How to Use PSL in PATROL
Knowledge Module developers and advanced users use PSL to extend the PATROL management environment. The PSL scripts that you create are sent to the appropriate PATROL Agents where they are stored and used.
The following topics briefly describe typical uses of PSL scripts.
Complex Application Discovery
You could write a PSL script (called a discovery script) to identify all available printers and their status. The PSL script can cause appropriate icons to be displayed by the PATROL console.
Typical PSL discovery scripts include RDBMS discovery, file system discovery, and so on.
Advanced User Commands
PATROL provides menus for all managed objects. PSL can be used to allow the stored commands on these menus to perform complex tasks. For example, a typical PSL command on a computer icon can produce a report on CPU usage or allow the administrator to add a user.
Efficient Monitoring Parameters
PSL parameters can analyze and manipulate host information. These parameters generate extra processes on a managed computer.
For example, you can use a PSL parameter to run a command such as the Unix sar command that returns a multitude of data. You can then break these data down into many different values that can be passed on to other parameters to be displayed. The parameter that gathers the data is called a collector_,_ and the parameters that display the values are called consumers.
By using a collector parameter to run the sar command just once, collect its output, and then pass the many values to the various consumer parameters, you can avoid executing the sar command numerous times to get each parameter value. This practice conserves valuable operating system resources.
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