    Websmon -- Web-based system performance monitor, version 1.01.
    Copyright (C) 2003-2005 Dmitry Lapenkov. All rights reserved.


    Websmon Monitor. Readme.
    ========================


The installation notes can be found in the file install.txt.

For the technical information, please refer to the file websmon.htm.

Also, feel free to visit the Web site at http://www.websmon.com.
You will find there the numerous samples of the statistics Web pages
created by the monitor.


  1. Websmon - what is it? And what is it for?
  2. What are the systems the monitor consist of?
  3. On which operating systems can Websmon be running?
  4. What additional software does Websmon require in order to work properly?
  5. For which operating systems and databases can Websmon monitor
     their system resources?
  6. What system resources can be monitored?
  7. How to obtain a temporary or a permanent license for the monitor?
  8. What next? What features will be added in the next versions of the monitor?


1. Websmon - what is it? And what is it for?

Websmon, or Web-based system performance monitor is a perfomance monitoring
and management system for local and remote UNIX servers and PROGRESS
databases.

Websmon collects and processes the statistics of the system resources
consumption (e.g., usage of the server CPU(s), memory, or disk
storage, server load averages, number of the UNIX users logged, size
and growth rate of a PROGRESS database, transactional activity in the
database, number of the database clients connected and many other
important parameters; for the detailed description, please read
Chapter 6) storing the gathered statistic information in the data
files and then shows the collected statistics in the form of Web pages
containing graphical representation of the utilization of system
resources for a certain period of time (that is, for a day, a week, a
month or a year).

The Web pages created can be viewed from any modern browser (for
example, one can use the Microsoft Internet Explorer for that).

The collected statistic information is stored in the data files in the
CSV format and can easily be viewed and analyzed later (i.e. off-line);
also, this statistics can be imported to a database or used
for making various reports in the office productivity suites (e.g.,
Microsoft Excel).

Beside this, Websmon demonstrates the current status of the remote
servers (hosts) as well as TCP services (e.g., HTTP, FTP, telnet, DNS
servers, etc.) and database servers running on these hosts.

Generally, Websmon shows:

  - Whether or not the specified hosts are active. Note that these
hosts can run not only UNIX but any modern operating system with
support for TCP protocol enabled;
  - Whether or not the specified TCP services are active;
  - Whether or not the specified PROGRESS database servers are active
(support for client-server mode required);
  - Statistics of usage of the system resources for the specified UNIX
servers (see the list of the operating systems supported in the
Chapter 5);
  - On-line UNIX server reports: the detailed host report, the list of
the logged user, the list of the system and user processes running;
  - Statistics of usage of the system resources for the specified
PROGRESS databases (see Chapter 5);
  - On-line PROGRESS database reports: current status of a database,
and list of the database clients connected.

Finally, Websmon can alert a system administrator (via e-mail or SMS)
when a host, a TCP service, and/or a PROGRESS database server become inactive
(which might mean a server shutdown, a network failure, a power blackout,
etc).

So, here are some main reasons to use the monitor:

  - With Websmon, system administrator can clearly see what exactly
is happening in the computer system;
  - At any time, administrator will know the real usage of the system resources
and this will ease the system capacity planning;
  - Administrator will immediately get notified when a UNIX server, a
PROGRESS database, or a TCP service fails;
  - Websmon facilitates the process of monitoring of the large distributed
computer systems: system administrator can get the current statistics of
usage of the remote servers on-line or off-line.


2. What are the systems the monitor consist of?

The Websmon monitor consists of three independent systems
which are as follows:

  - wmgather - a system which collects the performance statistics from
the UNIX servers and PROGRESS databases specified in the configuration
file. The gathered information is then stored in the CSV data
files and in the RRD databases.

  - wmshow - a system which makes the graphical representation of
the statistics collected by wmgather. It also shows the actual status
of the hosts, TCP services and PROGRESS databases specified.
Currently, this is a Web application running on top of the Apache Web server.

