bmc impact solutions infrastructure management guide

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BMC Impact SolutionsInfrastructure Management Guide

Supporting

BMC Impact Manager version 7.3 BMC Impact Administration Server 7.3BMC Impact Explorer version 7.3 BMC Impact Portal version 7.3

February 2009

Contacting BMC Software

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United States and Canada

Address BMC SOFTWARE INC2101 CITYWEST BLVDHOUSTON TX 77042-2827 USA

Telephone 713 918 8800 or800 841 2031

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Outside United States and Canada

Telephone (01) 713 918 8800 Fax (01) 713 918 8000

Copyright 20062009 BMC Software, Inc.

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ITIL is a registered trademark, and a registered community trademark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and is used here by BMC Software, Inc., under license from and with the permission of OGC.

Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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Sun, Java, and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc., in the U.S. and several other countries.

UNIX is the registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries.

BMC Software considers information included in this documentation to be proprietary and confidential. Your use of this information is subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable End User License Agreement for the product and the proprietary and restricted rights notices included in this documentation.

Restricted rights legendU.S. Government Restricted Rights to Computer Software. UNPUBLISHED -- RIGHTS RESERVED UNDER THE COPYRIGHT LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES. Use, duplication, or disclosure of any data and computer software by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions, as applicable, set forth in FAR Section 52.227-14, DFARS 252.227-7013, DFARS 252.227-7014, DFARS 252.227-7015, and DFARS 252.227-7025, as amended from time to time. Contractor/Manufacturer is BMC SOFTWARE INC, 2101 CITYWEST BLVD, HOUSTON TX 77042-2827, USA. Any contract notices should be sent to this address.

3Customer support

You can obtain technical support by using the BMC Software Customer Support website or by contacting Customer Support by telephone or e-mail. To expedite your inquiry, see Before contacting BMC.

Support website

You can obtain technical support from BMC 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at http://www.bmc.com/support_home. From this website, you can

read overviews about support services and programs that BMC offers find the most current information about BMC products search a database for issues similar to yours and possible solutions order or download product documentation download products and maintenance report an issue or ask a question subscribe to receive proactive e-mail alerts when new product notices are released find worldwide BMC support center locations and contact information, including e-mail addresses, fax numbers, and

telephone numbers

Support by telephone or e-mail

In the United States and Canada, if you need technical support and do not have access to the web, call 800 537 1813 or send an e-mail message to [email protected]. (In the subject line, enter SupID:, such as SupID:12345). Outside the United States and Canada, contact your local support center for assistance.

Before contacting BMC

Have the following information available so that Customer Support can begin working on your issue immediately:

product information

product name product version (release number) license number and password (trial or permanent)

operating system and environment information

machine type operating system type, version, and service pack or other maintenance level such as PUT or PTF system hardware configuration serial numbers related software (database, application, and communication) including type, version, and service pack or

maintenance level

sequence of events leading to the issue

commands and options that you used

messages received (and the time and date that you received them)

product error messages messages from the operating system, such as file system full messages from related software

4 BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide

ContentsChapter 1 Managing BMC Impact Manager cells 23

General configuration overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Production cells and test cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Cell configuration tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Configuring mcell.conf parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Creating cell-specific configuration files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Configuring event slot propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31About mcell.dir, the cell directory file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Configuring passive connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Configuring slots for time stamping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Configuring encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Reloading cell configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Managing high availability cell servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Automatic failover process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Automatic switchback process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Manually failing over to the secondary server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Manually switching back to the secondary server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Explicitly connecting a CLI to a selected high availability cell server. . . . . . . . . . 47

Monitoring event performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Monitoring client to cell interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49Configuring cell tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Configuring mcell.trace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Configuring a destination for cell trace output. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Sending trace output to another cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53Event processing errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Automatic notification of trace configuration changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Interpreting cell execution failure codes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56Using the BMC IX Administration view to manage cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Connecting or disconnecting a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Viewing cell information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Registering for SIM notification events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Trouble-shooting BMC Impact Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Problem: The cell will not start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Problem: The primary and secondary servers for my high availability cell are in

active mode simultaneously or are unsynchronized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Contents 5

Chapter 2 Managing a Knowledge Base 65

Knowledge Base structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

6About the unified Event Management and Service Impact Management Knowledge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Knowledge Base directory structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Knowledge Base index files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Managing a Knowledge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70Integrating a unified KB with pre-7.2 cell definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70Creating a new production or test Knowledge Basemcrtcell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Importing Knowledge Base information into a cellmkb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Compiling a Knowledge Basemccomp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Loading a Knowledge Base into a running cellmcontrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72Implementing changes to a Knowledge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72Versioning a Knowledge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72Retrieving KB version information in rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Retrieving KB version information by using a commandmgetinfo . . . . . . . . . . 74

