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From: announce-admin@opennms.org
To: announce@www.opennms.org
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:25:59 -0600 (CST)
Subject: [opennms-announce] OpenNMS Update v2.1

================
 OpenNMS Update
================
 Vol 2, Issue 1
================
  Jan. 2, 2001
================

   In this week's installment...

     * Project Status

          + Happy New Year!

          + Mo' Better Install Doc Available

          + Coding Projects Underway

     * OpenNMS' CVS Check-In Procedures

     * Setting Expectations

     * A Visit from the Eventmeister

     * The Wish List

       
==============
Project Status
==============


Happy New Year!:

   A rousing cheer for all of us who survived Y2K, both inbound and
   outbound!

   For those of you curious as to what happened to last week's update, it
   simply fell prey to the holidays, as well as the stomach flu, which
   laid several of us to waste last week. But I'm back in black, I hit
   the sack, it's been so long, I'm glad to be back.

   Anyway, a new year starts a new volume of Updates, so mark your new
   calendars with a star on Tuesday, when you'll be able to read the new
   and improved Y2K++ version of the Update, keeping abreast of the
   project, and finding out all the inside scoop and latest developments.
   

Mo' Better Install Doc Available:

   Quoth Ben: "You asked for it, you got it"

   The unruly mob has been clamoring for better installation
   documentation for the non-RPM installs. Ben's first cut at 
   this is now available at:

   http://www.opennms.org/files/documentation/html/install/book.html

   The PDF version of this doc is not yet available, but then again, form
   follows function. The HTML will have to do until we can figure out why
   we are experiencing this FOP flop.

   Ben's also asked me to note that he's also building, in all his spare
   time, a Perl install script which will automate this process for you.
   An early version of it exists today, but it does little more than
   verify that Postgres exists, and we figure you can handle that one on
   your own.

   Give it a spin, and as always, if you have problems with the doc or
   find errors, let us know, or better yet--update Bug #100 in Bugzilla.
   

Coding Projects Underway:

     * Servlets -- Actively working on building/tuning the "extractors".

     * SCM -- Pause/Resume functionality has been introduced for both all
       SCM-controlled processes. This is now checked into the development
       "trunk".

     * SCM UI -- Now invokable only from the Administrator Main panel,
       the SCM UI has also been set up to automatically refresh itself
       every 30 seconds, and that interval is configurable.

     * TCP Poller -- Mike has knocked out the "generic" poller, and it
       has been committed to the development "trunk" of CVS. You can
       check it out and give it a spin. Note that he's currently
       configured it as a service to check the TCP "DayTime" service. You
       can see the appropriate associated entries in defaults.xml,
       CapsdPluginConf.xml, and scmconfig.xml.

     * Maji Prelim Work -- Rick is active on the "events" mailing list.

     * Distributed Arc hitecture -- Continuing efforts, but we're
       stealing resources to knock out some of the bug fixes and
       functionality enhancements required by the current release. Time
       frames will likely be sliding.

     * Discovery -- There is now a property defined in the bluebird
       properties file that allows you to determine a "sleep" period both
       before discovery is started initially and following a completed
       pass. Up to now, it started early and ran fast until you stopped
       it. Improvement? We think so.
       

================================
OpenNMS' CVS Check-In Procedures
================================

   Given the little period of confusion we had over the holidays when the
   development "trunk" of the CVS tree would not build, I decided now
   would be a good time to try to explain our check-in procedures.

   Currently, the strategy is simply this: Every member of the core team
   has full check-in rights to the main branch as well as all other
   branches of CVS. When code is written and tested by the developer, it
   is checked into the appropriate point in the CVS tree--as soon as it
   is deemed complete and functional by the developer.

   The developer is then charged with raising a flag to Weave so that
   he's aware there is code that he needs to review. Weave will then grab
   the code from CVS, do his magical incantations and the naked code
   review dance, then dub it officially reviewed.

