Owl Monitoring System Manager Installation Manual

7. Owl Manager Commands

The Owl manager has a number of Owl-specific commands required for its operation. This section provides a brief overview of the commands available to it. These are all Perl scripts and have self-contained man pages, which contain greater details about their use. These scripts are intended to run as an unprivileged user.

This section briefly describes the software used on the Owl manager.

• owl-archdata
  This script archives Owl sensor data for all the defined sensors. Old data are moved from the Owl data directory to an archive directory. owl-archdata runs the owl-dataarch-mgr script for each sensor.
  This script is assumed to live in the Owl user's home or bin directory.

• owl-archold
  This script archives previously archived Owl sensor data into monthly archives. A compressed tar file is created that contains the archived data files from a particular month. It should only be run on a particular month's archive after the month has been completed. This script is exactly the same as the owl-archold on the Owl sensor hosts. owl-archold is executed by owl-monthly, but may be used on its own.
  This script is assumed to live in the Owl user's home or bin directory.

• owl-dataarch-mgr
  This script archives Owl sensor data for a single sensor. Old data are moved from the Owl data directory to an archive directory. owl-dataarch-mgr is executed by owl-archdata, but may be used on its own.
  This script is assumed to live in the Owl user's home or bin directory.

• owl-dnswatch
  This script retrieves Owl sensor DNS response data and makes it available to the Nagios monitoring system.
  This script should live in the Nagios libexec directory of plugins.

• owl-initsensor
  This script creates the required directories and heartbeat file when adding a new Owl sensor.
  This script is assumed to live in the Owl user's home or bin directory.

• owl-monthly
  This script archives previously archived Owl sensor data for all the sensors defined for an Owl manager. Compressed tar files are created that contain the archived data files from a particular months, one tar file for each sensor. owl-monthly executes owl-archold to perform the actually archiving.
  This script is assumed to live in the Owl user's home or bin directory.

• owl-newsensor
  This script creates required Nagios objects for a new Owl sensor. The objects to be created are based on the data files from the new sensor that have arrived on the Owl manager.
  This script is assumed to live in the Owl user's home or bin directory.

• owl-perfdata
  This script is translates Owl sensor data from the format provided to Nagios into the format required by the graphing and database software.
  This script should live in the Nagios libexec directory of plugins.

• owl-sensor-heartbeat.cgi
  This script records a "heartbeat" for Owl sensors. When a sensor runs this script (by way of the Owl manager's web server), the time of the execution will be recorded for that sensor.
  This script should live in the cgi-bin directory for either the web server or for Nagios.

• owl-stethoscope
  This script gathers Owl sensor "heartbeat" data and makes it available to the Nagios monitoring system.
  This script should live in the Nagios libexec directory of plugins.

• owl-transfer-mgr
  This script periodically transfers Owl sensor data from the sensor host to the manager host.
  This script is assumed to live in the Owl user's home or bin directory.