How do you fill in the UIM RESTMon Schema for API monitoring?

[John Dekker]

Hello everybody,

 

I'm currently busy with experimenting with the UIM to find out if our company wants to purchase this product. We want to use UIM as a monitoring service for out customers, this includes both CA products and non CA products that we provide. One of these products is Adeptia. I've researched that it would be possible to monitor this product with UIM with the usage of the RESTMon functionality. The problem now however that I face is that I'm able to upload the schema successfully to UIM and make a profile with it, but that it doesn't produce any metrics. We can't seem to figure out why this is, so now we think that the problem lies with the uploaded schema. We have tried multiple way to fill it in, but none have worked thus far.

 

I've contacted CA if they could help us with filling with the schema, but they said that such was not a supported service. We are aware of the documentation that exised to help fill in the shema, but this is to our knowledge vague or doesn't apply to our situation.

 

So I want to ask if the community want to help us to fill in the schema with the information I'll provide below?

Already thanks.

 

 

 

The API call is a simple call to ask about the current status of the installed license:

/adeptia/rest/diagnostics?component=license

 

for the definition can we use the default values.

 

We use basic authentication, should these credentials be put already in the schema or only in the profile made from the schema in UIM? Further the name is supposed to be the same schema according to the documentation which currently is adeptia-license and we use standard http.

 

For the metrics we want to leave the optional parts blank if possible.

According to the documentation, both the qos_name and qos_desc can be freely filled in, since they are both descriptive.

 

Since it is about a licensing state, we assume the type is license. I've looked supported metric types sheet in which the and came across License expired with code 10.1:8 and qos_abbr "state". I thought that this one is correct since I'm asking the API till when the license is valid. However, since there are multiple instances of Licenses metric_type, hwo do I know I have the right one?

 

Both the source and target were for my quite confusing what they mean with it. In the description itself the documentation states the source as from where you get the metric and the target where you wan to display the metric. So logically I though the IP adresses of the machines where Adeptia is installed and where UIM is installed as source and target.

 

However, the various documentations give examples like this:

 

I'm confused what should be filled in here.

 

Through postman we get the following result:

The part we want to see with this is the field value from the first part of the array, so the jpath should be $.license[0].value, is this correct?

 

The url, I suppose, must be the id of the url you want to use, since you can use multiple url's. Is this correct?

Group is a name for the profile. Is this also pure descriptive or must this be a specific value?

 

I know that this is quite the question, but I hope you are able to help me with this.

 

With friendly regards,

 

John Dekker

[David Michel]

For the json file to be accepted and package and profile built it must pass validation. Perhaps it will help to do some inspection into the probe's operation before digging into the schema.

 

Deactivate the probe, load DrNimBUS, activate the probe.

At the primary hub with the IM console running it can be started either via the shortcut in the program group or C:\Program Files (x86)\Nimsoft\bin\DrNimBUS.exe.

Select the Message Sniffer (second icon from the left)
click the maximize button
check the box for 'Show header'

add a filter for the probe name

 

When the probe starts it should first send a QOS_DEFINITION message for each qos metric. QOS_DEFINITION is needed for the qos messages to be identified and processed. The qos will be in QOS_MESSAGE, and if configure to support it there will be 'alarm' messages. So DrNimBUS is the tool to see just what if any messages your custom probe is producing.

 

Potentially the custom probe support logging and the deployed probe cfg can be modified for:

loglevel = 5

logsize = 1000

 

Hopefully the above will provide some details indicating where the problem is.

[John Dekker]

Thanks David,

 

I Installed with my collegues DrNimBUS. However when we do the steps you recommended, we don't get anything back from the messagesniffer.

 

 

Since we want to monitor an external API, the probe is RESTMon

[David Michel]

This is a very common point of confusion and misunderstanding.

 

The restmon probe is 'not' a monitoring probe, it is a probe that will create a monitoring probe based on the json file provided.

 

Flow > user adds schema, restmon transforms into ProbeTemplatePackage > archive
so schema file is converted into a standard probe package in the \nimsoft\archive
added to \mon_config_service\templates\processed

new schema = a probe - shows up in MCS

schema files put in probe folder

 

So it is expected that filtering on restmon in DrNimBUS will show nothing, the filter has to be on the probe created via your json schema.

 

Additional info for understanding:

monitoring probes will always show up under the robot in the list of probes

 

non monitoring probe will not and can only be seen in IM via controller > configure > status  > installed packages or in AC robot > installed packages.

examples are: restmon, java_jre, and any _templates package.

[Mark DeBoer]

Hi everyone

Just want to bump up this thread, because I feel there really is not enough information available get this probe to work.

We're facing the same issues here: the documentation is too light to get this thing to work. Syntax should be clarified and the examples provided should be explained. Why is a certain syntax used? How can we extrapolate this for our use case?

Is there someone who can give a decent example of how to get the data from a rest API call to the QOS variable in UIM? Any more information would be extremely welcome.

best regards
Mark

[Luc Christiaens]

+1 for the request for better documentation.  
Is it possible to add a chapter with a simple 120% detailed example, starting from the display of a relative simple REST call (and indicate clearly what you want info you want to gather). Also an extra chapter explaining the way how to code the login/security in the schema could be helpful. (and add enough screen shots explaining the result of each security option)

[Shubhojit Shil]

Hello Guys,
After raising the case with support, I have got the below high level overview to add any monitoring values with RESTMON API but seems like documentation is still pending to update. 

My questions :
- Where to add GET API URL request and API TOKEN? After pushing the restmon probe in local archive and downloading the sample default_schema.json file from OC.
- I have checked in WASP OC configuration and it has webservices_rest and uimapi packages too, but no such URL is available which will help to customize the GET output in json format required for CAUIM. is it possible?

[David Michel]

Think that goes in your custom json file. restmon is for developers, providing an easy way to build a custom probe out of their custom json file.

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Support Engineer
Broadcom
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[James Christensen]

In looking through this thread, I think we need to get back to a basic tenant of UIM and QOS values/metrics. When I look at the screenshot of the Postman result, it appears that you are looking to capture a value that is a string ("Valid til xxxxxx"). If this is correct then it will not work as it is a string and not a numeric value. The UIM SLM/QOS database has only ever stored numeric values as QOS. You would have to capture the string value here and then interpret/transform it to a numeric/Boolean number to be sent as a QOS metric. Using the metric definition of "state" then you would need to be getting and sending a 0 or 1 or possibly some other derived value if there are intermediate states other than valid or not valid.

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[Designation]
[City]
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[James Christensen]

Another question, if all you are wanting from this device is whether the license has expired or not, is it possible to use a browser and access a url that provides an html page with the information? If so, you may be able to use the logmon probe (deployed with the url_response probe) and use the "url" mode and then set up a watcher rule to look for key words like "Expired", "Valid", etc.. and send an alarm for expired licenses. Just a thought.

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[Designation]
[City]
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