From: announce-admin@opennms.org
To: announce@www.opennms.org
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 23:19:58 -0600 (CST)
Subject: [OpenNMS-Announce] OpenNMS Update v2.11

====================
   OpenNMS Update
====================
  Vol 2., Issue 11
====================
   March 13, 2001
====================
   
   In this week's installment...
     * Project Status
          + Phone Problems Persist
          + 0.7.1 Released
          + OpenNMS: Your Tax Dollars At Work
          + Coding Projects Underway
     * Upcoming Road Shows
     * Early Adopter Program Status
     * The Wish List
       
==============
Project Status
==============
   
Phone Problems Persist:
     
     First, my apologies for robbing your time last week with my rant
     against BellSouth. I'll try to control myself in the future.
     
     But, for those of you still interested (or perhaps still reading
     last weeks Update), the saga continues... I'll bring you up to date
     with a great deal more brevity this time.
     
     First, in my own idiocy, I told you the circuit was actually up
     last week when in fact, all I had done was try to ping it. It was
     up, but on dial-up, which Ben had set up earlier in the day. So
     yes, I could ping it, but BellSouth's xDSL was still down.
     
     When I get on the phone the next day to my friends at BellSouth
     (Sherard wasn't in), I get the same story from multiple folks
     (e.g., need to talk to billing, need to talk to xDSL support, etc.,
     ad nauseam). Depending on which call it was, I got varying stories:
     it should be working, it will be working later today, we'll send
     somebody out next Monday (5 days), you need to talk to someone
     else, etc.
     
     In my frustration (and with something else to do), I check the xDSL
     modem, which now shows a sync light (it didn't before). So I start
     messing with it and...nothing. So after hours of screwing with it
     and BellSouth, I give up and go to my lunch meeting. I get back and
     what do I get? A casual "oh yeah, we've been up for a half hour.".
     
     Damn. I felt like Moses. Wandered lost for 40 years and don't get
     to be around for the Promised Land. But then again, Moses had God
     on his side. And I was stuck with BellSouth.
     

0.7.1 Released:
     
     If you haven't downloaded it yet, you'll want to.
     
     Jeff is swearing by it (in contrast to swearing at it), and so far,
     most of the feedback has been good.
     
     To clarify a few of the goals for this release: we found that
     trying to push in all the new features we are working on currently,
     as well as some of the major bug fixes, it was more difficult to
     backport changes to the stable tree, so we did some more testing on
     0.7.1 and are trying to focus on that for the time being. The "easy
     installer", which we desperately need, is not slated until a later
     0.7 release (late April?).
     
     For now, we've still got plenty in the works. A drastic re-work of
     the event configuration process (which enables some basic event
     correlation), some database maintenance utilities, some
     command-line interfaces to critical functions (e.g., generating
     events, adding/deleting nodes, etc.), more features in the web UI,
     including better ad hoc reporting, and with some luck, a
     threshold-aware poller, and a reasonable handling of non-IP
     addressed interfaces.
     
     Cross your fingers, be patient, and pitch in if you can. And as
     always, thank you for your support.
     

OpenNMS: Your Tax Dollars At Work:
     
     In his recent posting to the [discuss] list, Pete Siemsen was
     understating his involvement and interest to a degree. Pete, who is
     a very capable network management guy and evidently, a pretty mean
     grant writer, has secured some funding to work in tandem on the
     OpenNMS effort to add some additional discovery and display
     capabilities into the product.
     
     Obviously identifying a niche that we had not yet addressed (read:
     actively avoided), Pete has some specific interests in CDP, Layer
     2, and mapping. From notes we've received over the last two years,
     there should be more than one of you out there interested in this
     effort.
     
     NOw you should also be made aware that this money is not something
     that goes into Pete's pocket. This effectively buys him some time
     away from his current employer (another government entity, if I
     understand correctly) to work on the effort. And since he can only
     do it part time, he'll be bringing on someone else (likely a local
     student looking for an interesting project) to fill out the rest of
     the grant proposal/dollars.
     
     And a disclaimer on Pete's behalf: He doesn't currently "do" Java,
     but is willing to learn (insert "Stripes" reference here). And his
     project is still, to a degree, being formulated, so we needn't
     expect anything any time soon. But I'm personally confident that
     whatever we do get will be well thought out, well implemented, and
     a great addition to our functionality set.
     
     A hearty welcome to Pete and here's looking forward to a productive
     year.
     

Coding Projects Underway:
     
     * CDP/L2/Mapping -- Way too early to tell. Watch this space and the
       [discovery] mailing list for updates.

     * Snort Integration -- M.L. (can I use your name?) has got his act
       together on this one. Things are progressing nicely and we should
       have a detailed story to tell soon. I love vague words like
       "soon".

     * Solaris Port Postgres Procedures -- Saw a post from Harald G., but
       don't remember what it said. I think it was in reference to his
       Solaris port of icmpd.

     * Postgres for NT -- Just traded emails with someone earlier today
       that is trying OpenNMS on Win32 and has made their way to
       portmapper problems, so until we get past that, we can't vouch for
       Postgres. But for now, all signs point to 'yes'.

     * Portmap for NT -- See above. There is one that ships with NT/2000
       that _should_ work, but we haven't tested it. There is another one
       referenced at http://www.plt.rwth-aachen.de/ks/english/oncrpc.html
       which is basically from the same project as the Java RPC libraries
       we are using. This is probably worth a look for those of you
       interested in running on NT.

