HP XC System Software Administration Guide Version 3.0

Nan Notification Aggregator and Delimiter
The HP XC System Software incorporates the Nan notification aggregator and delimiter for the Nagios
paging system. Nan is an open source supplement to the Nagios application.
Nagios is capable of sending quantities of messages especially when the system is starting up, shutting
down, or experiencing a failure. The Nan front-end utility overcomes the problem of multiple messages by
collecting, batching, and reformatting these messages so that they are sent in a controlled manner. You can
configure how multiple concatenated notifications are sorted so that the most important notifications appear
at the top.
The Nan utility consists of the following:
• A daemon, nand
This daemon is started on the Nagios master node.
• A client, nanc
The nanc client is configured as the Nagios email command.
• The nand daemon /opt/hptc/nagios/etc/nand.conf configuration file.
• The nanc client /opt/hptc/nagios/etc/nanc.conf configuration file.
When the nand daemon receives a notification from Nagios, it starts a timer. If the notification is a PROBLEM
or RECOVERY, the default time is 300 seconds; if the notification is an ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, the default time
is 600 seconds. Subsequent Nagios notifications are queued in the /opt/hptc/nagios/var/nanqueue
directory until the specified time elapses. Then the nand daemon sends a condensed message based on the
following criteria:
• The delivery method: pager, e-mail, and so on
If the delivery method is a pager, the number of messages influences the format of the condensed
message.
• The corresponding destination address: the pager telephone number or the e-mail address
• The notification type: PROBLEM, ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, or RECOVERY
The default values specified in the nand.conf and nanc.conf configuration files are appropriate for most
HP XC systems; however, you can change these values to suit your installation. Follow these steps when
updating either or both of these configuration files.
1. Log in as the superuser on the Nagios master node.
2. Edit the nanc.conf or nand.conf file.
3. Use the service command to stop the nagios daemon:
# service nagios stop
4. Use the service command to restart the nagios daemon:
# service nagios start
Supermon
Supermon is a highly scalable, high-speed cluster monitoring system. Supermon provides all required node
statistics to the Nagios subsystem. System statistics are tiered, aggregated, and stored in the HP XC System
Software database.
The Supermon components consist of the kernel modules to collect the statistics, the mond and supermond
daemons, and the script to load and configure the daemons.
The data collected by Supermon includes system performance metrics and environment data, such as fan,
temperature, and power supply status. This data is collected on a regular basis.
The syslog and syslog-ng Services
The syslog service runs on each node in the HP XC system. These daemons capture log information and
send it to an aggregator regional node. Regional nodes are assigned to each client node.
68 Monitoring the System