Added by tugrul kinikoglu, last edited by Okay Mollamustafaoglu on Jan 27, 2010  (view change)

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Installation

Prerequisites

RI4NC is a Java application and requires JRE version 6 to be installed.

JRE is bundled with the windows release.

  • Make sure that the JAVA_HOME environment variable points to the path where you have installed Java on unix platform.

Download and Setup 

Download RI4NC for your platform (windows or unix) from the [Downloads] page and unzip in a directory of you choice. All files will be unzipped into the RapidServer directory which will be referred to as RS_HOME. That is, if you have unzipped into  /opt, then RS_HOME is /opt/RapidServer.

Netcool integration requires jconn2.jar JDBC driver for Sybase database. The file can be found in the Netcool installation in the <Netcool_Installation_Directory>\Netcool\OMNIbus\java\jars folder. This jar file must be placed into the *RS_HOME/RapidSuite/lib directory. Put the jar file before starting RI4NC process or restart if already running.

Unix

Create and set your RS_HOME environment variable (i.e. /opt/RapidServer)

Windows

RI4NC can be installed as a Windows service. Go to the RapidSuite (RS_HOME/RapidSuite) directory and execute rs.exe -install. For example:
C:\MyPrograms\RapidServer\RapidSuite> rs.exe -install (install RI4NC as a windows service)

Quick Start with Default Implementation

Starting RI4NC

     Unix

         Go to the RapidSuite directory (RS_HOME/RapidSuite) and make the rs.sh shell script executable. chmod +x rs.sh

         Run the following command to start the RI4NC server: /opt/RapidServer/RapidSuite> ./rs.sh -start

        -stop will argument stops the server and -status argument shows the status of the server.

     Windows

        Go to Windows services and start "iFountain RapidCMDB" service. Alternatively, the service can be started from the command line C:\MyPrograms\RapidServer\RapidSuite> rs.exe -start

It takes a while for the RI4NC application to start up, please be patient. It compiles and deploys the model during restart and application reload to support dynamic extensibility.

You can check the RapidServerOut.log for the line: "Server running. Browse to http://localhost:12222/RapidSuite" to make sure that application is ready to be used.

Using the Default Implementation 

RI4NC comes with a default implementation (modeling of Netcool events and journal entries) to get you up and running quickly.  

Here is what the default web UI looks like:

 
Very briefly, this tool allows you to search Netcool events by using Google-like easy search queries and allows you to save these queries, grouped by query categories.

Saved Queries tree comes with a "Default" query group under which we have defines some frequently used queries. You can add to this query group or add your own query groups and save your queries under your own groups.

Saving a query is easy; simply type your query into the search field and after reviewing the results in the grid, click on the "Save Query" link and choose a name and group for the query to be filed under.

The grid allows you to adjust the hight of each row (how many lines you want the results to be displayed per row).

For each row, potentially spanning multiple lines, property names and their values will be displayed. Each row is represented with a colored icon on the left of the row, based on the severity of the event. Click on the icon and you will get a list of actions that can be taken on the event. Also, you may have noticed drop down menu icons (little triangles) next to each property. These will allow you to refine your query based on the selected property values or sort the results depending on your selection.

One of the most useful features of this grid is the ability to refine the searches by simply clicking on property links. This will modify the search criteria by adding an AND condition based on the property and its value selected. Since AND is teh default boolean operator, it is omitted. OR (uppercase) can also be used as a boolean operator. The last boolean operator is NOT. Select "except" from the drop down menu of any field to search for items that does NOT match the value selected.

See the  Search Syntax document for more information on construction search queries. 

Defining Netcool Connection for your Netcool Server

In order to access the UI described above, you need to go to the following URL in your browser:

http://localhost:12222/RapidSuite/

Default administrative userid/password for RI4NC is: rsadmin/changeme

But you will not see any data yet, since RI4NC has not retrieved any event and journal data. We need to start the connector to start the retrieval. However, RI4NC needs to know how to connect to your Netcool server before it can start the connector.

You need to access the administrative UI of RI4NC to enter the connection parameters so that the connectors know where to pull the event data.

http://localhost:12222/RapidSuite/admin.gsp

Same default administrative userid/password: rsadmin/changeme

"Connectors" tab is where you can create the connection for your Netcool server. Click on the "New Connector" link to define your connection parameters. Here is a sample page where a connection to a Netcool server is defined:

Once the connection parameters for the connector is defined,  you can click back on the Connectors tab to see the connectors list and start the connector. The connector will poll the Netcool server for all existing event data and retrieve it into RI4NC based on the properties defined for the default NetcoolEvent model. More on how to change the list of properties of a Netcool event, later in the Customization section.

