Mass deletion of cdm probe

[Keith Clay]

We found that when we updated the cdm probe from 6.30 to 6.42 with the 9.20 upgrade, that on unix servers, the cdm probe generates lots of "not available" errors for nfs file systems.  Our solution is to delete the cdm probe and after delete, then delete the probes/system/cdm directory and then redeploy the 6.42 cdm probe.  This fixes the issue but doing this on thousands of robots is very, very time consuming. Any scripts would be greatly helpful such that passing /Domain/Hub/Robot/ to a script would generate a list of all unix robots and delete the cdm probe from those and maybe somehow delete the probes/system/cdm directory.

1. Is there a way in Nimsoft to script the deletion of the cdm probe?
2. Is there way in Nimsoft to delete the probes/system/cdm directory?

[Britta Hoffner]

Hello Keith, are this filesystems you usually want to monitor ? You may consider to create a package that ignores nfs filesystems. Please have a look at the article https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/129655/how-to-configure-the-cdm-probe-to-ignore.html

Kind regards,
Britta
Broadcom Support

[Keith Clay]

It is required by our customer. The issue is not the nfs fs, the problem is in nimsoft.

[Britta Hoffner]

Hello Keith, there is a controller callback int_pkg_remove which might help you to resolve this requirement.

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/14893/how-to-uninstall-a-package-from-uim-robo.html

This callback can be used in the pu command line utility.

Kind regards,
Britta
Broadcom Support

[Luc Christiaens]

You could use the tool: https://community.broadcom.com/enterprisesoftware/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=b65990b6-f43c-4a31-832d-6510ce2e5691 to generate in a flexible way PU commands

[Gregg Stillwell]

HI Keith,

It gets tricky when you need to run "rm' to remove directories in a OS using UIM. I was thinking maybe we can try resetting the cfg  file first. Turn off nfs mount monitoring or even all disk monitoring on 1 box with 6.42 update. Let it run and verify you are not collecting nfs filesystem data, then re-enable and restart and see if that has any effect. Also found this setting in MCS enhanced (6.42enables not 6.30). ARe you using MCS? How do these setting look (Alarm on Remote Disk Connection Failure) on the servers you deleted directory vs ones you did not. This one has my scratching my head, and there should be a fix besides deleting directory :)

[Keith Clay]

Luc,

Is there anyway to have the probe delete to completely remove the probes/system/cdm probe? Or, a way to use pu to delete that directory?

[Keith Kruepke]

It actually does this automatically--sometimes. The behavior varies, and I have a *theory* as to how the logic works when deleting a probe:

1) The controller will delete all of the files it knows about--definitely those listed in the probe definition, like executable, config, log, etc. I think it also cleans up the cfx files and log files rotated with an underscore. I'm not sure if it cleans up other files that were installed directly from the original probe package--libraries and such, which are common with the Java probe.

2) The controller will *not* delete unexpected files. A good example would be extra log or data files that some probes produce. This might also include library files that came with the probe package too, but I think there is a good chance it deletes them.

3) The controller will delete the probe directory if it ends up empty after deleting files.

​In the end, you just have to try it out with a specific probe to see how it works. That being said, even if it doesn't delete the cdm directory, it might clear enough files out of there to meet your needs. You should try it out and check what is left behind (if you haven't already).

[Keith Clay]

We already know that unless we delete the cdm dir, the error persists.

[Luc Christiaens]

After the package is removed via the callback you could deploy a small custom package with as post action a delete of the directory (or the files in the cdm directory)

[Keith Clay]

On my custom cdm package, could I add a pre-install command to delete the directory?

[Keith Kruepke]

Probably worth a shot. That would certainly be nice because it makes cleanup and install a single step. It's not 100% guaranteed that pre-install means pre-file-extraction, but I would hope so. Definitely not willing to place a bet on it though.

[Garin Walsh]

Yes - though it might be better in the post command section. 

Also, you can wind up in a catch 22 situation where you need to delete the location where the install is running from - not sure if you run into this but if you google the process of a batch file deleting itself you can find a workable solution. This is obviously not an issue on linux as it doesn't care about deleting in use files.

[Keith Kruepke]

I imagine it would be best to do the probe delete before deleting the directory. That might not strictly be necessary, but on Windows you probably at least need to deactivate the probe in order to delete the files. Then I guess you'd have to activate it again after installing, so probe deletion is likely a bit simpler in the end.

[Keith Clay]

Will a pre/post command allow ';'?  Such that /bin/ls;/bin/ps would work (just example commands)

[Keith Kruepke]

That's a great question! :-)

[Garin Walsh]

Yes it will - the installer essentially spawns a shell with what's listed as the argument - so if it's valid shell then it will work.

You can test your commands by passing the full string as a command to your favorite shell.

I also typically enclose my Linux commands in ( )  just to ensure that there's a level of isolation.

Note also that you can include a shell file in the files you upload and then execute that too. Last line of that shell command could be a rm to remove itself too.

[Keith Clay]

I can use the find tool in IM to do mass deletes of probes.  Is there a way to watch or know it's progress?

[Keith Kruepke]

I've done it that way before, but I've never seen a progress indication of any kind. I am suspicious that clicking on stuff in IM after "requesting" the delete of multiple probes might actually halt the progress, but I have no idea if that is even close to accurate. :-) My guess is that it will work, but you will probably need to do it multiple times for it to be 100% complete/accurate. I suspect that it is probably more reliable the smaller the number of probes you select, so you may want to divide it into batches. Once again, that is mostly wild speculation.

[Keith Clay]

That's why I did but there is not way to know the progress other than checking robots to see if the probe is gone.

[Keith Kruepke]

Yeah, when I mentioned needing to do it "multiple times", that included rerunning the search via the Find option in addition to clicking Delete again (and again...).