Chapter 3 Managing the BMC Impact Administration server 77

Configuration files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78Command line interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78Impact Administration cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80How to configure BMC Impact Administration server files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Guidelines for manual edits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Users, groups, roles, and permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Defining permissions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83Full Access role permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86Adding customized role/permission mappings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87Defining group roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88File-based authentication: updating user information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91Adding role names to the cells KB definition files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Receiving synchronized data from the BMC Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Synchronizing cell information with BMC Atrium CMDB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95Updating cell information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96Editing logging properties for IAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Defining client logging for the iadmin script. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Customizing colors for severities, statuses, and priorities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99IAS Status Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Customizing the IAS thread pool handling IAS Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Defining standalone, primary, and secondary BMC Impact Administration

servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101Defining a failover configuration for the Impact Administration cell . . . . . . . . . 105

Transaction and trace logs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106Example trace output. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Advanced tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106Configuring BMC Impact Administration server to support remote actions. . . 107Configuring Lightweight Directory Access Protocol for BMC Impact

Administration server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Problem: Cell_info.list synchronization error during manual configuration of an IAS failover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Administration Guide

Chapter 4 Managing the BMC Impact Portal 121

Accessing the BMC Impact Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122Starting and stopping the BMC Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Starting and stopping the BMC Portal on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123Starting and stopping the BMC Portal on UNIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Configuration tasks for BMC Impact Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124Registering production and test cells in the BMC Impact Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124Customizing BMC Impact Portal configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124Configuring Dashboard Table View columns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124Configuring Events Table columns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Configuring Status Table columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126Configuring object link synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Configuring reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Configuring the number of events displayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129Changing the maximum number of recent items displayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130Configuring the general properties displayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130Setting up Image Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131Modifying connection settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Configuration file and parameter definitions for BMC Impact Portal. . . . . . . . . . . . 132smsIwc/application.properties file and parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133smsConsoleServer/application.properties file and parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134internal.properties file and parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Chapter 5 Working with Infrastructure Management 139

Default Infrastructure Management service model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Roles and permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Walkthrough. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142Displaying the out-of-the-box real-time service model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142Sampling context-sensitive information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144Managing files on remote systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Packaging support files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146Launching remote actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Common Infrastructure Management tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149Navigating the interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150Displaying and understanding the Details and Administer tab data . . . . . . . . . 152Editing infrastructure relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156Creating logical components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157Deleting components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158Usage reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159Executing remote actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160Reloading cell configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163Forcing event propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164Collecting metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Executing other actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Configuring the audit log. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Creating the support package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Background to Infrastructure Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172How a product component registers and communicates with the IAC . . . . . . . 172Contents 7

8Registering a cell with the Admin cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172Recreating an Admin cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173Unregistering with the IAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174Remote actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Chapter 6 Managing the BMC Impact Explorer (BMC IX) console 177

Defining property files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178Selecting a single BMC IX instance for cross- and web-launching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179Defining console-wide policy files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179Configuring display and connection settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183Defining global event severity and priority color values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184Event group configuration files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185XML files that define user interface elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Chapter 7 Defining presentation names 187

Presentation names overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188Presentation name resource file locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188Default presentation name definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189Creating a new presentation name resource file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190Presentation name resource files search order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Defining presentation names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192Creating or modifying presentation name keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192Digitally signing a .jar file with a digital test certificate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Enabling or disabling presentation names inBMC Impact Explorer tool tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Chapter 8 Configuring StateBuilder and gateways 197

Understanding the StateBuilder and gateways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198StateBuilder configuration file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199statbld return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199Gateway configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Exporting events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205Modifying a statbld.conf file to export events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205Modifying a gateway.export file to export events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Configuring tracing for StateBuilder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207Trouble-shooting the StateBuilder process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Appendix A BMC SIM and EM CLI Reference 209

BMC Impact Manager CLI commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210BMC Impact Manager CLI common command options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211Configuring CLI authentication through BMC Impact Administration Server . 212BMC Impact Manager CLI common return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213mccompCompiling rules in the Knowledge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214mcellStarting a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216mcfgtraceConfiguring tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218mclassinfoRequesting class information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220mcollinfoGetting information about a specific collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Administration Guide

mcontrolPerforming cell control operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228mcrtcellCreating a new cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231mcstatReturning cell status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235mdelcellDeleting a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237mgetinfoRetrieving information about a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238mgetrecObtaining a global record value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243mkbUpdating the Knowledge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245mkillStopping a cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248mlogchkPerforming consistency checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249mposter and msendManaging data and events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251mqueryRetrieving objects from a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257mrecoverRecovering from a catastrophic data loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262mrextractExtracting cell state files to create new state files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264mrmergeMerging event objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265msetmsgModifying an event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267msetrecSetting the value of a global record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268BMC Impact Manager CLI configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269Configuring tracing for BMC Impact Manager CLI commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272BMC Impact Manager CLI trace configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Appendix B mcell.conf file parameters 273

