FusionReactor on display
Tom Chiverton
appear without logging in ?
I'd like to add that to the rotation of status pages that rotates on a
wall mounted TV we have in the office, but can't create a
password-less 'observer' account, for instance.
SeeFusion does this, for instance. I think it stores the password in a
flash cookie or something...
charlie arehart
without a password, at least not through the FR Admin interface. I wonder if
it may be possible to hack by editing an xml or property file. Perhaps the
FR guys or someone else will chime in.
(For those not familiar with the "observer" account, that was added in FR 3,
I think, along with a "manager" account, each of which has fewer privileges
than the default "admin" account which we all tend to use. It allows you to
give different people restricted access to different FR screens. See the
last "FusionReactor" section on the left, then "Change Password", or see the
docs/help for more.)
As for wanting to have a way to access some of the metrics info remotely, I
hear that you're really wanting to access the metrics page itself, and not
the data, but someone might wonder if you might be able to get at the data
at least (not the graphs) using the FR API. I've looked through the docs,
though, and don't see any method offering that data. Is that right, FR guys?
If there were, then you could at least have your client monitoring tool call
a CFM page you create yourself that calls the API and returns the data.
I will note, of course, that if you're using FR Enterprise (as opposed to FR
Standard), then there is already this very sort of remote monitoring of CF
instances using the Enterprise Dashboard (in the FR admin) or the AIR
dashboard. Those are designed to provide the very kind of "wall of monitored
CF servers" that you're interested in--but you do need FR Enterprise, both
for the Dashboard and for the servers to be monitored (though FR is licensed
per box, so one license could cover having both a monitoring and monitored
instance on one box.)
Related to this, for folks running FR Enterprise, is the available free FREM
tool which packages FR in a Tomcat instance that you can install to be "the
monitor of other FR instances", rather than having to install another CF
instance. That's available free in the labs area (though again, it can only
monitor other FR Enterprise instances):
http://www.fusion-reactor.com/labs/FREM.cfm
Going back to your original question, as for any solution they may offer or
come up with for really seeing the screen without logging in, if there is
indeed none currently and the FR guys might consider a solution, would you
only want a cookie-based approach, or would you be open to an option to pass
the admin password in on the URL as a query string, whether as clear text
(acknowledging the risks there) or perhaps as an encrypted/encoded? Just
helping them and you think through options.
/charlie
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charlie arehart
/charlie
Tom Chiverton
On Thursday, February 24, 2011 2:56:20 PM UTC, charlie arehart wrote:
I will note, of course, that if you're using FR Enterprise (as opposed to FR
Standard), then there is already this very sort of remote monitoring of CF
instances using the Enterprise Dashboard (in the FR admin) or the AIR
dashboard. Those are designed to provide the very kind of "wall of monitored
CF servers" that you're interested in--but you do need FR Enterprise, both
for the Dashboard and for the servers to be monitored (though FR is licensed
per box, so one license could cover having both a monitoring and monitored
instance on one box.)
Related to this, for folks running FR Enterprise, is the available free FREM
tool which packages FR in a Tomcat instance that you can install to be "the
monitor of other FR instances", rather than having to install another CF
instance.
FREM only runs on Windows, and is Enterprise only so not for us.
Tom Chiverton
Aaron Greenlee
Aaron Greenlee
charlie arehart
Well, Tom, I did share other thoughts well before that (your point about having to “pay more just to avoid needing to specify a password”). I was just adding that last comment about the Enterprise edition for the sake of completion, not suggesting to you that paying 3x was the only solution. :-)
That said, it is possible that the FR folks did choose to design things so that “remote monitoring” of an FR instance was deemed to be an Enterprise requirement, thus calling for an Enterprise solution. Don’t shoot the messenger, though. :-) I’m just trying to help.
You asked then, “Am I right in that a normal FusionReactor license enables monitoring as many CF instances on the same box as I like ? Even if those instances aren't the same one running FR ? So I could have a separate super-minimal CF that just runs FR and add the live CF to that ?”
