Zenoss FAQ

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VERSION 1

Created on: Sep 14, 2009 11:21 AM by Noel Brockett - Last Modified: Sep 14, 2009 11:21 AM by Noel Brockett

Here you can find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about Zenoss. If you have a question not answered on this page, you can ask it in the forums or IRC channel.

About Zenoss and this FAQ

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What is Zenoss?

The Zenoss project provides an integrated, easy-to-deploy and cost-effective open source alternative for enterprise IT infrastructure monitoring. Unlike the big monitoring companies (IBM, HP, CA, BMC) we are able to keep costs down and directly involve end users throughout the world. More details can be found here(The specified space was not found.).

How do I pronounce Zenoss?

We say 'Zeen-Ohss, but you can say it however you like.

Which Operating Systems does Zenoss support?

Zenoss is designed to operate on any modern Unix system with a sufficient GNU build environment. For now it is known to work on at least the following platforms:

Linux
- Red Hat Enterprise
- Fedora
- Debian
- Ubuntu
- SUSE
Mac OS X

Does Zenoss run on Windows ?

Zenoss is able to be installed and run in a Windows environment. This is accomplished using the VMplayer from vmware.com, and the Zenoss Virtual Appliance. For more information about installing Zenoss using the VMplayer, see the Zenoss Quick Start Guide.

What is the latest version of Zenoss?

Zenoss is updated often. Please see download page for the most recent versions.

Where can I get Zenoss?

Zenoss is distributed in different forms:

VMWare Virtual Appliance Package
Stack installers with all the dependencies (.bin and .deb)
RPMs for RHEL and CentOS
Source Code Installation Package
SVN repository

Please see download page for more details.

Want to contribute?

We always appreciate help in keeping the Zenoss FAQ and documentation in good shape. If you would like to update something, please do.

Have new idea?

Want to share your thoughts about new features needed for Zenoss prosperity? Lets us know, send a note!

Found a bug?

Give us chance to fix it faster! Submit patch or create ticket in bug tracking system (user/pass zenoss/zenoss).

Which features will be implemented in next release?

You can find out about it here.

Are there Zenoss mailing lists available?

Please check out our extensive Forums

Zenoss Installation Issues

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Can I use MySQL 4 with Zenoss?

No the minimum requirement is MySQL 5.0.22. We use a trigger to move events to the history database. MySQL 4 has no triggers and 5.0.x < 5.0.22 has a very bad bug with triggers.

Zenoss install can't find Python.h -- what's going on?

There are two potential problems here:

You haven't installed your system's Python dev package, or
Graphviz is having an issue when attempting to build one of its tools.

For the first one, you need to find out what the name of your system's python dev package is and then install it.

For the second one, see the mail list post for details:

http://lists.zenoss.org/pipermail/zenoss-users/2006/001098.html

"Starting Zope Object Database" seems to take forever -- what's wrong?

Sometimes during the installation process, you will see output like the following:

./install.sh
[snip]
installing conf/zenperfsnmp.conf
installing conf/zenping.conf
installing conf/zenprocess.conf
installing conf/zenstatus.conf
installing conf/zensyslog.conf
Starting Zope Object Database
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 
[snip]

where those "dots" just keep printing while the installation process seems to not progress.

This usually happens when you are reinstalling Zenoss and did not shutdown the ZEO instances from the previous installation.

The solution is to either run ./bin/zenoss stop and to grep and kill the process list for processes owned by zenoss that were running from a previous install or previous install attempt.

Before reinstalling Zenoss or re-attempting an install, be sure to run ./bin/zenoss stop and grep for any lingering processes. Doing so will avoid the issue encountered here.

Can I install under a different MySQL user name?

Zenoss uses a trigger to move create a historical archive of events. MySQL triggers require "SUPER" permission to execute.

You can give any user SUPER privileges:

mysql> grant super on *.* to 'someuser'@'localhost' identified by 'somepassword';
mysql> flush privileges;

Note that it is not possible to grant SUPER privileges to a single database.

