Big Brother

A Web-based Systems and Network Monitoring
and Notification System

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

		     The Big Brother Network Monitor
------------------------------------------------------------------------
			Frequently Asked Questions
		    Version 1.2a  - May 4th 1999
				LICENSE
------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.0	About Big Brother

	1.1	What is Big Brother?
	1.2	Where can I get Big Brother?
	1.3	What is the current version?
	1.4	What do I need to run Big Brother?
	1.5	How do I install Big Brother?
	1.6	How can I upgrade?

2.0	Debugging Big Brother

	2.1	I get the message: "bb: CAN'T CONNECT TO bbd"
	2.2	I get lots of processes, then bb dies!
	2.3	I get garbage / my environment all over my screen
	2.4	I get the message: "Can't open stream socket"
	2.5	conn (connection) test is always red / not working...
	2.6	http test is always red / not working...
	* 2.7	bbnet is dumping core
	2.8	Background color is always red / yellow / wrong
	* 2.9	Pager problems


3.0	Using Big Brother

	3.1	How can I monitor routers / things that have no hostname?
	3.2	Can I monitor NT's, Novell servers, VAXEN with BB?
	3.3	Can I monitor things outside my network?
	3.4	Is Big Brother secure?  Do you have to be root to run it?
	3.5	How can I monitor more services?
	3.6	How can I check password protected web pages?
	3.7	Can BB restart processes that have failed?
	3.8	Can BB show historical data?

4.0 	Miscellaneous Big Brother questions

	4.1	Where is the name from?
	4.2	Do you write BB or bb?
	4.3	Whose picture is that, and can I get rid of it?
	4.4	Is there a Big Brother Mailing List?
	4.5	Is there a Big Brother FTP site?
	4.6	Where can I get more help?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
This FAQ is Copyright 1997-1999 by The MacLawran Group Inc.
This document may be reproduced, so long as it is kept in its entirety
and in its original format.

------------------------------------------------------------------------



THE BIG BROTHER SYSTEM AND NETWORK MONITOR
==========================================
Version 1.2a
May 4th, 1999

This program is Copyright (c) 1997-1999
The MacLawran Group Inc.
All Rights Reserved

License Agreement & Lack of Warranty
====================================

By downloading the source code to Big Brother
for Unix or the Big Brother Client for NT, you
agree to abide by the following terms:

1.    You may not sell Big Brother, nor sell
      any of the functionality it provides. No
      part of the Big Brother system may be
      used as part of any commercial product 
      without having first obtained a
      commercial licence from the MacLawran 
      Group Inc.

2.    The software, graphics and documentation 
      which make up Big Brother are Copyright 
      (c) 1997-1999 The MacLawran Group Inc. 
      Big Brother is a trademark of the
      MacLawran Group Inc.  You agree to 
      respect these rights and leave all 
      notices intact. NT client code Copyright 
      (c) 1998-1999 Robert-Andre Croteau and 
      The MacLawran Group Inc.

3.    You agree not to redistribute the code
      without written permission from the
      MacLawran Group Inc.

4.    At least one link to the BB home site
      at http://MacLawran.ca/bb-dnld/
      must be available from the
      BB-generated status pages so that
      others may obtain a copy of BB.

5.    You understand that this software is
      provided as-is. The MacLawran Group
      Inc. makes no claims towards its
      suitability for any purpose and accepts
      absolutely no liability for any damages
      the software may cause. Use at your
      own risk.

      Questions? Contact:
      The MacLawran Group Inc.
      E-mail: sean@MacLawran.CA
      Tel: +1 (514) 982-9688

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section 1: About Big Brother

1.1	What is Big Brother?

	Big Brother is a Free Web-based Systems monitor written by
	Sean MacGuire (sean@maclawran.ca).  It came about as a direct result 
	of a corrupt salesman who quoted the company I was consulting for 
	$313,000 for software and hardware to monitor 20 servers.

	Big Brother consists of simple shell scripts which periodically
	monitor system conditions and network connectivity.  Disk space,
	CPU, servers, and important processes can be kept track of.
	Unix and NT systems are supported  by MacLawran Group Inc. 
	but we've heard of clients for Netware, /AS/400 and VMS.

	The Big Brother display is a Web page that presents a matrix of
	machines and monitored functions, with color codes denoting the
	current status.  

	Big Brother can notify administrators via a pager, e-mail or SMS.


1.2	Where can I get Big Brother?

	Big Brother is only available via the web at
	http://maclawran.ca/bb-dnld/

	If you don't have Web access, drop a note to sean@maclawran.ca
	and a copy will be mailed to you.


1.3	What's the current version?

	The current version of BB is 1.2a / May 4th 1999.


