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Open Source Network Management Solution |
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Written by hakimkt
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Wednesday, 26 January 2005 |
An open-source network management solution that will bring cheer to a Network
Administrator Managing each and every single node in a network manually is a
very difficult and tedious task for any Network Administrator. So, to automate
these processes many company developed variety of NMS (Network Management
Solutions) like IBM’s Tivoli and HP’s OpenView. But the problem with these
solutions are that they are expensive and can be adopted only by big companies.
But what about a medium-sized company with a few hundred computers but a very
complex infrastructure? Enter an open source alternative, OpenNMS.
Managing
each and every single node in a network manually is a very difficult and tedious
task for any Network Administrator. So, to automate these processes many company
developed variety of NMS (Network Management Solutions) like IBM’s Tivoli and
HP’s OpenView. But the problem with these solutions are that they are expensive
and can be adopted only by big companies. But what about a medium-sized company
with a few hundred computers but a very complex infrastructure? Enter an open
source alternative, OpenNMS
OpenNMS or the open-source Network Management Solution is a Linux-based software
that works on SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) to trace and check the
performance of a given group of nodes like network devices (routers and
switches) and PCs in a network, and actively monitor and acknowledge the
services provided over the network.
This package is written almost in Java
and it uses XML to store the configuration data. This makes it very portable.
For front-end, it has a Web-interface that can be accessed through Tomcat from
anywhere in the network.
Pre-installation requirements
We tested
OpenNMS on a PCQLinux 8.0 work- station with PostgreSQL, JDK 1.4 and Tomcat4
also installed. We’ll assume that your system has JDK 1.4 and Tomcat 4 already
installed and configured properly, for the purpose of OpenNMS.
Refer to
PCQuest September 2002 (or visit
www.pcquest.com/content/search/showarticle.asp?arid=38577&way=search) for
more information on installing Tomcat.
For front-end, it has a
Web-interface that can be accessed through Tomcat from anywhere in the network
To begin installation, you have to first make your PCQLinux 8.0 box
compatible for OpenNMS. For that, first download and install the
packages(rrdtool, sharutils and metamail) one after another from http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/opennms/releases/latest/linux-i386-redhat-8/
to your home directory, and issue the following command.
#rpm –ivh
rrdtool-1.0.35-0.onms.1.i386.rpm
#rpm –ivh sharutils-4.2.1-7.i386.rpm
#rpm
–ivh metamail-2.7-25.i386.rpm
Now check if your PostgreSQL Server is
running or not by the following commands
#/etc/init.d/postgresql
status
They should return “running.” If not, issue the following command
to start it up
#/etc/init.d/postgresql start
Now start your
Tomcat4 up by issuing
#/etc/init.d/tomcat start
Installing
OpenNMS
Known issue
If at the time of installing the
opennms-1.1.1-1 RPM you get an INDENT error, it means that a user other than
‘postgres’ is not allowed to connect to the database as Indent and OpenNMS (the
package) is trying to connect to the database as a new user ‘opennms. So the
easiest way to get around it is by modify the file
“/var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf” and removing the ‘#’ symbol before the
following lines in it
local all trust
host all 127.0.0.1
255.255.255.255 trust
To install it, first download the two files
(opennms-1.1.1-1.i386.rpm and opennms-webapp-1.1.1-1.i386.rpm) from the
above-mentioned site to your home directory. And issue these
commands.
#rpm –ivh opennms-1.1.1-1.i386.rpm
#rpm –ivh
opennms-webapp-1.1.1-1.i386.rpm
It will install OpenNMS and automatically
create the database in the PostgreSQL server.
Running OpenNSM
To run
OpenNMS through Tomcat, you have to create a Context for it. To do so open the
file
/var/tomcat4/conf/server.xm
and add the following lines just
above the “Tomcat Examples Context“
and restart Tomcat with the
command
#/etc/init.d/tomcat4 restart
Now open the file
/opt/OpenNMS/etc/discovery-configuration.xml and add your network range on which
OpenNMS will keep a watch. For example
192.168. 1.1 192. 168.1
.254
and then cd to /opt/ OpenNMS/bin and issue the command to start
OpenNMS
#sh opennms.sh start
Using OpenNMS
To use OpenNMS, open
any browser and type in the address:
127.0.0.1:8080/opennms
in
the address bar and hit enter. You can also access through your Network address
from any other PC in the network. It will prompt you for Authentication. Issue
the Default username and password of OpenNMS (admin/admin) and you will be
directed to the OpenNMS main page. From here onwards, things are
self-explanatory. For more information on OpenNMS visit http://OpenNMS.org
HakimKT
hakimkt@yahoo.com
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