How do I get Zenoss to start at boot time?

First, you need to define ZENHOME in the $ZENHOME/bin/zenoss script. Near the top of the file add this line:

export ZENHOME=/usr/local/zenoss

For RedHat Variants

(including Fedora and CentOS)

Do the following on the command line as root:

# cp $ZENHOME/zenoss /etc/init.d
# chkconfig --add zenoss
# chkconfig --level 345 zenoss on

For Debian Variants

(including Ubuntu)

# cp $ZENHOME/zenoss /etc/init.d
# update-rc.d -f /etc/init.d/zenoss start 99 2 3 4 5 .
# update-rc.d -f /etc/init.d/zenoss reboot 90 0 6 .
#
# update-rc.d zenoss start 99 2 3 4 5 . stop 90 0 6 .

After installation, zenperfsnmp gives the following error

/usr/local/zenoss/bin$ ./zenperfsnmp run -v 10
ERROR:zen.zenperfsnmp:Error: Traceback (most recent call last):
Failure: twisted.internet.error.ConnectionRefusedError: 
    Connection was refused by other side: 111: Connection refused.

You need to edit $ZENHOME/etc/zenperfsnmp.conf to have the correct login information to zope so it can retrieve its configuration.

This might also happen with zenprocess.

What does 'TypeError: iteration over non-sequence' mean?

When the collectors start, they connect to ZenHub and request configuration information. This information is normally a list, but if an error occurs, the result will not be a list and the "iteration over non-sequence" error occurs. So, to diagnose the error, check the ZenHub log ($ZENHOME/log/zenhub.log).

If you have just upgraded, the result is probably a result of a bad migration. Be sure to run zenmigrate after the code has been updated:

Stop everything:

$ zenoss stop

Clean out any cache files:

$ rm -f $ZENHOME/var/*.zec

Start up the object database:

$ zeoctl start

Convert the database using zenmigrate:

$ zenmigrate

Start everything else:

$ zenoss start

If the problem persists, there has been a problem with the data migration. You may wish to revert to a backup before the upgrade, and try the migration again, or contact support about the problem.

Zenoss Configuration Issues

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How do I set the default SNMP community for my Zen server?

The zenoss zProperty zSnmpCommunities in /Devices is a list of community strings to try when modeling or discovering a device.

How do I register mibs with Zenoss?

The mib loader is called zenmib. To load mibs first copy them to $ZENHOME/share/mibs/site. Then run zenmib.

zenmib run mibfile

How do I resolve mib dependencies?

You loaded aaa.mib, and when you attempt to load bbb.mib, you get this error

INFO:zen.zenmib:Unable to find a file providing the MIB AAA-MIB

To resolve the dependency, load them like this

zenmib run aaa.mib bbb.mib

What do I do with MIBs once they are loaded?

MIBs are used in Zenoss for SNMP Trap parsing. They are not used when setting up the poller. This is something we will do in the future though.

Why is my interface of type "FOOBAR" not graphing?

RRDTemplates are bound to interfaces by the name of the interface type. The type of an interface can be seen in the detail screen of an interface. Create a new RRDTemplate by copy/pasting the RRDTemplate /Devices/PerfConf/ethernetCsmacd and call it your interface name. Make sure that all oids listed are supported by your new interface!

Why does my Event Mapping not match an event? Why does my EventClassInstance not match an event?

Event Mappings only apply to events with no eventClass. If your event has an eventClass when it comes in, mappings are not applied.

When doing event mapping, the 'eventClassKey' of the event must match the 'Event Class Key' field of the Mapping. Open the event (which likely has a class of /Unknown) and look at its eventClassKey. Make the 'Event Class Key' field of your EventClassInstance (the Mapping) the same. If you need to be more specific, add the rule or regex (i.e. there will be more than one mapping with the same eventClassKey). The eventClassKey is often the name of a process (it's what is called the tag of a syslog message).

