Uptime - OS Test
In most virtualized environments, it is essential to monitor the uptime of desktops hosting critical server applications in the infrastructure. By tracking the uptime of each of the desktops, administrators can determine what percentage of time a desktop has been up. Comparing this value with service level targets, administrators can determine the most trouble-prone areas of the virtualized infrastructure.
In some environments, administrators may schedule periodic reboots of their desktop. By knowing that a specific desktop has been up for an unusually long time, an administrator may come to know that the scheduled reboot task is not working on a desktop.
The Uptime - VM test included in the eG agent monitors the uptime of each desktop on an Oracle VirtualBox.
Target of the test : An Oracle VirtualBox
Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent
Outputs of the test : One set of results for each desktop discovered on the VirtualBox being monitored.
Parameter | Description |
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Test period |
How often should the test be executed |
Host |
The host for which the test is to be configured. |
Port |
The port number at which the specified Host listens to. |
Oracle Hypervisor |
Specify the name of the user who has the right to access the VirtualBox via SSH. |
Oracle Hypervisor Password |
Provide the password of the oracle hypervisor user. |
Confirm Password |
Confirm the password by retyping it here. |
Sudocmd |
This test executes certain privileged VDA (Virtual Desktop Access) commands to pull out the desired metrics from the VirtualBox. To enable the test to run these commands, you first need to install a sudo package on the VirtualBox host. The procedure for installing this package is detailed in Pre-requisites for Auto-Discovering VMs and Obtaining their Outside View. Once the package is installed, you need to specify the full path to the install directory of the sudo package in the Sudocmd text box. |
Ignore VMs Inside View |
Administrators of some high security virtualized environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the 'inside view' of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the Ignore VMs Inside View parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your Ignore VMs Inside View specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on an Oracle VirtualBox host by default. Note: While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the Ignore VMs Inside View text box. |
Exclude VMs |
Administrators of some virtualized environments may not want to monitor some of their less-critical VMs - for instance, VM templates - both from 'outside' and from 'inside'. The eG agent in this case can be configured to completely exclude such VMs from its monitoring purview. To achieve this, provide a comma-separated list of VMs to be excluded from monitoring in the Exclude VMs text box. Instead of VMs, VM name patterns can also be provided here in a comma-separated list. For example, your Exclude VMs specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside and outside views of all VMs on a virtual host by default. By providing a comma-separated list of VMs/VM name patterns in the Exclude VMs text box, you can make sure the eG agent stops collecting 'inside' and 'outside' view metrics for a configured set of VMs. |
Ignore WINNT |
By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the Ignore WINNT flag is set to Yes by default. |
Inside View Using |
By default, this test obtains the “inside view” of VMs using the eG VM Agent. Accordingly, the Inside view using flag is set to eG VM Agent by default. The eG VM Agent is a piece of software, which should be installed on every VM on a hypervisor. Every time the eG agent runs this test, it uses the eG VM Agent to pull relevant 'inside view' metrics from each VM. Once the metrics are collected, the eG agent then communicates with each VM agent and pulls these metrics, without requiring administrator privileges. Refer to Configuring the Remote Agent to Obtain the Inside View of VMs for more details on the eG VM Agent. |
Domain, Admin User, and Admin Password, and Confirm Password |
By default, these parameters are set to none. This is because, by default, the eG agent collects 'inside view' metrics using the eG VM agent on each VM. Domain administrator privileges need not be granted to the eG agent if it uses this default approach to obtain the 'inside view' of Windows VMs. |
Report By User |
While monitoring a VirtualBox, the Report By User flag is set to Yes by default, indicating that by default, the guest operating systems on the VirtualBox are identified using the login of the user who is accessing the guest OS. In other words, this test will, by default, report measures for every username_on_virtualmachinename. If this flag is set to No, then the guests will be identified using the host name of the guest OS. In this case, the test will report measures for every virtualmachinename. |
Report Powered OS |
