Have you recently downloaded Zenoss Core, or do you have questions implementing the solution in your environment? If so, please register to attend our bi-weekly Getting Started with Zenoss Core Webinar. The July 28 session is still open for sign-up, if you can’t make this session, the next one is already on the schedule. You can register for either one here:
Tuesday, July 28 12:00 p.m. EDT
Tuesday, August 4 12:00 p.m. EDT
Here’s what you’ll get out of the session:
- Installing the software properly
- Preparing your environment
- Logging in to get started
- Getting and staying organized
- Adding, classifying and auto-discovering your devices
- Seeing the “big picture” (dashboard, network map, event console, Google Maps, etc.)
- Avoiding common mistakes
We also have a Zenoss engineer available to answer questions live – and believe me, there are plenty of questions submitted! If you’re interested in seeing past Q&A logs, take a look at some of the previous sessions on the Zenoss blog where we document and upload all of the questions submitted along with answers. We will update this post with the Q&A from the webinar after the session is over.
UPDATED with the Q&A Session for Getting Started with Zenoss July 28
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Q: Can device names be re-learned/registered after discovery and etc/host or DNS source is updated?
A: Yes, you can modify the name and/or the IP address of a device
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Q: I have downloaded Zenoss Core to evaluate it and after installing it on an Ubuntu server all I get is a very primitive text interface for the controls and dashboard. After the two initial set up screens. I am not seeing the nice UI.
A: (this was handled via email, the cause was IE7 was set to ‘Medium’ security settings)
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Q: can the installation be done with a failover concept using Zenoss Core
A: There is community documentation for how to configure this, as well as forum threads.
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Q: I have installed on an Ubuntu server at Amazon and am accessing via a web browser port 8080. I have tried firefox and IE
A: Is port 8080 available via EC2? You may need to change the port in your zope.conf
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Q: Can zenmodeler/zendis command be disabled on individual devices?
A: Yes, you can lock a device from further monitoring. From the page menu choose Manage->Lock…
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Q: after all devices have been discovered. How granular can you go? Down to the actual packet. Or can you integrate WireShark into this?
A: The total packet traffic on the interfaces is exposed, but you could integrate with Wireshark via a zLink
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Q: This is the “freeware” version of Zenoss so far, right? (Not the enterprise version?)
A: yes – this is Zenoss Core – the “freeware” version
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Q: Can you please show how to send email alert?
A: Sorry I didn’t get to this in the demo, the Getting Started Guide and the Admin Guide cover this.
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Q: How much overhead and network traffic does this data collection create ? How much capacity do you need on the machine running zenoss?
A: Network traffic is minimal with SNMP and WMI, SSH is a bit more heavyweight. Overall the impact is negligible unless you are on a very large or slow network.
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Q: Will the discovery include cisco routers, wireless access points, switches ? Do these devices have to be snmp compliant to be discovered?
A: Discovery will attempt SNMP, WMI and SSH. It will pick up anything that responds, including routers, switches, access points, printers, servers, etc.
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Q: Does the network map show / discover subnets?
A: The network map will show networks connected to the starting IP address by what is reachable via routing. The number of hops also affects this
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Q: Can we configure Zenoss to monitor systemout.log and systemerr.log from Websphere installed on Linux/windows ?
A: Assuming these can get to Zenoss via syslog, Windows event log, JMX logs or a command data source, yes.
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Q: any suggestiona in regard to user community for zenoss. I searched all over the internet. The only reason we are planning to go for Nagios over Zenoss due to lack of failover option in Zenoss Core
A: have you reviwed this set-up – <span>http://www.zenoss.com/Members/netdata/create-a-highavailable-zenoss/</span>
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Q: Can availabiity of a physcial interface (L2) be tracked?
A: Zenoss is not currently L2 topology aware but that is a frequent request we’re aware of.
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Q: Is there any plans to incorporate an easier way to enable SSL , without having to toy with configuration files and Zope?
A: This will probably be handled via better documentation, feel free to open an enhancement request if there isn’t one already at http://dev.zenoss.org user:zenoss pass:zenoss
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Q: I understand red = critical, yellow = warning, etc for events. What are the grey ones and how do I view them / clear them. They don’t appear in the server’s event list or event console – only in the numbered bubble.
A: Grey is debug
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Q: How can you eliminate the zenmodeler/zendisc /Cmd/Fail events
A: You can change the severity of the events below your view, or you can create a transform to automatically drop them.
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Q: thanks this is helpful
A: thanks for joining!
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Q: if you have multiple network interfaces on the zenoss machine, will it map and monitor multiple networks?
A: Yes. Zenoss will attempt to discover additional networks found on the interfaces
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Q: What is the function of the MIBs option under the Management menu section?
A: MIBs are used by Zenoss to translate the messages received in SNMP Traps to a more user-friendly format. They are not used for monitoring.
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Q: How do I tell if the zenjobs daemon is running?
A: If you go to Settings->Daemons you will see a list of the daemons and their status. You can also run ‘zenoss status’ from the command line
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Q: why Zenoss send the user name and password in clear text? you can find in the output if test a datasource against a device
A: This is a function of the Command data source not knowing what sort of data it is handling. This shows up with some of the Community WMI ZenPacks, but there is a new WMI Data Source ZenPack that should fix the issue once the old ZenPacks are migrated to it. It will be out soon.
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Q: in multiy graph report it could be better if there are start and end date like the availabilty report. can be?
A: You can currently edit the graphs to show a time range, but you could export them with a cron job to control the range that way (ie. the previous week graphed every midnight)
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Q: what is the deferent between /device/server/cmd and /device/server/ssh and which of them can i use it to monitor solaris using ssh?
A: There is an OpenSolaris ZenPack that uses /Device/Server/SSH/OpenSolaris http://www.zenoss.com/community/projects/zenpacks/opensolaris
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Q: how can i monitor a process running in cluster?
A: I believe there was a forum thread on that, it’s a tricky problem
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Q: is zenoss can monitor load balancer? and is there any doc for that
A: If the load balancer has a unique IP in addition to the shared IP you could monitor both
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Q: How can I add SNMP monitoring to an already registered device?
A: If SNMP is enabled for the device class, you should be able to monitor the device by turning on the SNMP daemon and remodeling it.
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Q: Hi. Can i monitor server temperature with zenoss?
A: Temperature monitoring can easily be added with a custom SNMP datasource (if exposed via SNMP) or SSH if not. Add the OID as a data source, add a graph based on the source and a threshold for the temperature range and you’ll see it on the Perf tab
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On Thursday, Feburary 18th at 11:00 AM PST/ 2:00 PM two of Zenoss' finest, Olivier Thierry and Kent Erickson, will be conducting a webinar on the Challenges of Virtualization Management.