See http://www.zenoss.com/community/docs/zenoss-guide/2.4.3/ch07s01.html#d4e4103 for details.

How do I apply an Event Mapping where the eventClassKey is unknown or does not exist?

If you want to process incoming events, where the eventClassKey is something that cannot be known or is blank, put "defaultmapping" into the 'Event Class Key' field of the mapping. The mapping will be used if no other 'Event Class Key' matchs (and, of course, there is no eventClass on the event to begin with). Likely you will want to specify to your particular event with a rule or regex, otherwise this mapping will apply to all events with a blank/non-matching 'event Class Key'.

For a delivered example of this, navigate to /Events/Archive .

See http://www.zenoss.com/community/docs/zenoss-guide/2.4.3/ch07s01.html#d4e4124 for details.

What if my Event Mapping could apply to more than one, same-named event?

You can make multiple event mappings that have the same 'Event Class Key', but different rules or regex. For example, a rule of "getattr(evt, 'agent', '') == 'zeneventlog' and getattr(evt, 'severity',0) == 1" would pull events where the agent is zeneventlog and the severity is Debug. You then need to put an order to these multiple mappings, in the sequence tab of the mapping.

For a delivered example of this, navigate to /Events/Archive/defaultmapping and click on the 'Sequence' tab.

See http://www.zenoss.com/community/docs/zenoss-guide/2.4.3/ch07s01.html#d4e4124 for details.

How does Zenoss rebuild indexes?

You need to run zendmd to rebuild the indexes:

$ZENHOME/bin/zendmd
   >>> reindex()
   >>> commit()

Why is the error 'Connection was refused by other side: 111:Connection refused' in my zenperfsmp or zenprocess log?

In the file $ZENHOME/etc/zenperfsnmp.conf or zenprocess.conf something is wrong with your connection info for zope or zenxevent. Make sure the that zopeusername and zopepassword are a valid username and password pair in your zope server and that the url is correct (maybe your box name changed or zope is running on a different port?

I created an RRDTemplate named "foo" and it doesn't get applied to my devices why?

RRDTemplates are bound to objects by their name. For a template to bind to a device it must be named "Device". Interfaces are different: they bind using the interface type (as displayed on the interface detail screen).

How do I turn "Cleared" email Alert Messages off?

Empty out the cleared message specification.

Zenping complains about "unable to import Globals"

You need to add 'Defaults env_keep += "PYTHONPATH ZENHOME"' to your /etc/sudoers file.

How do I check whether SNMP is working on a server?

If SNMP is running on a server you will get back several lines of data from snmpwalk:

snmpwalk -v1 -c<community> <server> system

How do I make sure the full SNMP tree is being published?

On Windows this is default behavior, but for Net-SNMP it is not. Check by seeing if you can retrieve the list of interfaces from a server:

snmpwalk -v1 -c<community> <server> .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1

If that does not return any data you probably need to configure Net-SNMP. This config file lives at /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf. Here is a sample Net-SNMP configuration that publishes the full tree:

com2sec notConfigUser  default       public

group   notConfigGroup v1           notConfigUser
group   notConfigGroup v2c           notConfigUser

view    all            included      .1

access  notConfigGroup ""      any       noauth    exact  all    none   none

How do I check that SNMP Informant is running correctly?

If SNMP Informant is running on a server you will get results back from trying to walk the SNMP Informant MIB:

snmpwalk -v1 -c<community> <server> 1.3.6.1.4.1.9600

Why doesn't httpd show up in my list of services?

Apache by default on most platforms listens on an a socket that supports both IPv4 and IPv6. Net-SNMP doesn't display IPv6 sockets in its TCP table. As a result we don't get it during an SNMP model of a device. This isn't true for portscan or SSH modeling. To solve the problem you can force Apache to listen on an IPv4 socket only. In your configuration file set Listen to have a v4 address like this:

Listen 0.0.0.0:80

This article goes into more detail.

