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Instead of keeping the SANscape Console program running in the foreground,
you can use SANscape Alert as a companion utility of SANscape Console
running as a background service that sends messages from the hosts and
arrays to specified email addresses. Using SANscape Alert, you can: To use SANscape Alert throughout the storage data network, install it
as a service on each computer that has a controlling SANscape Agent (a
controlling agent is the only agent that talks to a specific array). One major benefit of installing SANscape Alert on all host computers
is that it can be configured to ping each computer periodically, and will
send a single-point-of-failure message from a SANscape Agent to the specified
email addresses when a host fails. SANscape Alert is composed of the following components:
After connecting to a SANscape Agent, SANscape Alert receives any event
from the agent; if the event is assigned a TRAP condition, then SANscape
Alert emails the event to the user-specified email address. If SANscape Alert cannot connect to any agent or the agent is offline,
then it tries to discover the agent every five minutes. This prevents
SANscape Alert from being disconnected from the agent when network traffic
is congested. In the typical setup shown in the following figure, the array hosts (computers
#1, #2, and #3) are used with the array devices (#A, #B, and #C respectively).
Each host contains a SANscape Agent and a SANscape Alert daemon. Each
SANscape Alert daemon can be configured by the Config Tool to send event
messages to any email address (shown as computer #5, which uses the Mail
Receiver Tool to download the messages).
The SANscape Alert Config Tool and the SANscape Console program can be
located on any computer on the network and are located on one computer
(#4) for convenience only. Only one instance of the SANscape Alert Config utility can be open at
a time. The configuration information is saved in a file named ssalert_cfg.xml.
Note: To implement any configuration change to a SANscape Alert
service, you must be connected to a SANscape Alert server and you must
click Save Configuration after you have completed the changes. On Solaris/Linux/HP-UX/IBM AIX, type On a Windows NT/2000 operating system, select Start > Programs
> Dot Hill SANscape > SANscapeAlert > Dot Hill SANscape Alert Config Tool.
On a Windows 2003 operating system, select Start > All Programs
> Dot Hill SANscape > SANscapeAlert > Dot Hill SANscape Alert Config Tool.
If you have previously configured and connected to one SANscape Alert
daemon, the Config Tool automatically connects to the server that
you last used. Keep the default port number (which is displayed automatically
and is used by the SANscape Alert Config Tool (UI) to communicate
with the SANscape Alert daemon). Type the ssconfig login
password for the server. This is the same login password that was
set when you installed SANscape. If this password has not already
been set, you must set it before continuing. See Solaris - Creating Users and Passwords,
Linux - Creating Users and Passwords, HP-UX - Creating Users and Passwords,
IBM AIX - Creating Users and Passwords,
or Windows - Creating Users and Passwords. The SANscape Alert server Name and IP Address appear in the Server
List. The SANscape Alert Config Tool can access multiple servers, but
can only connect to one server and one SANscape Alert service at a time.
If you do not specify a password for each server, you are asked for
a password each time you reconnect to a server. As a minimum, select a trap event, enter the minimum interval between
mails, and enter one email address. To enter multiple email addresses,
separate each address with a space, comma, or semicolon. To receive
email immediately when an event occurs, enter an * in the minimum interval
between mails field. The color and text of this button can change every 20 seconds.
Host Event Log When there is a triggered event, SANscape Alert attaches the host
event log to the email that is sent. The events are logged into the system log of the host where
the agent is installed. Event Log lists the locations where the events are logged to in each operating system. Because the host can generate a large amount of messages, it is possible to exceed the mail size limit
allowed by some SMTP servers. SANscape Alert limits the size of the host event log
to 5 Mbyte. This limit can be changed by defining the mail size limit attribute of the smtp element in
ssalert_cfg.xml. The following table lists the location of this file for each OS. For example, to define the host event log size limit to 1 Mbyte (1 Mbyte =
1024 x 1024 = 1048576), define the mail size limit attribute as follows:
smpt auth="false" username="" password ="XXXX" mail_size_limit="1048576" from="test@sina.com" >smtp.sina.com
NOTE: If the mail size limit attribute is not defined, SANscape uses the default value of 5 Mbyte.
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