Foglight for Application Operations 5.9.8.5 - Dependency Mapping User Guide

To access the Dependency Mapping Administration dashboard, in the Foglight navigation panel, under Dashboards, click Dependency Mapping > Dependency Mapping Administration.

Figure 1. The Dependency Mapping Administration dashboard.

Configuring dependency monitoring

Foglight for Application Operations uses various agents to collect information from the monitored hosts. Agents communicate with the Management Server using the Agent Manager. When you install this cartridge on the Management Server, the installation process makes the Netstat agent package available for deployment.

The Netstat agent collects process network usage information from Windows and Linux hosts in your environment, as well as host-level usage information from Solaris systems, and uses that information to report dependencies. The Netstat agent can be configured to aggregate this data across multiple hosts, so that the dependencies can be mapped between processes on different hosts.


	IMPORTANT: Remote hosts that are found by the Netstat agents and are not excluded from the dependency mapping, are populated into Foglight’s host model if a dependency is reported against them.

To start collecting dependency data from an environment, you must create, configure, and deploy one or more Netstat agents for the set of hosts that are part of that environment. You can later re-configure, activate or deactivate, modify the agent collection schedule, or delete an agent, as needed.

The Configure Dependency Monitoring dashboard helps Foglight administrators to create and manage Netstat agents. To access this dashboard, click Configure Dependency Monitoring in the Dependency Mapping Administration dashboard.

Table 1. Configure Dependency Monitoring dashboard data
Column Name	Column Description
Agent Name	Name of the Netstat agent.
Type	Type of the deployed agent. Not displayed by default.
Agent Host	Host on which the agent is deployed.
Credential Alarms	Credential alarms generated by the Agent Manager while processing and handling credential requests. The alarms may have one of the following severity levels: Fatal, Critical, or Warning. To see detailed information about the alarms generated for a Netstat agent, click in one of the alarm fields, or hover the mouse over it. For a list of credential events that the Agent Manager generates based on actions that occur while processing and handling credential requests, see section Credential events generated by the Foglight Agent Manager in the Foglight Administration and Configuration Guide.
Status	The status of the agent.
Scanning Progress	Dependency progress tracking link. Use to access the Dependency Progress Tracker dashboard. For details, see Tracking the progress of dependency scans .
Collection Schedule	Data collection interval (default value is 30 minutes).


	NOTE: Many Foglight agents, including the Netstat dependency agents, require access to the WinShell services — specifically, to the DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) — to implement remote monitoring of a Windows machine.

Create a Netstat agent

When you create a Netstat agent, you define the minimum configuration settings for your agent so that it can collect dependency data from a specific environment.

Goals of configuring the Netstat agent

The Netstat agent should be configured to monitor all the hosts in a single application. More agents can be configured to monitor hosts from other applications.

To collect process-to-process details of a dependency between two hosts, the agent must connect to both endpoints of the conversation in the same scan. For a host to be monitored by an agent, it must be configured in that agent’s Scan these hosts list or in the Referenced List in the advanced setup (for details, see Configuring the referenced list ). The “referenced hosts” list is ideal for including groups of hosts which vary and can be identified by naming convention, or which may only be part-time participants in an application.

Quest strongly recommends that you exclude end-user access from Netstat collection. This can be configured in the Create a New Agent dialog, through the Exclude these hosts list (generally by entering an IP range) or by excluding ports accessed by end users. You can exclude dependencies to common end-user ports 80 and 443 from all hosts for a single agent by using the check box provided in the Create a New Agent dialog. You can exclude ports on specific hosts by editing the agent settings after creating the agent. For details, see Configuring the scanning list .

Creating a Netstat agent

To create a Netstat agent:

In the Configure Dependency Monitoring dashboard, click Create a new agent.

The Create a New Agent dialog box contains the configurable settings for a Netstat agent.


	IMPORTANT: These settings can be modified later, if needed.

Provide the required information about the hosts in the environment that you want to monitor.

•

Scan these hosts — list the hosts that you want the Netstat agent to scan every time it runs. The list can include host names, host IPs, or IP ranges for the hosts to be included in the scanning.


	NOTE: You can define up to 256 hosts in the agent scanning list through the UI. Larger scan lists may require a custom Agent Manager configuration and additional memory.

•

Exclude these hosts (optional) — list the host names, host IPs, or IP ranges for the hosts that the Netstat agent should exclude from the scan. The exclude list should be used for hosts which have connections to hosts in your scan list, but which are not actual dependencies. Examples may include: backup systems, virus file definition servers, end user subnets.

•

Ignore HTTP (port 80) and HTTPs (port 443) connections — Select to exclude from monitoring the traffic going through ports 80 and 443 of all hosts specified in the Scan these hosts box.


	NOTE: Ignoring ports 80 and 443 is a convenient way to exclude end users from the dependency model, which is recommended.

In the Credentials section, define the agent’s credentials for scanning the selected hosts.

If you have already defined the credentials for the target host list or you want to configure them later, select the Skip credential assignment check box and continue with Step 4.

If you want to use the account the Agent Manager is installed with, select the Use the same credential of the current running client for the above hosts check box and continue with Step 4.

For your convenience, you can define up to two sets of credentials, one for Windows hosts and the other for SSH access.


	IMPORTANT: The advanced setup view can help you assign credentials in a more granular way.

Provide the following information for each set of credentials:

•

User Name — defines the user account that can log in to the selected hosts and run the netstat command for scanning these hosts.

•

Password and Confirm Password — specify the account password.

•

Domain (for Windows credentials only) — specifies the domain for the selected user name.

•

Description — provides a short description of the credentials and their purpose.

•

Store your credentials in this lockbox — select a lockbox from the available options. A lockbox stores credentials to be assigned to an Agent Manager so that they can be used by all the agents in that Agent Manager.

•

Select the This is a challenge credential check box when you want to simulate a user logging in using a keyboard. This is necessary when the password authentication is disabled on the target hosts.

In the Agent Details section:

•

Deploy on client — select the remote client on which you want to deploy the new Netstat agent.

•

Agent name — type a name or a short description for the new Netstat agent.

•

Activate now — select if you want to activate the agent when it is created; clear the check box if you want to activate the agent later.

Click Create agent.

The agent package is deployed on the remote client indicated in the settings, then the agent is created. The Configure Dependency Monitoring dashboard is updated to show the newly created agent.


	IMPORTANT: When you deploy an agent for the first time, the operation may require a few seconds to complete.

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Foglight for Application Operations 5.9.8.5 - Dependency Mapping User Guide

Dependency Mapping Administration

Configuring dependency monitoring

Create a Netstat agent

Creating a Netstat agent