Action result event parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274Cell configuration parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274Cell failover configuration parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276Client communication parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278Encryption parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280Event repository cleanup parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Event cleanup process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283Heartbeat parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284Internal cell monitor parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287KB parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287Propagation parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Deprecated MessageBuffer propagation parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290Reporting client connection parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291Service model parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292State Builder parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292Trace parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Index 297Contents 9

10 BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Administration Guide

FiguresConnectionPortRange syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Distributed event management using event propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Format of an entry in the mcell.dir file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Example of the mcell.dir file and its entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Passive connection format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Data object specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37mcell.modify file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Masking syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Format of configuration line in mcell.trace file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Knowledge Base directory structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Output from mgetinfo kbsources argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75Relation among users, groups, roles, and permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Excerpt from ldap_configuration.xml file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111Default Infrastructure Management service model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140Infrastructure Management navigation pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143Default service model BMC Impact Solutions (with active services) . . . . . . . . . . . . 144Edit Relationships dialog with Edit This Relationship subdialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156Actions right-click menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160High availability (HA) view: two cell servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161Actions right-click menu for OVO adapter cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162default.econ.config file contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178Operator.econ.config file contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178Default policy file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181Listing of the contents of a keystore file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195Parameters used to print event in BAROC format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204Example of printed events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204Command to configure the export file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205gateway.export file format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206gateway.explore file output for new events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206gateway.explore file output for modified events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207mccomp syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214mccomp example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215Example output for mccomp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215mcell syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216Starting a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Figures 11

Starting a cell as a service on windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217Starting the BMC Impact Manager service on Microsoft Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217mcfgtrace syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219mcfgtrace example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219mclassinfo syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

12Raw output format for mclassinfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221Class tree for mclassinfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221Example of mclassinfo command for a list of classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223Example output of mclassinfo command for a list of classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223Example of mclassinfo command for list of classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223Example of mclassinfo command output for list of classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223Example of mclassinfo command for adding slot names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224Example of mclassinfo command output for adding slot names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224Example of mclassinfo command for adding slot flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224Example of mclassinfo command output for adding slot flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224mcollinfo syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225Raw output format for mcollinfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226mcollinfo example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227mcollinfo command for verbose mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227mcollinfo command for number of events for severity/status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227mcontrol syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228Retrying Pending propagations with mcontrol command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230Example of mcontrol command output for retrying pending propagations . . . . . . 230Terminating a cell using the mcontrol command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230Example of mcontrol command output for terminating a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231Reconfiguring a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231Example of mcontrol command output for reconfiguring a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231mcrtcell syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233Example of mcrtcell command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234Example of output of mcrtcell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234Example of mcrtcell command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234Example output of mcrtcell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234Example mcrtcell for recreating an Admin cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235mcstat syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236mcstat example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236Message for cell not running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236Message for cell running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236mdelcell syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237Deleting a cell using mdelcell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237Output for mdelcell if cell is not running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237Output for mdelcell if cell is running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238mgetinfo syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238Example of mgetinfo param . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242mgetinfo param command output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242Example of mgetinfo services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242mgetinfo services command output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242Example of mgetinfo services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243Output of mgetinfo connect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243mgetrec syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244Example of mgetrec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244Output of mgetrec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244mkb syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245mkb command on UNIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247mkb output on UNIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide

mkb command on Microsoft Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248mkb command output on Microsoft Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248mkill syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248Example of mkill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249Output of mkill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249mlogchk syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250Example of mlogchk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250Output of mlogchk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250mlogchk message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251mposter syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252msend syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252Example of mposter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254Definition changes using mposter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255Enabling persistent buffering using mposter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255Error message if buffers files are not writable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256mquery syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257Example of raw output specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258Verbose mode options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258End of form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259Special BAROC format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259Example of mquerySelect events with severity status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261Example of mquerySelect events from collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261Deleting events using mquery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261mrecover syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263Fixing a broken cell using mrecover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263mrextract syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264Example of mrextract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264mrmerge syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265Example of mrmerge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266msetmsg syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267msetrec syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268Example of msetrec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269command to send tracing output to text file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272Example of Heartbeat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285Figures 13

