What is the "view" component? - Open Source Network Monitoring and Systems Management

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10,662 Views 13 Replies Last post: Jul 30, 2010 11:49 AM by sloane

ksolademi

13 posts since
Jun 4, 2010

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Jul 29, 2010 9:53 AM

What is the "view" component?

Zenoss is telling me that on a linux server of mine that a "process is not running: view". The component listed in this event is "view", and the class is /Status/OSProcess. The problem is, I have no idea what the "view" process is, nor do I know what the "view" component is.

Can anyone either tell me what this is, or point me toward some documentation that will englighten me? Thanks.

Tags: issues, monitoring, 2.5, events, monitor, 2.5.2, event

istoptofly

277 posts since
Apr 20, 2010

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1. Jul 29, 2010 10:03 AM

in response to: ksolademi

Re: What is the "view" component?

Look under /Processes and see if it has any extra parameters that may help identify it.

John

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ksolademi

13 posts since
Jun 4, 2010

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2. Jul 29, 2010 10:52 AM

in response to: istoptofly

Re: What is the "view" component?

I'm seeing the subfolders Apache and MySQL, but nothing related to view.

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istoptofly

277 posts since
Apr 20, 2010

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3. Jul 29, 2010 10:56 AM

in response to: ksolademi

Re: What is the "view" component?

Can you post a screen shot of the event details?

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sloane

19 posts since
Oct 2, 2008

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4. Jul 29, 2010 12:02 PM

in response to: ksolademi

Re: What is the "view" component?

ksolademi wrote:

Zenoss is telling me that on a linux server of mine that a "process is not running: view". The component listed in this event is "view", and the class is /Status/OSProcess. The problem is, I have no idea what the "view" process is, nor do I know what the "view" component is.

Can anyone either tell me what this is, or point me toward some documentation that will englighten me? Thanks.

Process monitoring is done using a regular expression, for example, the Apache process montor uses "^.*/.*httpd" by default. Whenever a host is re-modeled, Zenoss looks through the list of processes on the host (which it gets via SNMP) and adds any process that matches the regular expression to the OS Processes to be monitored for that host.

Now suppose that someone runs the command "view dir/httpd.conf" and while that command is running, an automatic remodel is run. The remodel will dutifully find the "view dir/httpd.conf" command as matching the regular expression, and will add it to the list of processes to be monitored with the name "view". Once the command stops running you will get an alert that the process isn't there any more.

As far as I know, the only way to prevent this happening is to make sure all the OS Processes you want to monitor are set up and then lock the device so that a remodel won't add any extras. You should also review your process regular expressions to make sure they find only the processes you want to monitor.

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ksolademi

13 posts since
Jun 4, 2010

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5. Jul 29, 2010 2:10 PM

in response to: sloane

Re: What is the "view" component?

sloane wrote:

ksolademi wrote:

Zenoss is telling me that on a linux server of mine that a "process is not running: view". The component listed in this event is "view", and the class is /Status/OSProcess. The problem is, I have no idea what the "view" process is, nor do I know what the "view" component is.

Can anyone either tell me what this is, or point me toward some documentation that will englighten me? Thanks.

Process monitoring is done using a regular expression, for example, the Apache process montor uses "^.*/.*httpd" by default. Whenever a host is re-modeled, Zenoss looks through the list of processes on the host (which it gets via SNMP) and adds any process that matches the regular expression to the OS Processes to be monitored for that host.

Now suppose that someone runs the command "view dir/httpd.conf" and while that command is running, an automatic remodel is run. The remodel will dutifully find the "view dir/httpd.conf" command as matching the regular expression, and will add it to the list of processes to be monitored with the name "view". Once the command stops running you will get an alert that the process isn't there any more.

As far as I know, the only way to prevent this happening is to make sure all the OS Processes you want to monitor are set up and then lock the device so that a remodel won't add any extras. You should also review your process regular expressions to make sure they find only the processes you want to monitor.

Excellent! This appears to be exactly what happened. The command "view httpd.conf" was run within five minutes of the first instance of this event. Thanks a lot sir, you have removed the veil from my eyes.

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dbld

7 posts since
May 27, 2009

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6. Jul 30, 2010 9:32 AM

in response to: ksolademi

Re: What is the "view" component?

I hate to jump in on something that is "answered", but does anyone have any code examples on how to remove these processes from the device record?

Excellent explanation BTW, as I have been trying to figure this out as well. I know the devices are re-modeled every night, but the process do not get removed, and I cannot find the python code to write something up.

Thanks

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istoptofly

277 posts since
Apr 20, 2010

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7. Jul 30, 2010 10:14 AM

in response to: dbld

Re: What is the "view" component?

Are you just wanting to remove a monitored OS process from a device?

John

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sloane

19 posts since
Oct 2, 2008

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8. Jul 30, 2010 10:19 AM

in response to: dbld

Re: What is the "view" component?

dbld wrote:

I hate to jump in on something that is "answered", but does anyone have any code examples on how to remove these processes from the device record?

Excellent explanation BTW, as I have been trying to figure this out as well. I know the devices are re-modeled every night, but the process do not get removed, and I cannot find the python code to write something up.

Thanks

I have a support case open on this topic. I will let you know what I find out.

In the mean time, your best bet is to update your regular expressions to only match what you actually want to monitor. We updated the regular expression for Apache to "^[^ ]*httpd[^ /]*( |$)" as recommended by zenoss support and it helped but did not eliminate the problem.

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dbld

7 posts since
May 27, 2009

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9. Jul 30, 2010 11:12 AM

in response to: istoptofly

Re: What is the "view" component?

Yeah, according to /Processes I only have Apache and mysqld. For some reason it has picked up vnc, Xvnc, ps, vi, etc. that was running when it got modeled. I even deleted the whole device, re-added the device and they came back immediatly.

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dbld

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May 27, 2009

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10. Jul 30, 2010 11:14 AM

in response to: sloane

Re: What is the "view" component?

Nice, I tried to change to your recommended regex, and threw an error. I could post but it's long.

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sloane

19 posts since
Oct 2, 2008

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11. Jul 30, 2010 11:27 AM

in response to: dbld

Re: What is the "view" component?

dbld wrote:

Nice, I tried to change to your recommended regex, and threw an error. I could post but it's long.

I don't know what to tell you, it worked for me. Just in case there was a transcription error it should be:

^[^ ]*httpd[^ /]*( |$)

That is an up arrow (beginning of line), left bracket (start of character class), up arrow (negate the character class), space, right bracket (end of character class), star (repeated zero or more times), the letters "httpd", left bracket (start of character class), up arrow (negate the character class), space, slash (any character but these), right bracket (end of character class), star (repeated zero or more times), left parenthesis (start of grouping) space, vertical bar (or), dollar (end of line), right parenthesis (end of grouping).

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dbld

7 posts since
May 27, 2009

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12. Jul 30, 2010 11:38 AM

in response to: sloane

Re: What is the "view" component?

Actually, I cannot even get that far. When I click on the httpd process to make

the modification I get a tales error:

V2.5.2

URL: file:/opt/zenoss/Products/ZenModel/skins/zenmodel/osProcessClassStatus.pt

Line 84, Column 8

Expression:

Names:

<snip

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sloane

19 posts since
Oct 2, 2008

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13. Jul 30, 2010 11:49 AM

in response to: dbld

Re: What is the "view" component?

You have exceeded my level of expertise. Good luck figuring it out.

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