stores the information to a configuration record.
2. Stop the SNMP service for which you want to create configuration attributes.
3. Enter the MATTR command at the command line using the following command format:
MATTR object-name
where object-name is the StreetTalk name of the SNMP service. The Select Access Method screen appears.
4. Choose SPECIFY <v:a> identifier. This option allows you to select attributes by their specific vendor attribute pair.
The Specify Attribute Identifier screen appears.
5. Enter 35 in the Vendor Number field. In the Attribute Number field, enter the number of the attribute you want to create, as follows:
- For the party table attribute, enter 250000.
- For the view table attribute, enter 250001.
- For the context table attribute, enter 250002.
- For the ACL table attribute, enter 250003.
- For the SNMP agent attribute, enter 250004.
The Edit Attribute screen appears, showing the current information for the attribute you are editing or creating.
6. Select an editing option. Follow the appropriate procedure described in "General Steps To Create Configuration Attributes" earlier in this chapter, for the editing option you selected.
To allow the configuration settings to take effect, you must restart the service. Once restarted, the service retrieves the configuration attributes from StreetTalk and writes them to the service's configuration file.
If, after the configuration settings take effect, you decide that the configuration values you entered are incorrect, you can delete the configuration attributes and restore the system default values. To do so, follow these steps:
1. Stop the SNMP service that contains incorrect configuration values.
2. Use the MATTR program to delete the configuration attributes.
3. Restart the SNMP service to allow the service to write its system default settings to the configuration file.
Once you have restored the system default values, you can follow the procedure described in this section to modify the default attributes with the correct values.
To Create HCS Configuration Attributes
1. Enter the MATTR command at the command line using the following command format:
MATTR object-name
where object-name is the StreetTalk name of the HCS service.
Note: The HCS service can be running when you configure it. It does not have to be stopped.
The Select Access Method screen appears.
2. Choose SPECIFY <v:a> identifier. This option allows you to select attributes by their specific vendor attribute pair.
The Specify Attribute Identifier screen appears.
3. Enter 35 in the Vendor Number field. In the Attribute Number field, enter 200.
The Edit Attribute screen appears, showing the current information for the attribute you are editing or creating.
4. Select an editing option. Follow the appropriate procedure described in "General Steps To Create Configuration Attributes" earlier in this chapter, for the editing option you selected.
To allow the configuration settings to take effect, you can stop and restart the service. Alternatively, you can programmatically instruct the service to update its configuration settings by issuing the VnsSendAdminCommand function to the service. For a complete description of VnsSendAdminCommand, refer to the Banyan Applications Toolkit.
The next section describes how configuration settings are updated with the HCS service.
Updating HCS Configuration Settings
When the HCS service is started, it retrieves the HCS configuration attribute from StreetTalk and writes it to the configuration database. Any new or modified configuration information written to the database updates the previous settings in the database. The default table, hcsdef, however, is never modified.
You can update the HCS configuration database at any time. To do so, modify the configuration attribute using the MATTR command described in the previous section. Then, either stop and restart the HCS service or issue the VnsSendAdminCommand function to the service. HCS writes the modified attribute to its configuration database. Depending on the extent of your changes, HCS may also purge history data that corresponds to a previous configuration.
For example, if you configured HCS to gather a table of data named swapavg, and you no longer want that data collected, you can delete the swapavg table from the configuration attribute and instruct the service to update its configuration settings. When HCS writes the modified configuration attribute to its database, it also purges the swap average data that it was previously collecting.
Table 3-1 lists the rules that HCS uses to update its configuration database and its history data.
If the HCS service writes new settings to its configuration database that are identical to the existing ones in the database, HCS does not purge its history data. For example, if you stop and restart the HCS service without changing the configuration attribute, HCS continues to collect history data based on the current configuration settings.
You can use the MSERVICE program or the MATTR program to configure the EVS service. When you use the MSERVICE program, you enter EVS service configuration settings line by line on a service configuration screen. Once you enter them, the EVS configuration settings take effect immediately.
When you use the MATTR program, the configuration settings take effect the next time services are restarted.
The MSERVICE program is the preferred method because the settings you enter take effect without having to stop and restart the EVS service. The following sections describe each of these methods in detail.
To Use MSERVICE to Configure the EVS Service
1. Enter MANAGE at the command line and choose Services. (For a shortcut, you can enter MSERVICE at the command line.)
Note: Use the VINES 6.0 version of the MANAGE and MSERVICE programs.
The Manage Services menu appears.
2. Select the EVS service you want from the list. The Manage a Service screen appears.
3. Select CONTROL the service. The Control a Service screen appears.
4. Select CONFIGURE the service. The Service Configuration screen appears.
5. Enter the filter settings you want to configure for the EVS service. Press F10 when you have finished.
The EVS service writes the configuration settings to the service's configuration file.
To Use MATTR to Configure the EVS Service
1. Enter the MATTR command at the command line using the following command format:
MATTR object-name
where object-name is the StreetTalk name of the EVS service.
Note: The EVS service can be running when you configure it. It does not have to be stopped.
The Select Access Method screen appears.
2. Choose SPECIFY <v:a> identifier. This option allows you to select attributes by their specific vendor attribute pair.
The Specify Attribute Identifier screen appears.
3. Enter 1 in the Vendor Number field. In the Attribute Number field, enter 700.
The Edit Attribute screen appears, showing the current information for the attribute you are editing or creating.
4. Select an editing option. Follow the appropriate procedure described in "General Steps To Create Configuration Attributes" earlier in this chapter, for the editing option you selected.
The configuration settings take effect the next time services are restarted. Once restarted, the EVS service retrieves the configuration attributes from StreetTalk and writes them to the service's configuration file.
You can perform the following maintenance functions on the SNMP, HCS, and EVS services:
Starting and stopping the service - Lets you start and stop the service. You should stop a service whenever you do backups or change external hardware.
Configuring the service - Lets you view the service configuration settings.
Displaying service status - Lets you display the status of a service. It can be in one of five states: initializing, running, stopped, inconsistent, or inoperative.
Changing a service description - Lets you insert a new one-line description for the service you selected.
Generating a log report - Lets you produce a log report on the service activity.
These functions are the same ones used by other Banyan services. For details, refer to Managing VINES Services.
Many enterprise management problems are caused by network configuration problems or network performance problems, and have nothing to do with the Server Agent architecture at all.
If the SNMP management application cannot communicate with the SNMP master agent, check for failed data links or routers in the network. In addition, check the network configuration in both the management application and SNMP master agent. For example, in TCP/IP networks, use the PING utility at the SNMP management application to see if you can reach the SNMP master agent. PING is a common utility in TCP/IP networks that determines whether a destination is reachable.
To determine whether the SNMP master agent is reaching the SNMP management application, you can also generate an SNMP service log report with the log level set to the most verbose level. The report indicates whether data is being sent to and received from the SNMP management application. Refer to Banyan Server Operations Guide for instructions on generating a log report.
Other enterprise management problems that may arise are as follows:
![]()
SNMP queries of tables that contain a large number of entries may take a long time. ![]()
Community strings may be improperly configured on the SNMP management application. An administrator of the application must troubleshoot this problem. ![]()
Banyan-supplied MIBs may need to be tailored to the MIB compiler of the SNMP management application. See the application vendor to troubleshoot this problem.