By default, the connector will poll every 30 seconds and each time retrieve any updated events data since the last poll.  The connector is implemented as a scheduled script and its polling interval can be adjusted in the "Scripts" tab in the admin UI. More on the Scripts tab later. Please refer to the Netcool Connector Details document for more information.

When you click on the Start link for your connector in the connectors list, the Start link will change to a Stop link. There might be an error in the connection parameters (Host, port, username, password) you have supplied and this will cause a start error  which will also be printed to the RapidServer.log file in the RS_HOME/RapidSuite/logs directory.  Please correct the error by editing the connector definition. When the new parameters for the connector are saved,conversion parameters will be retrieved again from the server.

When you can start the connector successfully, you can go to the RI4NC UI (http://localhost:12222/) and play with existing saved queries, and define your own queries.

See the  Search Syntax document for more information on construction search queries.

Customizing RI4NC

Synchronizing the Configuration 

RI4NC comes with a default NetcoolEvent model that mirrors the default fields in Netcool Omnibus alerts.status table to define the properties of each event object. If the alerts.status table has additional fields, RI4NC needs to be sync'ed with the Netcool server.

"Sync" tab in the admin UI has 4 Operations (third step optional) to be executed in the specified order.

  1. Import Netcool Columns: Retrieves the column (property) information for the events and journals from the Netcool server. When this action is executed, the columns for the event and journal tables will be retrieved and saved into the RS_HOME/RapidSuite/grails-app/conf/NetcoolFieldConfiguration.xml file. This will be used as an input by the next step, event model creation. The XML file shows all the properties supported by your Netcool server. You can remove properties from this file before modifying the model to limit fields that should be brought into RapidOSS or modify property names. (Explanation for property name problems and prefix use)
  2. Create RapidCMDB Models (Create Event Model): Overwrites the default event model with the new one. This process uses the edited XML file (RS_HOME/RapidSuite/grails-app/conf/NetcoolFieldConfiguration.xm) as the input. RI4NC will generate all necessary files to update the Event and Journal models
  3. Import Netcool Users (OPTIONAL): Imports users from Netcool into RapidOSS for Netcool. These users can be managed in the Users tab by the administrator, in the admin UI. All users will be assigned the initial password "changeme".
  4. Reload Application: Restarts the RI4NC application to deploy the new model files. As the final step, reload the application for the model changes to take effect.

Customizing the Searchable List Properties 

The searchable list component where you search for events and view the search results as key/value pairs needs to be in sync with your model. The default NetcoolEvent model contains many properties. If, after importing the columns from the Netcool server, you remove some of the properties, which are configured to be displayed in the searchable list view, from your NetcoolEvent model then you need to remove these from the view as well. You can do this by:

  • editing the index.gsp in RS_HOME/RapidSuite/web-app folder (add/remove properties to the defaultFields list.
  • reloading the web UI in the Reload tab in the admin page.

Scripts Tab 

RI4NC is built on the RapidCMDB platform which provides a Groovy scripting platform for implementing models and consuming scripts (business logic). Similarly, the connector and all the actions you can execute on a selected event are implemented as groovy scripts and they can easily be customized.

Scripts tab give you a list of already bundled scripts. When a new connector is created in the Connectors tab, a corresponding scheduled script will be created and this will be displayed in the Scripts tab. This tab also allows you to execute the scripts on demand. All of these scripts are in the RS_HOME/RapidSuite/scripts directory. Feel free to explore this directory to learn how RI4NC (essentially RapidCMDB) scripts are written.

Conversion Parameters 

Netcool utilizes conversion tables to use different values while storing and displaying values for some properties. RI4NC leverages the conversion data from Netcool server. Conversion Parameters tab displays the conversion tables retrieved from Netcool server. You can view the mapping between the value stored and its representation value. This tab is view only. getConversionParameters.groovy script in the RS_HOME/RapidSuite/scripts directory defines which conversion columns should be retrieved. This script periodically retrieves the conversion parameters from the server, after the initial retrieval, every hour. The period can be adjusted in the Scripts tab.

Reload

RI4NC application is very customizable and the Reload tab allows you to reload parts of teh application or the whole application depending on the change

  • Reload: Reload the whole RI4NC application
  • Reload Web UI: Use when the display (gsp files) changes
  • Reload NetcoolEvent Operations: RI4NC defines 2 modeled classes (NetcoolEvent and NetcoolJournal). These models are standard RapidCMDB models and they support custom operations (NetcoolEventOperations.groovy and NetcoolJournalOperations.groovy in the RS_HOME/RapidSuite/operations directory). Operations of NetcoolEvent are more likely to change change and when the implementation of an operations changes, operations must be reloaded.