     * SNMP Poller/Data Collection -- I refuse to believe I'm the only
       guy that reads this Update and also uses RRDTool. Hello? McFly?
       Anybody home?

     * Event DTD -- It's the choice of a new generation.

     * User Interfaces -- Some questions on the default configuration
       that's currently shipping. The rules are generic at best and
       faulty at worst. Make sure you LOOK AT THEM and see if they are
       right for your environment.

     * New Pollers -- The list currently includes LDAP, POP3, and
       something else, which I can't currently remember.i

     * Maji Prelim Work -- Rick is building Perl code that is
       successfully parsing MIB files. Check him out, in all his glory,
       on the "events" list.

     * Configuration -- Ugly. Ugly. Ugly. Jason inherited this one and is
       making some progress, but it's ugly. Additionally, some of the
       users/groups stuff is making its way to the Web UI, which will
       help matters a bit.

     * Swing Interface -- Fighting random oddities. Proceed with caution.

     * Discovery/CAPSD/Database Review -- Revisiting the way Discovery
       and capsd communicate, verifying that stuff is accurately written
       to the database, and adding some maintenance functionality we
       didn't have previously. Mike's the man, and specifically, Mike is
       the man that did not break the build this week! Famous last
       words...

     * Agent Technologies -- Big update from Craig this week. Here's the
       highlights. Basing everything on Jabber, with a Jabber server on
       the managed system, with Jabber clients that do specific
       monitoring. Plans to have something workable in the May timeframe.
       The current push is to get some OpenSSL hooks into the
       Server-Server communication piece. The OpenNMS-side server will be
       C, providing our first known integration point between a C service
       and our Java-based SCM. Rock on, Craig!
       
===================
Upcoming Road Shows
===================
   
   Our parent company has provided us with a small tradeshow booth that
   we'll be able to take with when we do our upcoming shows (e.g., ALS (A
   != Atlanta), LWE, and other meetings o' the minds). We set it up and
   it looks like a game show set. Now Luke wants to move it into his
   living room and interview all of his "guests". Perhaps he should also
   consider doing his apartment in "levels" and feeding his horse
   Beef-a-rino...
   
   On with the road shows...
   
     * May 5th - Twin Cities LUG, Minneapolis, MN

     * May 10th - Boulder LUG, Boulder, CO

     * June 1st - NOVALUG BBQ!! Fire-eaters Unite!!

     * June 2nd - Northern Virginia LUG (NOVALUG), Alexandria, VA

     * June 11-15 - OpenView Forum 2001, New Orleans, LA

     * July 23-27 - O'Reilly Open Source Convention, San Diego, CA
       
   For additional details on these appearances and others, check out the
   web site at http://www.opennms.org/sections/opennms/events
   

============================
Early Adopter Program Status
============================
   
   0.7.1 has made Jeff's life far easier. But then again, without
   installation problems to fix, Jeff's now forced to learn the rest of
   the product. Que sera, sera.
   
   Also, a note to all EAP members: We're doing our best to get to people
   and our communication has been poor. Here's the general status:
   everyone is currently on hold pending our ability to get 0.7.1
   installed as a common base for everyone, since it rocks. More details
   to follow, and if you can't wait, contact Luke at luke@opennms.org.
   

=============
The Wish List
=============
   
   With some of the contributors popping up, we're starting to get some
   of our main wishes addressed. Shout outs to our "peeps": M.L., Craig
   Trader (of Scoreboard fame), Pete Siemsen, Harald Goerl, and a world
   of others.
   
   And now, on with the list...
   
     * In the 0.7.x release (and CVS), checkout the TODO file

     * More Data Collection configs wanted for the DataCollection.xml

     * Any interest in more TCP pollers? Let us know (or better yet,
       build one yourself...)

     * LDAP/POP3/nmap Pollers

     * Documentation and development your game? How about a white paper
       on how to extend OpenNMS with custom pollers, custom configs,
       and/or your own scripts/code.

     * Any additional help we can get proving our documentation either
       right or wrong is appreciated. Thanks.

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

     * A Security analysis of OpenNMS?
       

=============
Afterthoughts
=============
   
   I am not drunk, but the wine speaks in me.
     -- Rough translation of 'Ubriaco non son io', 
        from Mozart's 'La Finta Semplice'.

   I'm tired and it's my wife's birthday, so we're enjoying a nice
   evening on the deck, just her, me, two glasses of wine, and my laptop.
   Thus, I shall make this brief.
   
   A note to everyone: If you are finding problems and fixing them of
   your own accord, please put an entry in the FAQ. The more time we can
   spend writing code and the less time answering common questions, the
   better off we'll all be. Note: This doesn't mean we don't like
   answering questions--just not "common" questions...
   
   The new office is coming along nicely. It's clean and is almost wired.
   And it's always nice to meet new neighbors who constantly ask "how do
   you make any money if you don't sell your software?". Eric Raymond
   couldn't pay for better advertisement...
   
   Now, back to my wine. Er, I meant "wife"...

r0ck m3 4m4d3u5,
   
Shane O.
========
Shane O'Donnell
OpenNMS.org
shaneo@opennms.org
==================
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