13.2 Monitoring with Ganglia

Ganglia is a scalable, distributed monitoring system that lets you gather important metric data about your Filr system’s performance. The default metrics that you can monitor are CPU, disk, load, memory, network, and process.

You can view metrics for individual nodes or for multiple Filr nodes that are running in a clustered environment:

For information about how to configure Ganglia for your environment, including changing from multicast mode to unicast mode, see Changing the Ganglia Monitoring Configuration in the Filr 3.4.1: Administrative UI Reference.Accessing Filr System Log Files

13.2.1 Ganglia Monitoring Tips

  • When reading the Ganglia chart, make sure to factor in the units as well.

    For example, 15 M x kb is not 15 MB. Rather, it is 15,000,000 kb or 15 GB. Units are shown to the left of the Y-axis.

  • When viewing a Ganglia graph, take into consideration the actual sequence of system events that occurred on the appliance. This provides insight into the events that are reflected in the graph.

  • Make sure that you have a good understanding of the timeline of events reflected in a graph by first studying the applicable logs and then interpreting the graph.

13.2.2 Viewing Metrics for an Individual Node

You can view metrics for individual nodes in your Filr system, including the Filr appliance, search index appliance or database appliance.

Path: Port 9443 Appliance Console Ganglia Monitoring icon > Grid-Node drop-down list > select an appliance

Table 13-1 Individual Node Ganglia Monitoring

Field, Option, or Button

Information and/or Action

Host Overview section

  • Displays graphs of appliance load, memory usage, CPU percentage, and network traffic.

Gray bar

  • You can set how the detailed graphs that follow are displayed: the number of columns and the graph size. The larger the graphs, the more detail is available.

Detailed Graphs

  • The metrics available depend on the appliance type.

  • For definitions of the available metrics, see Filr Monitoring Metrics.

13.2.3 Viewing Metrics for Multiple (Clustered) Filr Nodes

If your Filr site is running in a clustered environment, use this to see information about a particular metric for all Filr nodes in a combined view:

Path: Port 9443 Appliance Console Ganglia Monitoring icon > Aggregate Graphs

Table 13-2 Using the Aggregate Graphs Tab

Field, Option, or Button

Information and/or Action

Create aggregate graphs

  1. Specify the appropriate information for the following fields to create the aggregate graph.

  2. Graph Type: Select whether you want a line or stacked graph to be created.

    Legend options: Select whether to show or hide the legend.

  3. Click Create Graph.

  • Title:

  • The title that you want on the generated aggregate graph.

  • Vertical (Y-Axis) label:

  • The label you want on the Y-axis of the graph.

  • Limits

  • The lower and upper limits of the Y-axis (the scale of the graph).

  • Host Regular expression:

  • The nodes you want to compare, separated by a vertical bar (|).

    Use the node names as shown in Ganglia.

  • Metric Regular expression:

  • The name of the metric defined in Ganglia that you want to view.

  • Type any lower-case letter in the field and select the metric you want.

    Filr Monitoring Metrics provides definitions for many of the metrics listed.

  • Graph Type:

  • Specify Line or Stacked.

  • Legend Options:

  • Specify whether to show or hide the legend

  • Create Graph button

  1. When you have everything set the way you want it, click this.

  2. To save the graph for future use, click Direct Link to this aggregate graph, then save the resulting URL.

13.2.4 Filr Monitoring Metrics

Filr Appliance Metrics

Total Failed Logins: Number of failed logins from the web client since the server started.

This does not include failed logins from the Filr desktop or mobile clients.

Failed Logins: Number of failed logins from the web client since the last metric interval.

This does not include failed logins from the Filr desktop or mobile clients.

Sessions: Number of valid sessions in memory.

Peak Sessions: Peak number of valid sessions in memory.

Unique Logged in Users: Number of unique users who have logged in to Filr by using the web client since the server started.

These users might not be currently logged in.

Unique Logged in Users Since: Number of unique users since the last time the information was dumped (dumps occur at a 60-minute interval).

File Writes: Number of file writes to the file repositories, including the remote file systems that are exposed through Net Folders and Home directories, as well as the local file repository that is exposed through file folders in personal storage.

File Writes Since: Number of file writes since the last time the information was dumped (dumps occur at a 60-minute interval).

File Reads: Number of file reads from the file repositories, including the remote file systems that are exposed through Net Folders and Home directories, as well as the local file repositories that are exposed through file folders in personal storage.

File Reads Since: Number of file reads since the last time the information was dumped (dumps occur at a 60-minute interval).

Files Shared: Number of files shared since the server started.

This number indicates the number of shares made through the Filr interface. This does not include shares made via the file system.

Files Shared Since: Number of files shared since the last time the information was dumped (dumps occur at a 60-minute interval).

This number indicates the number of shares made through the Filr interface. This does not include shares made via the file system.

Folders Shared: Number of folders shared since the server started.

This number indicates the number of shares made through the Filr interface. This does not include shares made via the file system.

Folders Shared Since: Number of folders shared since the last time the information was dumped (dumps occur at a 60-minute interval).

This number indicates the number of shares made through the Filr interface. This does not include shares made via the file system.

Total Filr Preview Conversions: Number of actual file preview requests since the last metric interval.

Represents only those requests that resulted in a conversion.

Filr Preview Conversions: Number of actual file preview requests since the server started.

Represents only those requests that resulted in a conversion.

Total Filr Preview Requests: Number of file preview requests since the last metric interval.

Represents any request for a file preview whether a conversion is required or cache is used.

Filr Preview Requests: Number of file preview requests since the server started.

Represents any request for a file preview whether a conversion is required or cache is used.

REST Requests: Number of REST calls made to this server.

REST Requests Since: Number of REST calls since the last time the information was dumped (dumps occur at a 60-minute interval).

Filrsearch Appliance Metrics

Adds: Number of adds to the index since the server started. This indicates the number of Lucene documents added to the index.

This number is not necessarily the same as the number of Filr entities that are indexed. For example, indexing a file entry results in two Lucene documents being created. Also, this number is not necessarily the same as the number of remote invocations that the Filr server makes to the index server, because in many cases, the Filr server combines multiple Lucene documents to add in a single remote invocation.

Add Since: Number of adds to the index since the last time the information was dumped (dumps occur at a 60-minute interval).

Deletes: Number of deletes from the index since the server started. This indicates the number of delete operations made on the index.

This number is not necessarily the same as the number of Lucene documents deleted from the index as the result of the request. In some cases, a single such request can result in a large number of Lucene documents being deleted from the index (for example, during system re-indexing). Also, this number is not necessarily the same as the number of remote invocations that the Filr application server makes to the index server, because of request batches from the application server.

Deletes Since: Number of deletes from the index since the last time the information was dumped (dumps occur at a 60-minute interval).

File Searches: Number of searches on the index since the server started. This includes all search operations, including user-directed searches, system-directed searches (such as folder listing), tag searches, and searches used by type-to-find functionality (name completion).

Searches Since: Number of searches on the index since the last time the information was dumped (dumps occur at a 60-minute interval).

13.2.5 Configuring Ganglia to Monitor MySQL or MariaDB Database

If you want to use Ganglia to monitor the existing database, you need to change the database name on the Filr appliance that Ganglia is configured to monitor to match the name of your database:

  1. Edit the following file:

    /opt/novell/ganglia/monitor/lib64/ganglia/python_modules/mysql.py

  2. Modify the value of the following parameter (filr) to match the name of your database:

    param dbname {
       value = "filr"
              }

  3. Save and close the file.

  4. Restart the Ganglia service by using the following command:

    rcnovell-gmond restart

    rcnovell-gmetad restart