TablesBMC Impact Solutions configuration process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Cell configuration tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Substitution parameters for %X in path value parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Default mcell.propagate options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32IP Address parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Files for cell reconfiguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43MC_CELL_METRIC slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Default values for client parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49MC_CELL_CLIENT slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50MC_CELL_MODIFIED_EVENT slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Trace configuration file parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51MC_CELL_PROCESS_ERROR slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56BMC Impact Manager exit codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57SIM_NOTIFICATION_REGISTRY dialog box fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61Knowledge Base subdirectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Knowledge Base file extensions and directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69Configurable IAS files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78iadmin options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79BMC Impact Explorer user group mapping to functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83Groups and roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Cell entry format in cell_info.list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96Server logging properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98IAS status monitoring properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100IAS thread pool properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100IAS synchronization properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103mcell.dir entries for a failover pair of Impact Administration cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105IAS log files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106LDAP configuration parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111Event operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117Event Table column default values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Status table column default values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126Report parameters (application.properties file) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128Report parameters (internal.properties) file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129application.properties file in smsIwc directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133application.properties file in smsConsoleServer directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Tables 15

aggregator.properties file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136internal.properties file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136Supported application groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140Icon listing for infrastructure management model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150Slot values: Details: General subtab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

16Edit Relationship dialog: field descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156Edit This Relationship subdialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157Audit log parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166Audit log IAS properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168Slots for specifying support files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170run_state values for components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174Component state and menu options for a normal or primary cell in a high

availability configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175Component state and menu options for a secondary cell in a high availability

configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175Components and actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176default.console_policy.prop parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180Property descriptions from ix.properties file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183Event severity levels and colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184Event priority levels and colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185Event group configuration files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185xml files that define user interface elements in BMC IX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186Presentation names for BMC Impact Solution interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188Presentation name key formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192StateBuilder file name conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198statbld.conf Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199statbld return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199Gateway configuration parameter predefined variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201Gateway Configuration Parameter Text Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201gateway.export file parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202BMC Impact Manager CLI command descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210Common options for CLI commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211Common return codes for CLI commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214mccomp options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215mcell options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216mcell return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218mcfgtrace option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219mcfgtrace parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219mclassinfo options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220Type of slot value for mclassinfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221Reported facets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222Class flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222Information amount limitation options for mclassinfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222mclassinfo return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225mcollinfo options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225Information amount limitation options for mcollinfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227mcollinfo return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228mcontrol option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228mcontrol controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229Files for UNIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233mcrtcell options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233mcrtcell return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235mcstat option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236mdelcell options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide

mdelcell return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238mgetinfo option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239mgetinfo information options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239Information from connect request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240mgetinfo return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243mgetrec option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244mkb options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245mkb new file options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246mkill option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249mlogchk return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251mposter and msend options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252mposter and msend return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257mquery options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257mquery query options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260mquery return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262mrecover option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263mrecover return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263mrextract options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264mrextract return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265mrmerge options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266mrmerge return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266msetmsg options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267msetmsg return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268msetrec options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268msetrec return codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269BMC Impact Manager CLI configuration parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270Action result event parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274Cell configuration parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274Cell failover configuration parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276Client communication parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278Date and time format parameters for Solaris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279Encryption parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280Event Repository cleanup parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281Heartbeat parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284Heartbeat slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286Internal cell monitors parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287KB parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287Propagation parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288Deprecated MessageBuffer propagation parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290Reporting client connection parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Service model parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292State Builder parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292Cell tracing parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293Tables 17

1 McC h a p t e r 1anaging BMC Impact Manager

ellsThis chapter describes how to manage and configure BMC Impact Manager cells.

General configuration overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Cell configuration tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Configuring mcell.conf parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Configuring event slot propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Configuring passive connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Configuring slots for time stamping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Configuring encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Reloading cell configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Managing high availability cell servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Manually failing over to the secondary server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Manually switching back to the secondary server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Automatic failover process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Automatic switchback process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Explicitly connecting a CLI to a selected high availability cell server. . . . . . . . . . 47

Monitoring event performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Monitoring client to cell interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49Configuring cell tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Configuring mcell.trace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Configuring a destination for cell trace output. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Sending trace output to another cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53Event processing errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Automatic notification of trace configuration changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Interpreting cell execution failure codes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56Chapter 1 Managing BMC Impact Manager cells 23

Using the BMC IX Administration view to manage cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Connecting or disconnecting a cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Viewing cell information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Registering for SIM notification events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Trouble-shooting BMC Impact Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Problem: The cell will not start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Problem: The primary and secondary servers for my high availability cell are in

active mode simultaneously or are unsynchronized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

General configuration overview

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8eneral configuration overviewTo configure the BMC Impact Solutions environment, you configure the following components after installation:

BMC Impact Manager cell BMC Impact Explorer BMC Impact Portal

Table 1 outlines the tasks that configure these components.

After you configure BMC Impact Manager, BMC Impact Portal, and BMC Impact Explorer, you are ready to implement event management and service impact management. For information, consult the following resources:

ble 1 BMC Impact Solutions configuration process

sk Description Component For more information, see

(optional) Configure the BMC Impact Portal. BMC Impact Portal Chapter 4, Managing the BMC Impact Portal

BMC Portal Getting Started

Configure BMC Impact Manager cells. BMC Impact Manager Chapter 1, Managing BMC Impact Manager cells

Define user groups for access to the console functions and objects.