Using Zenoss

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What does "Lost Connection to Zenoss" mean?

It means that your web browser cannot fetch events from Zenoss. This is usually related to problems with MySQL.

How do I see event details?

In an event list click on the right most event field (the magnifying glass) to see event details. Within an event detail there are three tabs. Fields shows all the "standard" event fields. Details shows any extra fields that were added to the event. If the event is a trap the key value pairs from the event will be added here. The log tab list the things that have been done to the event, or user comments about the event.

How do I use Nagios Plugins?

See the The specified document was not found. How To

How do I ensure that devices get routes?

Zenoss gets route information for devices either from SNMP or making a direct connection to the device (via telnet or ssh). If you have SNMP enabled on the device(s) in question, then you should be getting routes for those devices. If not, then you need to configure your device(s) for configuration collection. Here are the steps you need to take:

If Zenoss will be using ssh to get configuration information for all or most of your devices, you can make changes to Devices -> zProperties and then change the few devices' zProperties tab that won't be using ssh to use SNMP.

If Zenoss will be using ssh to get configuration information for just a few boxes, then it's probably best to create a new "Sub-Device" grouping in Devices or beneath it.

Choose the appropriate place (mentioned in the two bullets above) to edit the zProperties
Set zTransportPreference to command
Set zCommandUsername to the user name of login for the machine you will be accessing
Set zCommandPassword to the password for the login of the user above
Click Save at the bottom

Next, you will need to make sure that your device instances in Zenoss are configured properly for remote logging. For Linux boxes, you need to make sure that they are actually setup as Linux boxes:

Navigate to the device in Zenoss
Click the Edit tab
Set OS Manufacturer to Linux
Set OS Product to something appropriate, making sure that if you add your own, it starts with the string Linux (case-sensitive)

With these in place, you should be able to get the routes with the following command:

zenmodeler run

If you just want to check against a single host and only get the routes configuration for that host, you can use the following:

zenmodeler run -d 10.2.5.67 --collect cmd.linux.netstat_rn

Why does my filesystem usage on linux box differ from that shown by df?

By default linux often reserves 5% of a disk for use by root (this can be configured when the filesystem is created). This gives a little wiggle room when the drive is "full". We are showing the actual usage of the disk (there are less significant digits in df - h). If you want to take this into account you can lower the threshold by 5%. IE change it from

here.totalBlocks * .9

here.totalBlocks * .85

And still call that the 90% threshold.

Why do I get the following messages in my zenping log file?

CRITICAL zen.ZenPing ZenPing <zenoss hostname> not found, ignoring network topology.

When zenping rebuilds its configuration (every 20 mins) it tries to load the list of devices to ping following the routing topology. If the route tables aren't whole from the zenping to a device being monitored you will get this message. It won't hurt anything other than turning off layer 3 aware monitoring for that device.

I just added some devices, why don't I see any performance graphs?

Restart the performance collectors (zenperfsnmp, zenprocess, zencommand, etc). You can do this by navigating the About link and selecting the restart button next to the names of the different collectors. The performance collectors refresh their configuration only once every 30 minutes with the default configuration. Once the update propogates, you should see graphs.

OK, I see graphs, but they are empty and the current value is "nan". What's going on?

The collectors need to collect good values from a device for 3 consecutive cycles, which takes a minimum of 10 minutes with the default configuration. Be patient.

OK, I see some performance graphs (such as on interfaces) but I don't see the main performance graphs on my Windows machines. Why?

See below.

How do I load all the IP addresses in a network as devices?

If you have a bunch of IP addresses that didn't get discovered, you can load a network's IPs by doing the following:

$ zendmd
   >>> for ip in dmd.Networks._getOb('192.168.1.0').ipaddresses():
   ....      dmd.DeviceLoader.loadDevice(ip.id, discoverProto=None)

Why are some of my graph images broken under Internet Explorer?