1.4	What do I need to run Big Brother?

	Big Brother for Unix is written as Bourne Shell scripts (/bin/sh),
	with a couple of C programs for client-server communications.  You'll
	need:

	* A C compiler to port BB
	* Kermit and a modem (for pager communications)
	* A Web server to serve up the results

	BB has been ported to and configuration files are available for
	the following Unix-based systems: FreeBSD, Solaris, linux, 
	SCO 3/5, HPUX, HPUX 10, NetBSD, Ultrix, OSF, Irix, and SunOS 4.1, 
	RedHat linux, UnixWare, and AIX.

	Big Brother for NT requires Windows NT 4.0 with at least service
	pack 3 installed.  It is available for the Intel and Alpha platforms.


1.5	How do I install Big Brother?

	Unpack the archive, read the README.INSTALL and follow the
	instructions.  Basically, change to the doc directory, run bbconfig,
	cd ../src, run make, run make install, cd ../etc/, edit etc/bb-hosts,
	bbdef.sh, bbwarnrules.cfg, bbwarnsetup.cfg, cd .., edit runbb.sh and
	start it (nohup ./runbb.sh &).

	If you don't understand the above, read the README.


1.6	How can I upgrade?

	Save your old bb-hosts/bbwarnrules.cfg/bbwarnsetup.cfg
	files... then...

	Depends how much customization has been made to your version
	of Big Brother.  Generally, all you should have to do is 
	recompile, make the above changes, and copy your old version
	of etc/bb-hosts in.


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section 2: Debugging Big Brother


2.1	I get the message: "bb: CAN'T CONNECT TO bbd"

	This message indicates that an instance of bb can't
	connect to the Big Brother daemon.  This might be because
	bbd isn't running, or that bb can't determine where bbd
	lives because of some troubles with the bb-hosts file.

	So check the following things:

	* bbd is actually running on your system...
	* BBHOME is correctly set in runbb.sh...
	* Your bb-hosts file is formatted correctly
	* Your firewall isn't blocking port 1984

	Some errors can be caught by:

	cd etc
	run ./bbchkcfg.sh
	run ./bbchkhosts.sh


2.2	I get lots of processes, then bb dies!

	Define -DZOMBIE in the Makefile, recompile and run "make install".
	This seems to happen on some Solaris machines, and will definitely
	happen on SunOS 4.1.3, although 4.1.4 is OK!
	

2.3	I get garbage / my environment all over my screen

	This is almost always due to a problem with the way your bb-hosts
	file is laid out.  BB needs this file to be perfect to work, and
	any little problem with it will cause BB to fail. 

	The most common cause of this problem is pop3 being defined as
	pop-3 in /etc/services.  Make sure the spelling of all services
	in bb-hosts matches /etc/services.

	Make sure also that the BBDISPLAY/BBPAGER are defined only once in
	the etc/bb-hosts file.  Also make sure that the hostnames defined
	in etc/bb-hosts are the same as returned by 'uname -n'.


2.4	I get the message: "Can't open stream socket"

	This message is from bbd being unable to attach itself to port
	1984 and begin listening.  Make sure there are no "bb" processes
	running (bb, bbd).  If there are, kill them.

	Make sure port 1984 is also not in use.  To check this issue
	the following command:

		netstat -an | grep 1984

	If anything comes back, wait a few minutes and try again.
	Once this command returns nothing, you should be able to
	start up Big Brother.


2.5	conn (connection) test is always red / not working...

	The connections column is generated from the machine defined
	as BBNET in bb-hosts.  This machine tries to ping every IP
	address listed in the bb-hosts file. BB looks to see that the
	reply from ping contains the string "bytes from".

	Check that PING and PINGPARS are set correctly in etc/bbsys.sh
	or etc/bbsys.local.


2.6	http test is always red / not working...

	This is usually because the http test isn't for the same
	machine as defined on that line in the bb-hosts file, i.e.:

	Wrong: 204.101.110.101 fred.bobo.com # http://youre.bobo.com/
	Right: 204.101.110.101 fred.bobo.com # http://fred.bobo.com/


2.7 *	bbnet is dumping core

	Add a trailing slash at the end of the URL.  This is a programming
	bug by the author.   Fixed as of v.1.04g thanks to Doug White
	


2.8	Background color is always red / yellow / wrong

	The background color should reflect the most serious state
	on your network at any given time.  If it's not doing this, or
	the background color is wrong, it's because there are some
	leftover log file in the www/logs/ directory.  To check this,
	hit the VIEW button on the main web screen, and the offending
	entries should become visible.  Delete them.  They live in
	www/logs and an HTMLized version is in www/html.


2.9	Pager problems

	The paging subsystem is really time sensitive.  It's possible
	that the timing be either too long or two short for your pager.