BMC Impact Administration Server

Chapter 3, Managing the BMC Impact Administration server

Distribute the BMC Portal URL address so users can install consoles.

BMC Impact Explorer can be deployed as a Java Web Start application from BMC Impact Portal or installed standalone.

BMC Impact Portal BMC Impact Explorer BMC Impact Service

Model Editor

BMC Portal Getting Started

BMC Impact Solutions Installation Guide

(optional) Customize BMC Impact Portal. BMC Impact Portal Chapter 4, Managing the BMC Impact Portal

(optional) Customize BMC Impact Explorer. BMC Impact Explorer Chapter 6, Managing the BMC Impact Explorer (BMC IX) console

(optional) Configure the StateBuilder, which manages the persistent storage of events.

BMC Impact Manager Chapter 8, Configuring StateBuilder and gateways

(optional) Customize the labels used in the console interfaces.

BMC Impact Portal BMC Impact Manager BMC Impact Service

Model Editor

Chapter 7, Defining presentation namesBMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide

Production cells and test cells

P Event management

For information about setting up adapters to collect events, see the BMC Impact Event Adapters User Guide.

For information about setting up dynamic data, policies, event groups, and image views, see the BMC Impact Solutions Event Management Guide.

For information about defining event data, writing event management rules, defining collectors, or creating actions, see the BMC Impact Solutions Event Management Guide.

Service impact management

For information about monitoring service impact management, see BMC Impact Solutions Service Impact Management Guide.

For information about defining service models, see the BMC Impact Solutions Service Modeling and Publishing Guide.

roduction cells and test cells

A production cell is an EM or SIM cell that service operators and service managers use to monitor the events and services associated with your IT resources in real time.

A test EM or SIM cell provides senior service managers and service administrators with a test environment in the following ways:

SIM cell

Enables publishing of service models from a development sandbox to a test environment before promoting them to a production environment. Each BMC Impact Service Model Editor user has one dedicated test environment, which consists of a pair of test CMDB data sets and an alias to a test cell. Promoted service model components include those in a users sandbox and in production. For details about test environments and promotion, see the BMC Impact Solutions Service Modeling and Publishing Guide.

EM cell

For event management, a test cell provides KB developers with a test environment for defining event classes, event management rules, policies, actions, and collectors and testing their behavior with test event data.

BMC Impact Portal does not collect events from test cells for reporting. Chapter 1 Managing BMC Impact Manager cells 25

Production cells and test cells

26Production and test cell naming and creation

The only way to distinguish a test cell from a production cell is by the cell name. Adopt a naming convention for test and production cells that clearly identifies its purpose.

You name a cell when it is created. One cell is created with each BMC Impact Manager instance that you install. You use the mcrtcell command to create additional production or test cells. The mcrtcell command can only be run on the local computer where the cell is being created. For more information about syntax and options available with mcrtcell, see mcrtcellCreating a new cell on page 231.

Production and test cell configuration

You register test and production cells in BMC Impact Portal. For instructions, see Registering production and test cells in the BMC Impact Portal on page 124.

In BMC Impact Service Model Editor, each user associates a test cell to a test environment. For further information, see BMC Impact Solutions Service Modeling and Publishing Guide.

In BMC Impact Explorer, assign the production and test cells to a group. The default groups are MyTest and MyProduction.

Viewing test cell data

You view test data in BMC Impact Explorer.

To view test event data, collectors, and actions, select a test cell in the Events view.

To view and create test event management policies, select a test cell in the Administration view.

To view test service model components, use the Find tool in the Services view and select a test cell. BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide

Cell configuration tasks

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9ell configuration tasksThe more you customize your cell to fit your needs, the more efficiently the cell works. All configuration tasks are optional. Table 2 describes the cell configuration tasks.

ble 2 Cell configuration tasks

sk Description For more information, see

Create additional cells.

When you install BMC Impact Manager on a system, one cell is installed. You can create additional cells by running the mcrtcell command.

mcrtcellCreating a new cell on page 231

If you created multiple cells for an environment, you can create separate configuration files for each cell.

Creating cell-specific configuration files on page 30

If you created multiple cells for an environment, configure the cells so that they can communicate with other cells in the network.

BMC Impact Solutions Getting Started Guide

If you created multiple cells for an environment, configure a high availability cell or cells.

BMC Impact Solutions Getting Started Guide

Managing high availability cell servers on page 44

Events can be processed locally or selectively propagated to other cells. To configure the event slots that must be propagated when they are changed configure the propagation configuration file.

