VMware VI API-pull Monitor 4.4

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Requirements

  • VI API access to the ESX hosts.
  • ESX hosts configured to work with OpenNebula

OpenNebula Configuration

In order to configure VMware you need to:

  • Enable the VMware monitoring driver in /etc/one/oned.conf by uncommenting the following lines:
IM_MAD = [
      name       = "vmware",
      executable = "one_im_sh",
      arguments  = "-c -t 15 -r 0 vmware" ]
  • Make sure that the configuration attributes for VMware drivers are set in /etc/one/vmwarerc, see the VMware guide

Monitoring Configuration Parameters

OpenNebula allows to customize the general behaviour of the whole monitoring subsystem:

Parameter Description
MONITORING_INTERVAL Time in seconds between host and VM monitorization. It must have a value greater than the manager timer
HOST_PER_INTERVAL Number of hosts monitored in each interval.
VM_PER_INTERVAL Number of VMs monitored in each interval.

:!: VM_PER_INTERVAL is only relevant in case of host failure when OpenNebula pro-actively monitors each VM.

The information gathered by the probes is also stored in a monitoring table. This table is used by Sunstone to draw monitoring graphics and can be queried using the OpenNebula API. The size of this table can be controlled with:

Parameter Description
HOST_MONITORING_EXPIRATION_TIME Time, in seconds, to expire monitoring information. Use 0 to disable HOST monitoring recording.
VM_MONITORING_EXPIRATION_TIME Time, in seconds, to expire monitoring information. Use 0 to disable VM monitoring recording.

Troubleshooting

In order to test the driver, add a host to OpenNebula using onehost, specifying the defined IM driver:

<xterm> $ onehost create esx_node1 –im vmware –vm vmware –net dummy </xterm>

Now give it time to monitor the host (this time is determined by the value of MONITORING_INTERVAL in /etc/one/oned.conf). After one interval, check the output of onehost list, it should look like the following:

<xterm> $ onehost list 

ID NAME            CLUSTER   RVM      ALLOCATED_CPU      ALLOCATED_MEM STAT
 0 esx_node1       -           0       0 / 400 (0%)     0K / 7.7G (0%) on

</xterm>

Host management information is logged to /var/log/one/oned.log. Correct monitoring log lines look like this: 

Fri Nov 22 12:02:26 2013 [InM][D]: Monitoring host esx_node1 (0)
Fri Nov 22 12:02:30 2013 [InM][D]: Host esx1_node (0) successfully monitored.

Both lines have the ID of the host being monitored.

If there are problems monitoring the host you will get an err state:

<xterm> $ onehost list 

ID NAME            CLUSTER   RVM      ALLOCATED_CPU      ALLOCATED_MEM STAT
 0 esx_node1        -           0       0 / 400 (0%)     0K / 7.7G (0%) err

</xterm>

The way to get the error message for the host is using onehost show command, specifying the host id or name:

<xterm> $ onehost show 0 […] MONITORING INFORMATION ERROR=[ 

MESSAGE="Error monitoring host 0 : MONITOR FAILURE 0 Could not update remotes",
TIMESTAMP="Nov 22 12:02:30 2013" ]

</xterm>

The log file is also useful as it will give you even more information on the error.

Tuning & Extending

The probes are specialized programs that obtain the monitor metrics. VMware probes are obtained by querying the ESX server through the VI API. The probe is located at /var/lib/one/remotes/im/vmware.d.

You can easily write your own probes or modify existing ones, please see the Information Manager Drivers guide.