  - wmwatch - a system which monitors the activity of the hosts,
TCP services and PROGRESS databases specified and sends an alert to
a system administrator in case when above mentioned servers or services fail.


3. On which operating systems can Websmon be running?

The Websmon monitor version 1.01 can be running on the following
operating systems:

  - Red Hat Linux 9 (Intel)
  - Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3.0 (Intel)
  - Sun Solaris 8 (SPARC)
  - Sun Solaris 9 (SPARC)
  - SCO UnixWare 7.1 (Intel)


4. What additional software does Websmon require in order to work properly?

  - Perl version 5.8 or better
  - Apache HTTP server version 1.3.27 or better

You can find these software packages along with their source codes on
the installation CD-ROM.

All these programs are the Open Source Software distributing under
terms and conditions of the GNU Public License.

For gathering PROGRESS database system statistics, PROGRESS V9 client
software should be installed on the Websmon statistics server, and
PROGRESS V9 or PROGRESS V8.3 database servers to be monitored have to
be started with support for the client-server mode enabled.


5. For which operating systems and databases can Websmon monitor their system
  resources?

 Operating systems:

  - Red Hat Linux 7, 8, 9
  - Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3
  - Sun Solaris 8
  - Sun Solaris 9
  - SCO UnixWare 7.x

 Databases:

  - PROGRESS V8.3 and V9 databases running in the client-server mode
    on any operating system with the support for TCP connections enabled


6. What system resources can be monitored?

6.1. System resources of a UNIX server

  - UNIX server uptime
  - Number of users logged to the UNIX server
  - Number of processes running on the server
  - Server load average
  - CPU usage statistics (%total CPU utilization, %user, %system,
%wait I/O utilizations)
  - Server memory usage
  - File systems usage: disk space utilization, inodes utilization
  - System I/O activity
  - Network interfaces activity (summary of network activity,
statistics of traffic, statistics of errors)
  - Disk swap space utilization
  - System paging activity
  - System swapping activity
  - OS kernel semaphores operations activity
  - OS kernel message queues activity
  - System context switching activity
  - Host status report
  - List of UNIX users logged to the server
  - List of the processes running on the server


6.2. System resources of a PROGRESS database

  - PROGRESS database server uptime
  - Number of user, batch, SELF, REMC, SERV connections
  - Database files size and free space
  - Database BI files size
  - Database AI file size
  - Database buffer pool hit ratio and buffer pool utilization
  - Database I/O activity: total database I/O rate, data blocks I/O rate,
index blocks I/O rate, database read rate, database write rate
  - PROGRESS Asynchronous Page Writers utilization
  - PROGRESS Before Image Writer utilization
  - PROGRESS After Image Writer utilization
  - Database transactional activities: commit and undo rates
  - Database record access activity: record reading, creation,
updating, deletion rates
  - Database index access activity: index creation, deletion, and
finding rates
  - Database record locking activity
  - Statistics of database checkpoints
  - Statistics of waits for BI buffers and waits for AI buffers
  - Statistics of waits for locked database records
  - Detailed report on PROGRESS database status
  - List of PROGRESS database users


7. How to obtain a temporary or a permanent license for the monitor?

The temporary (trial) license can be obtained free of charge;
to do so, please send an e-mail to the following address:

    Websmon demo license <websmon@websmon.com>

To obtain a new permanent license or to renew the existing license,
please email to

    Sales Dept <websmon@websmon.com>

Please specify your system ID and the existing Websmon license
information (if applicable).

You can get the unique ID of your system by running the following command:

    /home/websmon/bin/wmsysid


8. What next? What features will be added in the next versions of the
   monitor?

The next versions of Websmon will include, among others, the following
features:

  - Ports for the HP/UX and IBM AIX operating systems
  - Ports for the Web servers other than Apache
  - Support for the Oracle databases
  - Support for the MySQL databases



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  PROGRESS is a trademark of the Progress Software Corporation