   Why the commit before the review? This buys us two things: If Weave
   gets backed up, the rest of the world can at least have access to the
   code, rather than forcing Weave to become a bottleneck in the process,
   and it provides us a means of code control during the review process
   timeframe. Unfortunately, it also opens us up to scenarios like last
   week where the main branch wouldn't build, but in my mind, that's a
   small price to pay for the benefits. Undoubtedly, those of you that
   were impacted found it frustrating, but bear with us--and always
   remember, if you are checking out of the main development "trunk", you
   are asking for the bleeding edge, so don't be surprised if you get it.
   

====================
Setting Expectations
====================

   Many of you have asked the question: "OK, you've released the
   Testdrive release, but when will it be safe for me to download the
   code and use it?"

   That's a good question. For some of you, the bit-twiddling propellor
   heads that understand what network management is about, as well as our
   basic approaches, the time may very well be right now. Then again,
   there are others of you that want to introduce OpenNMS into
   head-to-head product evaluations with existing commercial packages.
   For that, you'll probably want to wait.

   Why wait, you ask? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, the
   Testdrive release was intended to provide folks with some code that
   they could mess with, and in some cases, even use it to manage
   networks. However, there are other aspects of the product that render
   it considerably "sub-optimal". For example, up until last week, our
   discovery process never rested. It would check your defined range, and
   when done, start over again at the beginning. This has now been
   addressed (and this code is in CVS), but it's certainly not something
   you want happening constantly across your network. Remember, in the
   grand scheme of things, SOMEBODY is paying for every bit of traffic
   that gets carried, and if you like that someone to continue to provide
   that service, you have to use it with some responsibility. We're
   improving our approach to that, and in turn, enabling our users to do
   that as well.

   So remember, we aren't done yet. Don't expect the product to be. If
   you have specific questions about functionality and when you should
   start using the product, drop me an email, or better yet, keep reading
   the documentation and Updates and give us a couple of months to keep
   working. There's a lot of cool (and necessary) stuff waiting in the
   wings!
   

=============================
A Visit from the Eventmeister
=============================

   Rick Casey was in town over the holidays to talk about event
   correlation. We got a chance to dig a little deeper into Doug's Maji
   spec, but we certainly didn't have enough time to do everything we
   wanted. Event correlation is a daunting task.

   For those of you interested in helping out (or watching) on the event
   correlation front, feel free to jump in on the events mailing list.
   For those of you interested in how to get on the mailing lists, go to
   the website. For those of you interested in going to the website, just
   go already. http://www.opennms.org/
   

=============
The Wish List
=============

   As this is a new year, the Wish List will become a new, evolutionary
   tool to better express opportunities for you to jump in and help.
   As an aside, contributions to the project have been way up now that
   people can get the current release and at least mess with it. Bug
   fixes are coming in at a respectable pace, as are enhancement
   requests. Thanks for those of you participating. Now, on with the
   list...

     * Now that we have a "generic" TCP Poller, we could use some help in
       building some configurations to test services that you may be
       concerned with. For example, is LDAP do-able? How about
       applications like Peoplesoft, SAP, Baan? Remember, you can deploy
       multiple of these pollers against multiple ports.

     * Testing on new, exciting platforms is always appreciated. Somebody
       want to mess with the Cygwin port of Postgres to NT and see where
       we stand over there?

     * Any additional help we can get proving our documentation either
       right or wrong is appreciated. Remember, documentation bugs go to
       Bugzilla under Bug #100. Thanks.

     * Got any creative applications for OpenNMS that we haven't
       considered? Let us know!
       

=============
Afterthoughts
=============

   OK. So it's a new year, and just like everybody else, I've made my
   resolutions, and in most cases, I've already blown them off. Here's my
   list for this year:

     * Stop railing about major religious holidays. It doesn't appear to
       go over well...

     * Less talk, more rock.

     * Spend less time watching infomercials and more time buying those
       amazing products!

     * Write a book.

     * Don't drink any more or any less, but drink smarter.

     * Go to Germany, but for more than two days this time

     * Trade in my Mork suspenders for a Fonzie jacket.

     * Avoid the flu.

     * Promote world peace through open source!
       
Happy New Year and thanks for hanging out!
Shane O.
========
Shane O'Donnell
OpenNMS.org
shaneo@opennms.org
==================
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