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xenConsole readme

xenConsole (aka xcon) is a curses-based tty/console monitor for Xen 2.0, basically presenting the output from 'xm list' in a full-screen interface with additional domain information from SNMP, colours and somewhat realtime updates.

Features

Xen/domain/host information shown:
- Most output from 'xm list'
- CPU & memory consumption shown as percentages for each domain
- Calculated total CPU busy/idle times/percentages
- Info from SNMP:
  - Load averages
  - Uptimes
  - Swap avail/use
  - Memory cached, buffers, avail
  - sysDescr (usually just the kernel name)
Total Xen host CPU load is indicated in various ways
Continously updates screen automatically
Full screen application, colourized
Easy to use, type 'q' to quit

Requirements

Perl v5.006 or above
Curses installed
Xen 2.0 installed ('xm' command must work)
Various Perl CPAN modules:
- POE #events and "stuff"
- POE::Component::SNMP #retrieving lavd etc. from hosts
- Curses::UI #the great looks
- Curses::UI::POE #installed seperately
- Config::IniFiles #.ini config reading
- Net::SNMP #do.
- Time::HiRes #high-precision timing
Optional CPAN modules:
- Sys::CpuLoad #retrieve Dom0 load averages w/o snmp

This version may require a new POE straight from CPAN, if the POE in your distribution is oldish (it is in Debian Sarge). This command should install it:

sudo cpan -i POE

Installation

xenConsole is installed in Domain-0, the host domain. It needs to run the 'xm' command installed with Xen (this is only present in Domain-0).

Please note that the packages (rpm, .deb) are rather simple-minded and they do not require all their dependencies. They are only provided because they are easier to install than .tar.gz files - you are yourself expected to install the needed modules from CPAN and such.

RPM-based systems

sudo rpm -ivh xenConsole-XXX.noarch.rpm

You may have to add --nodeps, if rpm keeps complaining about CPAN modules that really are installed on the host.

Debian-based systems

sudo dpkg -i xenconsole_XXX_all.deb

Others

Install from the tar-file:

Unpack in /usr/local
Create this symlink: sudo ln -s /usr/local/xenConsole/xcon.pl /usr/local/bin/xcon

Usage

After installation, run the 'xcon' command to start xenConsole. In a few seconds, you should see your domains listed. xenConsole will update the screen a few times every minute with new information from Xen, Domain-0 and the DomU's.

There is currently no configuration or commandline options.

Type 'q' to quit. Space toggles the Host Information columns between the data available.

SNMP support

xenConsole tries to retrieve various information via SNMP from the running Xen domains. For this to work, an SNMP daemon must be installed in each domain.

The default community is 'public' - this can be overridden in the configuration file globally:

[snmp]
community=mycommunity

Or for specific domains:

[domain.ttylinux]
snmp_community=secret

xenConsole expects that your hostnames are identical to your domain names in the output from 'xm list'. If this is not the case, you can map domain names to hostnames in the configuration file:

[domain.ttylinux]
host=192.168.1.25

SNMP configuration on the host

For the ucd-snmpd agent, uptimes usually works with the default setup. If more information than that is wanted, make sure this is in snmpd.conf:

com2sec readonly default public

(Possibly instead of the 'paranoid' entry).

Quick SNMP test-commands

This should return uptime from localhost:

snmpget -v 1 -c public localhost 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.3.0

This should return load averages from localhost:

snmpwalk -v 1 -c public localhost 1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.10.1.3

Change localhost to whatever hostname or IP-number that you expect xenConsole to read SNMP data from.

If these commands don't work, then xenConsole will likely not be able to display host domain load averages and uptimes.

Known bugs and problems

Colour support is hardcoded ON, to terminal type 'xterm-color'
RPM package requires --nodeps
xcon CPU-consumption is a bit high, despite the slow updates

Please notice that this is a beta-version, so you will see bugs - if they don't get fixed, feel free to send me mail about it. Good ideas are always welcome too!

Limitations

Only a single screen of Xen domains is supported:
- If you have more domains than fit, the list will be truncated
- No paging is supported, if you can't see it, we can't help you
- Try a larger terminal window and/or a smaller font for more space
No much runtime configuration can be performed
- No commandline options
- No environment variables

More information

Homepage

http://ucck.sourceforge.net/xenConsole/

Join the mailing-list for xenConsole users here:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ucck-xenconsole

xenConsole is written by Stig H. Jacobsen, e-mail xenConsole@gothix.dk

Legal stuff

xenConsole, xcon.pl, its modules and documentation are:

xenConsole is freely available under the Perl Artistic License.

Xen may be a registrered trademark of its trademark holders - see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/ for more information about Xen.

# $Id: README.txt 3533 2005-11-04 20:23:10Z shj $ # $HeadURL: svn://dax/tags/shj-devel/ucck/xenConsole/r0.15b1-1/README.txt $ # vim:tw=75:aw:
#.