[nos-bbs] Anyone considered adding an LCDProc module to JNOS?

[Jay Nugent]

Greetings,

On Mon, 11 Sep 2006, Mark Phillips wrote:

> I'm thinking about those times when you have a few machines installed
> over a wider area. They could all send their stats back to a "master"
> server which would display the stats on a 40x24 LCD display plugged into
> the parallel port.
> 
> This way one could see at a glance as to whether a given node is up or
> doing it's thing.

   For the Michigan AMPRnet (inspired by the ARRL Michigan Section Digital
Radio Group "DRG" [www.MI-DRG.org]) we use a Linux machine running a
simple shell script under a cron job to collect performance statistics and
node reachability.  Once per hour the cron job launches the script which
then pings and polls each major node in our network.  The output report is
then placed on a webpage for anyone to view.

   We can see on one webpage the status of all the CONVserse bridge links, 
the ping times to each of the Hamgates, the core memory usage, and the 
uptimes.  We also ping the AMPRnet address to confirm that 44-net routing 
is working and that our encap.txt route tables are correct.  Nodes that 
are attached to the Internet, as well as those only reachable via RF are 
being monitored.

   Those nodes that are monitored over RF paths require the -i "interval"  
option on the Ping command to allow for the MUCH longer path times over
1200 baud half-duplex radio links.  Otherwise all monitoring done by the
script is quite straight forward.

   Any device that fails to respond is marked as "-not responding-" and
will be included in an email alert being automatically sent to a list of
key personnel who manage the network.  Nodes that are known to be down
that we *don't* need to be alerted about, have a "Q" placed in front of
the alert and will *not* be included in any email alerts.  These alert
emails also give us a running log as to when nodes become unreachable, and
we can correlate outages with changes in weather or known backbone or
infrastructure failures.

   To see the output report, go to:  

      http://monitor.nuge.com/~medn/network.html

      Or click on the "Realtime Monitoring of the Michigan TCP/IP Network" 
link in the "JNOS" section on the [www.MI-DRG.org] website.

   Enjoy!
      --- Jay Nugent  WB8TKL
          o Chair, ARRL Michigan Section "Digital Radio Group" (DRG)
            [www.MI-DRG.org]
          o Michigan AMPRnet IP Address Coordinator
            [www.mi-drg.org/ip-addr-form.html]

"Getting rid of terrorism is like getting rid of dandruff.  It cannot
 be done completely no matter how hard you try." -- Gore Vidal
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