	The following comes from  Don Carney :
	In the etc/numeric.scr where it actually dials the number.
	the command is something like
		dial /@[3],,,,,,,,/@[4]
	my fix was to remove a few of the commas, and everything worked 
	fine.  (Commas are generally used by modems for short delays).

	Similarly if you're using one of those 800 number paging services
	you'll probably have to embed these commas in the pager number
	itself, something like:
		PAGER="1800PAGENET,,,,,,7777"
	where 7777 is your account number.
		



------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section 3: Using Big Brother



3.1	How can I monitor routers and things that have no hostname?

	Yup.  Just put a line in the bb-hosts file and make up a name
	for your router.


3.2	Can I monitor Novell servers, VAXEN, AS/400 with BB?

	You can monitor them from the outside, but not from the 
	inside.  That means the bbnet tests that check for connectivity
	and servers should work, but the bb-local tests which monitor
	processes and disk space won't because there is no BB client 
	for these systems. 

	Without a client program for each platform you can still monitor
	connectivity and IP services.  Clients have been written for
	these platforms but The MacLawran Group doesn't support these
	3rd-party clients.  Please check with the mailing list for
	more info on these (http://www.tpdinc.com/~bb/).


3.3	Can I monitor things outside my network?

	Yup.  Just put the appropriate lines in the bb-hosts file and
	that's all.  However it is good form to ask permission, just
	because the remote admin may get curious about repeated accesses
	from the same addresses every 5 minutes, 24 hours a day.


3.4	Is Big Brother secure?  Do you have to be root to run it?

	A certain amount of effort has been made to make sure that
	BB is reasonably secure.  However, on most systems you should
	be able to run BB as a non-root user.


3.5	How can I monitor more services?

	Somewhere around line 75 in bb-network.sh, there's a line that 
	looks like this.  Add the new service at the end and make sure 
	it's in /etc/services.  That's it, that's all.  Simple.

	nntp* | ftp* | pop3* | smtp* | ADD-SERVICE-HERE* )   # SERVICES
	
	Make sure to kill anything starting with bb, and restart it.  
	It'll magically have a new column watching your service. The
	IP service that is checked should always return something
	at connection time to properly be checked.

	Only add IP services as UDP aren't supported yet.


3.6	How can I check password protected web pages?

	Paul Venezia had the answer for this one:
	I've gotten around this by specifying LYNX to be
	/usr/contrib/bin/lynx -dump -auth :


3.7	Can BB restart processes that have failed?

	No, that is your job. BB will tell you about the problem, you
	solve it.  The philosophy is simple, BB will monitor and notify,
	that's all.  The reason behind this is simple, doing more than
	that makes BB exponentially more complex to run, configure and
	support.


3.8	Can BB show historical data?

	Yes.  The history is in the www/hist directory: the file contains
	the date of the last color change.


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section 4: Miscellaneous Big Brother questions


4.1	Where is the name from?

	Big Brother is named for George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four.  
	Big Brother is the head of a totalitarian regime, INGSOC, where
	everyone is watched.  "... the poster with the enormous face
	gazed from the wall.  It was one of those pictures which are
	so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move.
	BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran."

	Doubleplus ungood for people.  Doubleplus good for networks.


4.2	Do you write BB or bb?

	Doesn't really matter.  bb tends to be used when denoting
	programs (i.e. bbnet) whereas BB tends to be used when 
	discussing the entire Big Brother system.


4.3	Whose picture is that and can I get rid of it?

	That picure is of the creator of Big Brother, Sean MacGuire,
	doing his best to do justice to George Orwell.  It's supposed
	to be scary.

	If you don't like it, feel free to change it to something more
	neutral.  Change the file $BBHOME/www/gifs/bb.gif.  Please leave
	a link back to the BB site, though.
	

4.4	Is there a Big Brother Mailing List?

	Yes, and it's an exciting place run by Paul Sittler.  You
	can subscribe by sending e-mail to MajorDomo@taex001.tamu.edu.
	The mailing list is the official support vehicle for BB.

	In the body of the e-mail message (not the Subject line),
	place the statement: 

		subscribe bb 

	Nick Silberstein has made an archive of the Big Brother
	mailing list available.  It can be found at the URL:
		http://www.fluentcomm.com/~bb/ 
	Check it out. It's great! 


4.4	Is there a Big Brother FTP site?

	Yes, Adam Goryachev has set up an ftp site with user
	contributed tools.  You can find it at:

	ftp://ftp.deadcat.net/pub/BB


4.5	Where can I get more help?

	Run the tests as outlined on the install and debug web pages.

	Subscribe to the mailing list.  Check the archives of the
	mailing list to see if you're question has already been 
	answered.  Send a message to the mailing list, and as a
	last resort, mail sean@maclawran.ca