Configuring event slot propagation on page 31

If inbound connections to the cell are disallowed in a protected environment, the connection has to be established within the protected zone to allow a connection between an external client and a cell in the protected zone.

Configuring passive connections on page 36

To add a time stamp to a slot so that the date and time is recorded when the slot is changed, configure the mcell.modify file.

Configuring slots for time stamping on page 37

If desired, you can encrypt communication among the various BMC Impact Solutions components.

Configuring encryption on page 38

Set the default client parameters executing CLI commands. BMC Impact Manager CLI configuration on page 269Chapter 1 Managing BMC Impact Manager cells 27

Configuring mcell.conf parameters

28

Configuring mcell.conf parameters

The mcell.conf configuration file installed with the cell allows it to run without any additional configuration. You can change the configuration parameters in the mcell.conf file to customize the cell for your particular IT infrastructure and environment. You can override some parameters using command line arguments when you start the cell. For more information, see mcellStarting a cell on page 216.

To configure the mcell.conf file using a text editor

1 Open the mcell.conf file in a text editor.

The default location is MCELL_HOME\etc.

2 Create line entries using the format Parameter=Value based on the syntax rules described in Rules for cell configuration parameter syntax.

3 Save the changes.

4 Either reload the cell configuration or restart the cell for the changes to go into effect. For more information, see Reloading cell configuration on page 43.

Rules for cell configuration parameter syntax

One parameter per line, in the form: Parameter=Valuewhere the Value extends to the end of the line

Typically, the value for a parameter is a Boolean value, a string, or a path. The supported Boolean values are Yes/No and On/Off.

The Boolean values are not case sensitive, so, for example, On, ON, on, and even oN are equally valid.

Do not enclose the value in quotation marks unless you want the quotation marks to be part of the value.

Times are stated in seconds unless otherwise specified.

By default, all parameter settings are disabled, that is, commented out with a # sign at the beginning of the line of code. Enable a parameter setting by removing the # sign that precedes it.

For more information on cell configuration parameters, see Appendix B, mcell.conf file parameters.BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide

Configuring mcell.conf parametersSpecification of path values

Parameters that have path values contain the string fileName or dirName, for example TraceConfigFileName or SystemLogDirName.

Path values can be stated as:

absolute pathstarts with slash (/) or backslash (\), or on Windows, with a drive designator (for example, D:)

runtime relative pathstarts with ./ or ../. The path is relative from the cells working directory. The working directory is the root directory (/) when it runs as a daemon or a service. When running in foreground, it is the directory where mcell is started.

configuration relative pathall other path values are relative from the cells configuration directory, or, for program paths, from the kb\bin directory.

Path values can contain the substitution parameters $VAR or %X. Any $VAR parameter is substituted by the value of the environment variable VAR. Table 3 lists the possible %X substitution parameters.

Modifying SystemLogDirName, SystemTmpDirName, and KBDirName

With the cell configuration parameters SystemLogDirName and SystemTmpDirName, users can specify alternative path locations for the system defined log and tmp directories. Their default values are %H/log and %H/tmp. To enable file name specifications that refer to these alternative locations, use the substitution parameters %L for the log and %T for the tmp directory. They are substituted by the specified path to the log and tmp directory, respectively.

Table 3 Substitution parameters for %X in path value parameters

Parameter Description

%H cell home directory

%C cell configuration directory

%B Knowledge Base binary directory, kb\bin

%L log file directory

%T temporary file directory

%P program name

%N cell nameChapter 1 Managing BMC Impact Manager cells 29

Creating cell-specific configuration files

30

CIf you change the default value for the SystemLogDirName parameter or the KBDirName parameter in the mcell.conf file, you must also change the value in the statbld.conf file. If you fail to do this, the cell loses persistency and the mcdb file is not created, because the StateBuilder is configured from statbld.conf file and has no input from the mcell.conf file. As a result, StateBuilder does not know where to find the log files or the KB directory it requires.

ConnectionPortRange syntax

Figure 1 shows the syntax of ConnectionPortRange.

A range is a number of sequences, each of which is a consecutive range of ports. The cell attempts to access all ports in the specified order. The default is to use any of the ephemeral ports.

For example,

18281840 specifies a range of ports 1828 through 1840 1828, 1829, 1840 specifies the sequence of ports 1828, 1829, and 1840

reating cell-specific configuration files

By default, one set of configuration files is installed during installation of the BMC Impact Manager. These files are located in the MCELL_HOME\etc directory and multiple cells on a host can use them. You can also create unique configuration files for individual instances (cells) as needed.

To create cell-specific configuration files

1 Copy the configuration file that you want to be unique to the MCELL_HOME\etc\cellName directory. cellName represents the name of the cell.

2 Using a text editor, edit the configuration file and customize it for that cell and save it.

You can copy and edit any configuration file located in the MCELL_HOME\etc directory.

