Monitor script output on Collection Agent

You can create a data collector for monitoring data that is generated as a result of running a script on the remote computer.

You cannot use this data collector to collect data that is generated as a result of running the binary files (or executable files). For example, .exe files on the Windows platform.

Recommendation

BMC recommends that you do not use scripts with infinite loops and provide a timeout duration so that you do not face issues with data collection.

Related topics

Where to find more information

Managing-data-collectors

Known and corrected issues

To configure script output as a data collector

  1. Navigate to Administration > Data Collectors > Add Data Collector Plus icon.jpg.
  2. In the Name box, provide a unique name to identify this data collector.

  3. From the Type list, select Monitor Script Output on Collection Agent.
    Provide the following information, as appropriate:

     

    Field

    Description

    Target/Collection Host

    Collection Host (Agent)

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    Note: For this type of data collector, the target host and collection host are expected to have same values.

    Collector Inputs

    Script Path

    Provide the complete path to the script that you want to execute on the remote computer for retrieving data.

    You can also pass parameters dynamically while executing the script.

    For example, you can execute the following script that takes the input parameter as your name and prints "Hello."

     

    Script example
    #!/bin/bash
    echo "Hello $1"

    In this case, you must enter script.sh MyName in this field.

    where:

    script.sh is the name of the file in which you saved the preceding script.

    MyName refers to the name that you want to pass as the input parameter.

    Note: If there is a space character in your script path, then you must enclose the script path with double quotes (").

    Time Zone

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    Data Pattern

    Pattern

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    Date Format

    Select a date format to use for indexing the timestamp in the data file.

    To select an option, you can do one of the following:

    • Filter the relevant data formats that match the file.
      To find a list of relevant data patterns, click Filter Relevant Data Pattern and Date Formatfilter icon.jpgnext to the Pattern field. Click RefreshRefresh.png to refresh the filtered list and see the complete list of data patterns available.
    • Manually scan through the list available and select a date format.

    After selecting an option, click Preview parsed log entriespreview icon.jpg to preview the sample data entries parsed. By looking at the preview of records, you can understand how the data will be indexed and be made available for searching.

    If you do not find a relevant date format, you can also create a new date format by selecting the Create new Date Format option.

    Notes:

    • If you select both – a pattern and a date format, then the date format specified takes precedence over the date format from the pattern that you selected. So the timestamp is indexed as per the specified date format, and the rest of the data is indexed as per the pattern.
    • If you select only a date format, then the date format is used for indexing the timestamp, while the rest of the data is displayed in a raw format in your search results.

    Script Time Out (mins)

    Specify the time duration (in minutes) after which the script must time out. By default, this value is set to 1.

    Poll Interval (mins)

    Specify the interval (in minutes) after which the script must be executed and the script output data must be collected. By default, this value is set to 1.

    If you want to execute the script only once and collect the output data, then specify the value of this field as 0.

    The value of this field is passed as the last argument to the script.

    Start/Stop Collection

    (Optional) Select this check box if you want to start the data collection immediately.

    Advanced Options

    File Encoding

    If your data file uses a character set encoding other than UTF-8 (default), then do one of the following:

    • Filter the relevant character set encodings that match the file.
      To do this, click Filter relevant charset encoding filter icon.jpgnext to this field.
    • Manually scan through the list available and select an appropriate option.
    • Allow IT Data Analytics to use a relevant character set encoding for your file by manually select the AUTO option.

    Ignore Data Matching Input

    (Optional) If you do not want to index certain lines in your data file, then you can ignore them by providing one of the following inputs:

    • Provide a line that consistently occurs in the event data that you want to ignore. This line will be used as the criterion to ignore data during indexing.
    • Provide a Java regular expression that will be used as the criterion for ignoring data matching the regular expression.

    Example: While using the following sample data, you can provide the following input to ignore particular lines.

    • To ignore the line containing the string, "WARN", you can specify WARN in this field.
    • To ignore lines containing the words both "WARN" and "INFO", you can specify a regular expression .*(WARN|INFO).* in this field.
    Sample data
    Sep 25, 2014 10:26:47 AM net.sf.ehcache.config.ConfigurationFactory parseConfiguration():134
    WARN: No configuration found. Configuring ehcache from ehcache-failsafe.xml  found in the classpath:

    Sep 25, 2014 10:26:53 AM com.bmc.ola.metadataserver.MetadataServerHibernateImpl bootstrap():550
    INFO: Executing Query to check init property: select * from CONFIGURATIONS where userName = 'admin' and propertyName ='init'

    Sep 30, 2014 07:03:06 PM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.spi.SqlExceptionHelper logExceptions():144
    ERROR: An SQLException was provoked by the following failure: java.lang.InterruptedException

    Sep 30, 2014 04:39:27 PM com.bmc.ola.engine.query.ElasticSearchClient indexCleanupOperations():206
    INFO: IndexOptimizeTask: index: bw-2014-09-23-18-006 optimized of type: data

    Best Effort Collection

    (Optional) If you clear this check box, only those lines that match the data pattern are indexed; all other data is ignored. To index the non-matching lines in your data file, keep this check box selected.

    Example: The following lines provide sample data that you can index by using the Hadoop data pattern. In this scenario, if you select this check box, all lines are indexed. But if you clear the check box, only the first two lines are indexed.

    Sample data
    2014-08-08 15:15:43,777 INFO org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.server.datanode.DataNode.clienttrace: src:
    /10.20.35.35:35983, dest: /10.20.35.30:50010, bytes: 991612, op: HDFS_WRITE, cliID:

    2014-08-08 15:15:44,053 INFO org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.server.datanode.DataNode: Receiving block
    blk_-6260132620401037548_683435 src: /10.20.35.35:35983 dest: /10.20.35.30:50010

    2014-08-08 15:15:49,992 IDFSClient_-19587029, offset: 0, srvID: DS-731595843-10.20.35.30-50010-1344428145675, blockid:
    blk_-8867275036873170670_683436, duration: 5972783

    2014-08-08 15:15:50,992 IDFSClient_-19587029, offset: 0, srvID: DS-731595843-10.20.35.30-50010-1344428145675, blockid:
    blk_-8867275036873170670_683436, duration: 5972783
    Tags (optional)

    Inherit Host Level Tags From Target Host

    Select this check box to inherit your tag selections associated with the target host that you selected earlier. This option is not applicable if you did not select a target host.

    Select Tag name

    You can manually add tags by selecting one of the tags in the list, specifying a corresponding value, and clicking Add Plus icon.jpg. The list of added tags is displayed in the Tags pane on the Search tab.
    Click Remove Tag Delete icon.jpgto remove a tag.

    Group Access (optional)

    Inherit Host Level Access Groups From Target Host

    Select this check box to inherit your group access configurations associated with the target host that you selected earlier. This option is not applicable if you did not select a target host.

    Select All Groups

    Select this option if you want to select all user groups. You can also manually select multiple user groups.

    If you do not select any user groups and data access control is not enabled, then by default all users can access data retrieved by this data collector. You can restrict access permissions by selecting the relevant user groups that must be given access permissions. To enable data access control, navigate to Administration > System Settings.

    If you do not select any user group and data access control is enabled, then only the creator of the data collector has access to data retrieved by this data collector.

    For more information, see Managing-user-groups.

  4. Click Create to save your changes.

 

 

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