OpenNMS

In todays Networked world, managing each and every Single Nodes in a Network,

manually is very difficult and tedious task for a Network Administrator. So to

automate these processes many company entered the Arena and developed verity of

Network Management Solutions(NMS). Like IBM Tivoli, HP OpenView, etc. But

generally these Solutions are so costly that they are mostly adapted by Huge

companies. But lets suppose a Medium company having a few hundred computers but

with a very complex infrastructure. like

ours in Labs J.

What to do? Yes! A search

for an open source alternative (OpenNMS) will do the trick.

OpenNMS is a Linux based Open Source

Network Management Solution which basically works on SNMP(Simple Network

Management Protocol) to trace and check the performance of a given group of

nodes like network devices(Routers, Switches, etc) and PCs in a network and

actively monitor and acknowledge services provided over the Network. This

package is written almost in JAVA and it uses XML to store the configuration

data. Which makes it very portable. It has a Web Interface as a front end which

can be accessed through tomcat to be used from anywhere in the network.

Now Lets Take a Look On

Installation process.



We have Tested OpenNMS in PCQLinux 8.0 Workstation with PostgreSQL,

JDK 1.4 and tomcat4 Installed Additionally

We assume that your system has JDK 1.4 and Tomcat 4 installed and configured

properly. For more information on tomcat Installation refer to PCQuest issue of

September 2002 or visit on

https://www.pcquest.com/content/search/showarticle.asp?arid=38577&way=search

To begin with the installation you have to first make your PCQLinux 8.0 box

compatible for OpenNMS. To do so first download and install the packages(rrdtool,

sharutils and metamail) one by one 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 that your PostgreSQL Server are running or not by the following

commands

#/etc/init.d/postgresql

status 

They should return running. If not then issue the following commands

to start it up

#/etc/init.d/postgresql

start

Now start your tomcat4 up. To do so run

#/etc/init.d/tomcat

start

installing OpenNMS. 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 automatically create the database in PostgreSQL server.

Box Item starts

---------------à

Known issue with

OpenNMS:  if at the time of

installing the opennms-1.1.1-1 RPM you get an INDENT error, it means that the

user other than ‘postgres’ is not allowed to connect to the database as

Indent and opennms is trying to connect to the database with 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

Box Item Closed

---------------------à

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.xml 

and add the following lines gust above  the

“Tomcat Examples Context“

  debug="0"

reloadable="true"

crossContext="true">

className="org.opennms.web.authenticate.OpenNMSTomcatRealm"

homeDir="/opt/OpenNMS/"

/>

and restart tomcat by this 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

retries="2" timeout="3000">

         

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

Useing OpenNMS



To use OpenNMS Open any browser and type in the address 127.0.0.1:8080/opennms
(you can also access through your Network Address from any other PC in the

network) In the address bar and hit enter. It will prompt you for

Authentication. Issue the Difault Username and password of OpenNMS (admin/admin)

and you will be directed  to

the OpenNMS main page. From here everything is self describing so that you can

very easily work on it. For more information on OpenNMS visit http://OpenNMS.org/