Internet Explorer chops off URLs longer than approximately 2048 characters. The URLs that are used to display the graphs can be quite long depending on how many data points, thresholds, and other configurations have been included in your performance template. If you're seeing a red dot as the image instead of a graph you should read the following article and consider switching to a different browser:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q208427/

Why is my ssCpuRawIdle data point always 0?

This is a known bug in Net-SNMP. After a system has been on and idle long enough the ssCpuRawIdle counter will reach the limits of a 32bit integer and stop incrementing instead of rolling over to 0. The solution is to upgrade NetSNMP or stop collecting ssCpuRawIdle.

Zenwin (Monitoring Windows)

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Why do I get an error when trying to run zenwin on windows 2000?

Zenwin will only run on XP, and 2003. We believe that this has something to do with the implementation of WMI under 2000.

How do I get the Perf tab to show information on a Windows box?

You need to install the free version of snmp-informant. http://www.snmp-informant.com

How do I get filesystem and process monitoring on a Windows box?

You only need to start the MS standard SNMP agent. The install is under the add/remove programs under Windows Components.

How do I monitor Windows services?

You must use zenwin which connects to the windows box using WMI to model and monitor its services.

What ports does WMI use?

WMI uses DCOM to communicate

DCOM information from the Microsoft site...

Firewall and Registry Settings for DCOM

DCOM dynamically allocates one port per process. You need to decide how many ports you want to allocate to DCOM processes, which is equivalent to the number of simultaneous DCOM processes through the firewall. You must open all of the UDP and TCP ports corresponding to the port numbers you choose. You also need to open TCP/UDP 135, which is used for RPC End Point Mapping, among other things. In addition, you must edit the registry to tell DCOM which ports you reserved. You do this with the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES \Software \Microsoft \Rpc \Internet" registry key, which you will probably have to create.

The following example tells DCOM to restrict its port range to 10 ports:

Named Value: Ports Type: REG_MULTI_SZ Setting: Range of port. Can be multiple lines such as: 3001-3010 135

Named Value: PortsInternetAvailable Type: REG_SZ Setting:"Y"

Named Value: UseInternetPorts Type: REG_SZ Setting: "Y"

These registry settings must be established in addition to all firewall settings.

How do I set up WMI to Monitor Windows Services?

See this page.

VMWare Image

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What is the default login for the image?

The default login for the Zenoss Management Console (on port 8080) is username: admin password: zenoss

The default login for the Appliance Agent (on port 8003) is username: admin password: password

How do I login as root in the VMWare Image?

You can login on local console as 'root' user with empty password.

Zenoss Plugins

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What are the Zenoss Plugins (zenplugins)?

Zenoss Plugins consist of a collection of platform specific python libraries used by the zenplugin.py script to gather performance information on a local computer. With the release of Zenoss 2.4, zenplugins are being deprecated in favor of all remote SSH-based monitoring. Using an SSH enabled Command collector Zenoss can securely monitor remote servers without requiring the system administrator to install and expose an SNMP agent.

For more information, including how to download and install, see the The specified document was not found. HowTo.

What platforms are currently supported?

Zenoss Plugins have been developed on and extensively tested on the linux2 platform. This includes Fedora Core, RHEL, CentOS, and Ubuntu. The plugins have also been tested under FreeBSD 6.1 and Darwin (OSX).

What plugins are available?

The plugins are platform dependent. As a result, a different set of plugins exist for each platform. The plugins implemented for the FreeBSD 5.x platform differ from the plugins implemented for the Linux2 platform. The following table shows which plugins are available on each platform:

Platform	CPU	Disk	Process	SMART	Intf	Uptime	MySQL	Apache	Temperature
Linux2									--
Darwin	--			--		--			--
FreeBSD 5			--	--		--			--
TiVO	--	--	--	--	--		--	--

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