Well, no. Again, only the Enterprise (or trial) version offers a means to “monitor as many instances on the same box”.
What you may be thinking instead is that, yes, with the Standard license, you can certainly install FR into as many instances on a single box as you’d like. But then you can only access them through the FR interface for each instance. Again, they do not provide the “Enterprise Dashboard” (ED) feature in any but the Enterprise version of FR. To be clear, that ED could then look at any other Enterprise version of FR, whether on the same box or others. Obviously, this idea of monitoring multiple FR instances from some one other is something that would only be useful for someone running multiple CF instances (whether on the same box or another, and whether as CF Multiserver deployments or as CF Standard or Enterprise Server or J2EE deployments.)
Finally, you say, “FREM only runs on Windows”, but to be clear, all FREM is a packaged installation of Tomcat with FR in it, for the intended purpose of using it to monitor other FR Enterprise instances. You can certainly do it all on your own, installing your own Tomcat (or Glassfish or Jetty or whatever) and implement FR in that, and then have it monitor another instance. But yes, again, that ability for one instance to monitor another is limited to FR Enterprise deployments.
But there may yet still be some other way to get what you want, perhaps, so let’s see what others or the FR folks may add in the next day or so.
/charlie
--
charlie arehart
Point releases are free, Tom.
/charlie
--
Peter Boughton
by many unix-based systems?
It looks like the upgrade page is doing something fancy to look at
whether FR is installed, and on a terminal-only server (using Lynx or
equiv) then that probably isn't working, hence the (ambiguous)
question on how to upgrade without X.
charlie arehart
concern about the cost of upgrading, so I thought his "x" here was a
reference to that 3x cost for Enterprise. (He didn't say "3x", just "3", but
my brain connected those dots.) Thanks for clarifying things, Peter.
So, anyway, as for the installer, again, as with FREM, the automated
installers may well have specific OS requirements. But you can always
manually install FR or any update.
As for manually installing the update, they've got you covered there, Tom.
On the left of the download page for the update
(http://www.fusion-reactor.com/fr/downloads.cfm) note the link for "Perform
a Manual Update":
http://www.fusion-reactor.com/fr/manualupdate.cfm
Also, FWIW, beyond that the Installation Guide (though most never need to
read it) does a good job of explaining manual installs, with specific
sections for installing not only on different OSs but also different Java
servers, so you should be set whatever your architecture.
Finally, note that on the download page itself it also offers separate links
for automated and manual installs, per OS.
Let us know if there's some issue beyond that.
/charlie
Tom Chiverton
I'll experiment with an automated POST
Tom Chiverton
1) Locate the URL of the FR page you want displayed. The code below uses the system metrics page. FireFox's 'show only this frame' right click menu option should do the job.
2) Create a new file in <fusionRectorHome>/html/ You can call it anything, I used t.html
3) Create an 'observer' account password in the FR admin.
4) Enter in the following to your new file, changing the 'action' URL if req to that from step 1, and setting the password created in step 3. I couldn't be bothered making it a valid HTML file :-)
<form id="f" action="http://evweb2:8088/fusionreactor/fmetrics.cfm?mode=count" method="post">
<input name="username" value="Observer" type="password"/>
<input name="loginpagepassword" value="<password>" type="password"/>
</form>
<script>
document.getElementById('f').submit();
</script>
5) Use a URL like the following to invoke your page: http://<frhostname>:<frport>/fusionreactor/fserve.cfm/t.html
I'm not sure if that file will be clobbered by FR updates, but you can just put it back. Putting the new file on a different box entirely would also be an option, and should work OK.
Tom
charlie arehart
There you go. May help someone. Thanks for sharing. (Too bad it may be missed by some for the subject never having been changed above. Something to keep in mind for future reference.)
Hope you continue to get (and give, thanks) value as a new member of the list here, Tom.
/charlie
From: fusion...@googlegroups.com [mailto:fusion...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Tom Chiverton
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 4:42 AM
To: fusion...@googlegroups.com
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