How to enable file transfer feature in ITM 6.2.2 FP 2

One of the coolest and long awaited feature introduced in ITM 6.2.2 FP2 is the file transfer feature. Using this, you should be able to transfer monitoring scripts, dependency files and config files down to the monitored agent. ITM provides necessary CLI to transfer files to/from the agent using "tacmd getfile" and "tacmd putfile".

However this feature is not enabled in the TEMS by default. TO enable this feature, you need to do the following steps.

1. Edit $CANDLEHOME/config/*_ms_*.config

2. Add the following enviornment variable at the end of the config file.

KT1_TEMS_SECURE='Y'

3. Restart the TEMS.

4. Now run "tacmd login" followed by "tacmd getfile" or "tacmd putfile".

Hope this helps.

Who needs an agent?

What agent should I build and offer for free next? Let me know and I
will see what I can do.

Silent Install for Agent Builder Files

To install an agent from the Agent Builder, you use the option to Create a Solution Installer Image

There is also a silent installation option. A silent.txt, is included with the final package - configure this silent file with all the connection details required. If you require additional template options - I will cover that later.

Run the appropriate installer for the operating system with the -silent option. 

For example:

setupwin32.exe -silent -options response_file

A better alternative to free virtualization.

A recently had to build a new server, really big server... 48 cores, 128gb RAM and 16tb of local storage. I wanted to use VMware ESXi server - the free bare metal hypervisor, but it is limited to 32 cpu's. I looked at Microsoft's HyperV and I have never been less impressed by a product. So I looked at Citrix Xenserver 5.6 - free version. It supports up to 64 cpu's and is a true bare metal hypervisor. There are desktop clients to manage from a workstation, it manages disk stores very niceley and has tools for all the guest OSes. It's not quite as friendly as VMware, but IMHO much more usable and easier to setup clusters.

Hushing those Navigator Updates in TEP

Add these to the cq.ini


KFW_CMW_DETECT_AGENT_ADDR_CHANGE=N
The Navigator function detects when the IP@ for an Agent is discovered. If the Agent environment is constantly changing or has improper configurations that generate excessive Navigator tree rebuilding, consider adding this environment variable to have any discovery of changes or additions of IP address ignored.

KFW_CMW_DETECT_AGENT_HOSTNAME_CHANGE=N
This variable is like the one for detecting Agent address change except that it prevents the Navigator rebuilding if an agent hostname is changed.

KFW_CMW_DETECT_AGENT_PROPERTY_CHANGE=N
Similar to the above except that it prevents the Navigator rebuilding if an agent affinity or affinity version changes.

Configuring the TBSM 4.2.1 Discovery Library Toolkit to work with TADDM 7.1.1 and later

EDIT: Corrected the information after re-testing on a clean machine.

On a Windows TBSM server (I haven't tested this on other platforms), you need to copy the taddm-api-client.jar AND platform-api.jar files from the TADDM SDK into TWO different directories on the TBSM data server to get the Discovery Library Toolkit to work. Specifically, you need to copy taddm-api-client.jar to:

D:\ibm\tivoli\tbsm\XMLToolkit\sdk\clientlib

and copy platform-model.jar to:

D:\ibm\tivoli\tbsm\XMLToolkit\sdk\lib

I found that if you only copy the first file, the toolkit won't work at all, and won't generate any errors or messages of any use.

Scheduled Wakeup in Ubuntu

Well, this is hardly related to Tivoli, but just thought of sharing this cool stuff. I have a 5-year old desktop running Ubuntu Lucid used mainly for running scheduled jobs off of cron. So, basically it plays some music everyday for couple of hours and sits idle for the rest of the day. Ideally, I wanted to put the system on standby all the time and waking it up only when the scheduled job needs run. It is relatively easy to do it in Ubuntu (especially if your BIOS supports it).

Here are the exact steps needed on my Lucid Lynx. Please note that you need to have Kernel 2.6.22 or later for this to work.

1) Install the Power management interface tools.
sudo apt-get install powermanagement-interface
2) Copy the following code somewhere in your filesystem and save it as "suspend_x_hours.sh".

#!/bin/bash
# This script puts the system under standby mode for x hours

usage() {

echo "usage: $0 <n-hours>"

echo "where <n-hours> is the number of hours to be on standby"

exit 0

}
if [ $# -ne 1 ]

then

usage

fi

PATH=$PATH:/usr/sbin
hours=$1
echo 0 > /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm
echo `date '+%s' -d "+ $hours hours"` > /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm
pmi action suspend

3) Schedule the script in root's crontab. e.g the following crontab entry runs at 8PM and puts the system in sleep for 10 hours, waking it up at 6:00 AM.

00 20 * * * /home/venkat/bin/suspend_x_hours.sh 10 2>/dev/null

That's it. It takes only about 10 seconds to resume from sleep and it even restores your SSH sessions when it comes back from sleep!

Hope you find it useful.