3 Either reload the cell configuration or stop and start the cell so that the changes take affect.

Figure 1 ConnectionPortRange syntax

PortRange = PortSequence{, PortSequence}PortSequence = Port[-Port]BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide

Configuring event slot propagation

CWhen a cell starts, it searches for configuration files in the MCELL_HOME\etc\cellName directory. If no configuration file is found, the cell uses the configuration file in the MCELL_HOME\etc directory. For example, if you copy the mcell.conf file into the MCELL_HOME\etc\cellName directory and modify it, the cell reads that mcell.conf file and all other files in the MCELL_HOME\etc directory.

All cells use the following cell-specific directories:

$MCELL_HOME/etc/CellName contains cell-specific configurations (including the Knowledge Base)

$MCELL_HOME/log/CellName contains the cell transaction logs and persistent state of the cell

$MCELL_HOME/tmp/CellName contains the cells temporary files

High availability cells use the cell-specific directories, but the names of the log and tmp directories are suffixed with # followed by the server number, 1 for the primary server and 2 for the secondary server. The names become:

$MCELL_HOME/log/CellName#1 $MCELL_HOME/log/CellName#2 $MCELL_HOME/tmp/CellName#1 $MCELL_HOME/tmp/CellName#2

onfiguring event slot propagation

Events can be processed locally or selectively propagated to other cells. To configure the event slots that must be propagated when they are changed, and in which direction (forward/backward), you configure the propagation configuration file mcell.propagate. The mcell.propagate file lists all of the slots whose modifications will be propagated.

In addition, using the BMC Impact Solutions gateways, events can be propagated to a third-party program in a specific format that is described in a gateway configuration file, gateway.GWType.

The default location for these files is MCELL_HOME\etc.

When an event has been propagated to a destination and that event is later modified, the modifications are then propagated to the same destination. The event can be propagated through a Propagate rule. If the destination is a gateway, gateway configuration rules also apply.Chapter 1 Managing BMC Impact Manager cells 31


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stFor the mcell.propagate file to be effective, one or more Propagate rules must be running. For information about Propagate rules, see the BMC Impact Solutions Knowledge Base Development Reference Guide.

The format is Slotname = Value, where:

Slotname = slot name or CLASS for class-specific slots

Value = sequence of { b = backward f = forward }

You can specify a slot in the base CORE_EVENT class. However, if you want to specify a slot outside those in the base CORE_EVENT class you must use the CLASS specifier, which means that all class-specific slots are propagated in the direction given.

Table 4 on page 32 lists the parameters in the mcell.propagate file and the defaults.

If you have multiple instances of BMC Impact Manager installed, you might want to use event propagation to distribute the event processing load among the cells or to back up events on another cell for failover.

Figure 2 on page 33 illustrates a cell network that is collecting and processing numerous events in a distributed environment.

ble 4 Default mcell.propagate options

rameter Action PerformedDefault Values

ministrator propagates administrator value changes up (forward) within the cell hierarchy f

ASS propagates changes to the class-specific slots up (forward) within the cell hierarchy

f

_modhist propagates changes to the mc_modhist up (forward) within the cell hierarchy

This is a system defined slot that requires such propagation.

f

_notes propagates changes to notes attached to an event up (forward) within the cell hierarchy

f

peat_count propagates changes to repeat_count up (forward) within the cell hierarchy f

verity propagates severity value changes up (forward) within the cell hierarchy f

atus propagates status value changes in both directions, backward and forward, in the cell hierarchy

bfBMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide


Figure 2 Distributed event management using event propagation

In this illustration, the lower-level cells process the source events and then propagate (or forward) the events on to higher-level cells according to a Propagate rule or an Event Propagation policy. As events pass through a series of cells, the cells discard unneeded events, identify and leave behind unimportant events, and resolve some of the problems reported by other events.

To enable event propagation, perform the following tasks:

enable cell-to-cell communication in mcell.dir configure propagation parameters in mcell.conf specify the slots whose modification has to propagate in mcell.propagate either write a Propagate rule or define an Event Propagation policy

How unpropagated events are buffered

When the cell is started, the buffers are set to a minimum workable size. The default minimum size is 5000 events for each destination buffer and 5000 requests for the propagation buffer.

event sources

event sources

event sources

event sources

Some events are propagatedfor management by other cellsin the cell network.

cell

cellcell

cell

cellcell

cellChapter 1 Managing BMC Impact Manager cells 33

About mcell.dir, the cell directory file

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########If the cell cannot propagate events, the cell stores the events to be propagated in the destination buffers and the requests for propagation of those events in the propagation buffer. When the buffers become full, the cell automatically expands the buffer size by a specified percentage (10 percent, by default), unless the buffer has exceeded a maximum size. By default, the maximum buffer size is unlimited, although the practical limit of the buffer size is the amount of available memory. Once the maximum defined buffer size is reached, additional requests will fail.