This flag becomes relevant only if the Report By User flag is set to ‘Yes’. If the Report Powered OS flag is set to Yes (which is the default setting), then this test will report measures for even those VMs that do not have any users logged in currently. Such guests will be identified by their virtualmachine name and not by the username_on_virtualmachinename. On the other hand, if the Report Powered OS flag is set to No, then this test will not report measures for those VMs to which no users are logged in currently. |
ReportManagerTime |
By default, this flag is set to Yes, indicating that, by default, the detailed diagnosis of this test, if enabled, will report the shutdown and reboot times of the VMs in the manager’s time zone. If this flag is set to No, then the shutdown and reboot times are shown in the time zone of the system where the agent is running(i.e., the system being managed for agent-based monitoring, and the system on which the remote agent is running - for agentless monitoring). |
Detailed Diagnosis |
To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:
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Measurement | Description | Measurement Unit | Interpretation |
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Rebooted |
Indicates whether this guest has been rebooted during the last measurement period or not. |
Boolean |
If this measure shows 1, it means that the guest was rebooted during the last measurement period. By checking the time periods when this metric changes from 0 to 1, an administrator can determine the times when this guest was rebooted. |
Uptime |
Indicates the time period that the guest has been up since the last time this test ran. |
Secs |
If the guest has not been rebooted during the last measurement period and the agent has been running continuously, this value will be equal to the measurement period. If the VM was rebooted during the last measurement period, this value will be less than the measurement period of the test. For example, if the measurement period is 300 secs, and if the VM was rebooted 120 secs back, this metric will report a value of 120 seconds. The accuracy of this metric is dependent on the measurement period - the smaller the measurement period, greater the accuracy. |
Total uptime |
Indicates the total time that the guest has been up since its last reboot. |
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This measure displays the number of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds since the last reboot. Administrators may wish to be alerted if a VM has been running without a reboot for a very long period. Setting a threshold for this metric allows administrators to determine such conditions. |
Note:
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If a value less than a minute is configured as the test period of the Uptime - VM test, then, the Uptime during the last measure period measure will report the value 0 for Unix VMs (only) until the minute boundary is crossed. For instance, if you configure the Uptime - VM test to run every 10 seconds, then, for the first 5 test execution cyles (i.e., 10 x 5 = 50 seconds), the Uptime during the last measure period measure will report the value 0 for Unix VMs; however, the sixth time the test executes (i.e, when test execution touches the 1 minute boundary), this measure will report the value 60 seconds for the same VMs. Thereafter, every sixth measurement period will report 60 seconds as the uptime of the Unix VMs. This is because, Unix-based operating systems report uptime only in minutes and not in seconds.
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For VMs running Windows 8 (or above), the Uptime - VM test may sometimes report incorrect values. This is because of the 'Fast Startup' feature, which is enabled by default for Windows 8 (and above) operating systems. This feature ensures that the Windows operating system is NOT SHUTDOWN COMPLETELY, when the VM is shutdown. Instead, the operating system saves the image of the Windows kernel and loaded drivers to the file, C:\hiberfil.sys, upon shutdown. When the Windows VM is later started, the operating system simply loads hiberfil.sys into memory to resume operations, instead of performing a clean start. Because of this, the Windows system will not record this event as an actual 'reboot'. As a result, the Uptime - VM test will not be able to correctly report if any reboot happened recently ; neither will it be able to accurately compute the time since the last reboot.
To avoid this, you need to disable the Fast Startup feature on VMs running Windows 8 (and above). The steps to achieve this are outlined below:
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Login to the target Windows VM.
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Edit the Windows Registry. Look for the following registry entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power
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Locate the HiberbootEnabled key under the entry mentioned above.
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Change the value of this key to 0 to turn off Fast Startup. By default, its value will be 1, as Fast Startup is enabled by default.
Also, note that the Fast Startup feature does not work if the VM is “restarted”; it works only when the VM is shutdown and then started.
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