You probably will need to be more specific. Zenoss polls via SNMP every 60 seconds. The only time it stops polling a device is when it's marked decomissioned. You could, I suppose, either script going into and out of that state (as without polling you won't get much data to alert on anyway), or you could use command datasources or the like...

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James Pulver

ZCA Member

LEPP Computer Group

Cornell University

If you set a device to decomissioned, it's not monitored at all that I'm aware of. I don't have a script to do this however. You can also turn off zenmodeler and zenperfsnmp and any zenpack daemons (if you have them) that use SNMP to disable polling. I expect you may be able to do this with an event command, but I don't know how you'd turn them back on automatically if you're now not polling anything...

Generally, people use templates to set polling options, (i.e. SNMP, WMI, SSH, ping etc) once... I don't actually know people who want Zenoss to regularily stop and then start monitoring specific devices, this is a new request to me...

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James Pulver

ZCA Member

LEPP Computer Group

Cornell University

Here's an example of what you would use for a script:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import Globals
from Products.ZenUtils.ZenScriptBase import ZenScriptBase
from transaction import commit

dmd = ZenScriptBase(connect=True, noopts=True).dmd

d = dmd.Devices.findDevice('yourdevice')

for d in dmd.Devices.getSubDevices():
 if d.getDeviceName() == "yourdevice" or d.getDeviceName() == "anotherdevice":
  d.setProdState('-2')

Where -2 is the ID of the Production State that you created.  The script needs to be executed as the zenoss user.

At this point, I have to recommend RTFM(s). It's going to be pretty necessary for you to understand basic Linux things like Cron to get very far with modifying / configuring Zenoss. Some tips about what you should know are in our New Users FAQ:

https://zcaportal.org/wiki/bin/view/ZCA/ZCAFAQ#What_should_I_know_before_using_Zenoss_63

Also, not to be a shill, but if you or others have more budget than time or interest in learning Zenoss and Linux, you may want to consider either an Enterprise Subscription or a Community Consulting engagement - the ZCA can help here as well.

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James Pulver

ZCA Member

LEPP Computer Group

Cornell University

Is there a reason that a Maintenance Window wouldn't work for this?

You could create a "Systems" or "Groups" organizer, add the maintenance window to the organizer, and then make the subset of devices a member of that organizer.  This is what I have done for situations like this and it works pretty well.  The "Decommissioned" state is one of the available options.

Hope this helps,

Joseph

Simple maintenance windows work fine - i.e. you have one computer go into maintenance and then come out. Overlapping ones don't work. It only stores state for one window per device.

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James Pulver

ZCA Member

LEPP Computer Group

Cornell University