9.6 PATROL Agents support the use of customer overlay configuration files in the lib directory to manage alterations to the config.default file settings. The customer overlay configuration files are named <name>.current where <name> is whichever file name that you want. Any .current configuration files that exist in the lib directory are read after the config.default file and before the pconfig database is read.
Note: Overlay configuration files do not work with /ConfigData rules. These rules should be sent by Central Monitoring Administration only.
Be very careful while deleting and/or disabling policies. When you delete or disable a policy, all corresponding monitored instances on all related managed nodes are immediately marked for deletion. If you have a policy that needs significant editing, and you want to delete that policy, it is best to do the following:
Create a new policy with a lower precedence number that overrides the older policy.
After you have tested, validated, and enabled the new policy in production, delete the old policy.
Use the most descriptive names available when defining instances to a monitor. For example, leverage the “Display name” for monitoring Windows Services instead of the “Service name”. This makes it easier to identify the service in the Infrastructure Management UI.
Use the default setting of the KPI mode for the BMC TrueSight Infrastructure Management Server. Do not disable the KPI mode causing all trended data in the BMC TrueSight Infrastructure Management Server to have baselines calculated for them. This is also recommended for earlier Infrastructure Management versions. This is not as significant an issue with the latest Infrastructure Management if the new Infrastructure Management capability to query BMC PATROL data from the Infrastructure Management UI is leveraged. However, the recommendation must still be observed.
The Agent Query user function in Central Monitoring Administration has two scenarios regarding security. These scenarios also involve different communication channels to the agents and are described as follows:
Seamless access - If the user has the "Allow trusted connections to PATROL Agents" permission, they can access agents through the agent query function without manually logging into the agent. In this scenario, the communication path to the agents from Central Monitoring Administration is through the Agent Controller on the Infrastructure Management Server to the Integration Service node and on to the agent. The communication leverages the existing connection to the agent for policy management.
Agent logon required access – If the user does not have the "Allow trusted connections to PATROL Agents" permission, the Agent Query function requires the user to log into the agent to execute commands. The login screen for this is presented by clicking on the Disconnect button in the Agent Query screen when an authentication error is displayed while executing a command.
Setting up agents and policies for infrastructure monitoring