What are the root objects?
NetXMS has eight top level objects:
- Entire Network: Abstract object representing root of IP topology tree. All zone and subnet objects located under it. System can have only one object of this class.
- Service Root: Abstract object representing root of your infrastructure service tree. System can have only one object of this class.
- Template Root: Abstract object representing root of your template tree.
- Policy Root:
- Network Map Root
- Dashboard Root
- Report Root
- Business Service Root.
These objects served as an abstract root for appropriate object tree. All top level objects has only one editable attribute – name.
What are the objects?
- Zone: Object representing group of (usually interconnected) IP networks without overlapping addresses. Contains appropriate subnet objects.
- Subnet: Object representing IP subnet. Typically objects of this class created automatically by the system to reflect system’s knowledge of IP topology. The system places Node objects inside an appropriate Subnet object based on an interface configuration. Subnet objects have only one editable attribute - Name.
See page 6 of the netxms-admin.pdf file.
What is the status of an object?
Each object has a status. Status of the object calculated based on polling results, status of underlying objects, associated alarms and status DCIs. For some object classes, like Report or Template, status is irrelevant. Status for such objects is always Normal.
Does NetXMS support auto-discovery?
Yes. NetXMS is capable of discovering your network automatically. Network discovery module can operate in two modes - passive and active. In passive mode, information about new hosts and devices obtained from ARP tables and routing tables of already known devices. NetXMS starts with it’s own ARP cache and routing table. In active discovery mode, NetXMS server will send an ICMP echo requests to all IP addresses in given range, and consider each responding address for adding to database. For each new device found NetXMS server tries to gather additional information using SNMP and NetXMS agent, and then adds it to database. By default NetXMS server will add all discovered devices to database, but you can limit it by using discovery filters.
Is the traffic between NetXMS server and agent encrypted?
Messages between NetXMS agent and NetXMS server can be encrypted, encryption between them can be forced by NetXMS configuration. There can be also added Shared Secret that is checked on agent-server connection and in case server does not know secret of an agent, connection will not be established. Another possibility to control access to the agent is choosing the correct server access level in agent configuration properties (MasterServers, Servers, ControlServers). There can be set different access levels for different servers.
How can we tune the server?
Server has 2 types of configuration: configuration file parameters and server configuration variables. For server configuration file minimal requirements are path to log file, database driver name and all required credentials depending on database. Location and required actions depends on what OS is used. There are quite a few important server parameters to be set right after installation. These parameters are accessible through the Server Configuration window in the console. To open it, click on Configuration→Server Configuration. To edit a setting, double click on the row in the table or right-click and select Edit. The following parameters may need to be changed:
- PollerThreadPoolMaxSize: This parameter represents maximum thread pool size. From this pool will be taken threads for all types of polls: Status poll, Configuration poll, etc. In case of big load on a server number of threads will be increased till this size. When load come back to normal, number of threads will be automatically decreased to base size. If you plan to monitor large number of hosts increase this parameter from the default value to approximately 1/5 of host count.
- PollerThreadPoolBaseSize: This parameter represents base thread pool size. From this pool will be taken threads for all types of polls: Status poll, Configuration poll, etc. This is minimal number of threads that will always run. If you plan to monitor large number of hosts increase this parameter from the default value to approximately 1/10 of host count.
- NumberOfDataCollectors: If you plan to monitor large number of hosts, to approximately 1/10 – 1/5 of host number. Use larger value if you plan to gather many DCIs from each host.
- EnableSyslogDaemon: Set this parameter to 1 if you want to enable NetXMS built-in syslog server.
For Windows systems this information is added to configuration file while installation procedure. It can be check that all data was set correctly in this file: ’installation directory’\etc\nxagentd.conf’.
For UNIX based systems /etc/netxmsd.conf file should be created/populated manually:
DBDriver = oracle.ddr
DBServer = ServerIP/Hostname.DomainName #Here is service (full database name), not SID
DBName = netxms
DBLogin = netxms
DBPassword = PaSwD
LogFailedSQLQueries = yes
LogFile = /var/log/netxmsd
Can we encrypt password?
When it is required to write password or Shared Secret in agent configuration file, there is possibility to encrypt it. All passwords can be encrypted with help of nxencpasswd command line tool and added in configuration in encrypted way.