When automatic expansion occurs, an MC_CELL_RESOURCE_EXPANSION event is generated.

An expanded buffer will contain free space after propagation has resumed. To free memory resources, the buffer will be reduced when it contains more than the specified amount of free space. Reduction will leave enough free space to avoid the need for an immediate expansion. The buffer will never be reduced below the specified minimum size. When the buffer is reduced, an MC_CELL_RESOURCE_REDUCTION event is generated.

Parameters controlling the buffer size are located in the mcell.conf file. For information on configuring these parameters, see Propagation parameters on page 288.

bout mcell.dir, the cell directory file

The mcell.dir file is created during product installation. It acts as the cell directory file, contains the list of cells, the BMC Impact Portal, Impact Administration Servers, and gateways known on a specific computer. Upon startup, the cell reads the mcell.dir file and associates itself with the appropriate name, encryption key (if encryption is enabled), address information, and port number. In addition, it reads this information for the other cells to which it connects and for the BMC Impact Portal.

The mcell.dir file for a cell has an entry for each cell and the BMC Impact Portal to which the cell connect. Figure 3 shows the format of an entry. Figure 3 on page 34 shows an example mcell.dir entry.

ure 3 Format of an entry in the mcell.dir file

# One line per component : = cell | gateway.type

cell ComponentName EncryptionKey Host/1828 gateway.portal bip.fullyqualifiedHostName EncryptionKey Host/3783 admin ImpactAdministrationServerName UserID/Password Host/3084BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide

About mcell.dir, the cell directory file

A

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IP

Fig

#####ccgacEach parameter in the file is defined as follows:

Example of the mcell.dir file

Figure 4 shows an example of the mcell.dir file with typical component entries.

Conventions for mcell.dir file entries

The following conventions apply when creating entries for the mcell.dir file:

Cells may be grouped into separate cell files readable only by certain users or groups (domains).

ttribute Description

ype type of component. It can be cell BMC Impact Manager cell name gateway.typeGateway of type type gateway.jServer - predefined jServer gateway type gateway.portal - BMC Impact Portal admin - named Impact Administration Server (IAS)

ame Name is an abstract name for the component. Component names are not case-sensitive and may be any alphanumeric string, including underscores (_).

A Portal name is, by convention, the fully qualified host name of the Portal host, prefixed with bip.

ncryptionKey String to be used as part of the key for the encryption of the communication between a cell and the component. Default value is 0 (zero).

Note: If the string has an odd number of characters, the last character is ignored.

For an IAS component, the string must have the form UserID/Password, or be 0. If the value is non-zero, the indicated UserId and Password are used as IAS login credentials.

Address/Port Host name or IP address and port number on which the component is listening. Default port number for a cell is 1828 and for a Portal is 3783.

ure 4 Example of the mcell.dir file and its entries

# One line per component : = cell | gateway.type

ell bos-71 mc bos-71/1828ell local mc 127.0.0.1/1828ateway.portal bip.bos-71.amc.com mc bos-71/3783dmin ias1 Mac/FreeAI1 bos-71/3084ell sim1 mc pprod001:1828 bprod001:1828Chapter 1 Managing BMC Impact Manager cells 35

Configuring passive connections

36

C A cell must be configured to communicate with, at a minimum, the cells to which it propagates events. A cell does not need to be configured to communicate with the cell from which it receives events, even for backward propagation.

The mcell.dir file may define any number of entries, but each entry must be on a separate line.

You can place mcell.dir files on remote mountable partitions or distribute them using rdist, tftp, or any other distribution mechanism.

onfiguring passive connections

If inbound connections to the cell are disallowed in a protected environment, the connection has to be established within the protected zone to allow a connection between an external client and a cell in the protected zone. To connect to the cell, the client issues a passive connection; that is, it waits until the cell establishes the connection to the client.

Configuring the client for passive connections

On the client side, the mcell.dir file has to indicate that the destination cell is located in an isolated protected zone.

To configure the client for passive connections

1 Open the mcell.dir file in a text editor.

The default location is MCELL_HOME\etc.

2 For the destination cell, replace Host:Port with 0 as shown in Figure 5.

3 Save the changes.

4 Either reload the cell configuration or stop and start the cell.

NOTE A passive connection is only possible with the server type clients, such as the cell and gateway clients.

Figure 5 Passive connection format

cell cellName EncryptionKey 0BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Management Guide

Configuring slots for time stamping

CWhen a cell or gateway client needs to connect to an isolated destination cell, it cannot establish a connection because it does not have the IP address and port number of the cell. Instead, the cell or gateway client registers the destination and waits for a connection from it.

Configuring a cell for passive connections

On the cell side, an indication is needed that a client could be waiting on a connection.

To configure a cell for passive connections

To configure a cell for passive connection, you must create a data object and specify how to

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