Unix

Supported Versions

Collection Methods

SSH or rexec

Data Collected

Requirements

Username and password with permission to log in via either SSH or rexec.
Password authentication is attempted first. If password authentication fails, public-key authentication is attempted.
If there is a password expiration policy for Unix, it is recommended that the account used to monitor Unix either be exempted from that policy, or that the account use public-key authentication.
Instructions on configuring Longitude for public-key authentication can be found in Configuring public-key authentication for SSH based collections.
On Linux servers, the sysstat package should be installed to provide the OS commands used to collect data.

The account specified should have permission to run the following commands:

Platform	Commands
AIX	iostat, ps, df, vmstat, lsattr, lsps, netstat
HP-UX	iostat, ps, df, vmstat, swapinfo, netstat, “grep Physical /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log”
Linux	iostat, ps, df, sar, free, ip
Solaris	iostat, ps, df, sar, prtconf, vmstat, swap, netstat

Configuration

Use Monitor Devices or see the Unix instructions for Device Discovery.
Select Unix.
If necessary, select a Longitude Remote Agent.
If monitoring manually, enter the name of the Server in the Computers field.
Enter a Username.
Enter the Password for the Username, the passphrase for public key authentication, or blank for public key authentication without a passphrase.
The SshPort is set to the SSH default port of 22. Change this if necessary.
If public-key authentication is being used, select the SshPrivateKey configured for the specified account. If password authentication is used, this field will be ignored.
Click on the Monitor button.

Troubleshooting

On some systems, the root account is blocked from making an SSH or rexec connection for security reasons. The commands Longitude runs to collect data do not require root access – please specify a user account for data collection.
AIX servers may require that Longitude server collecting data be in the local /etc/hosts file.
SuSE Linux may have password authentication disabled for SSH connections:
1. Check /etc/ssd/sshd_config for the line: PasswordAuthentication no
2. Change the line to PasswordAuthentication yes
3. Restart sshd
If memory collections fail during registration for HP-UX:
- Check that /usr/sbin/swapinfo can be executed by the account used for collections.
- Check the output from head -n 100 /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log | grep Physical. If this does not contain the total memory on the server, contact Longitude support at [email protected] for additional options on collecting the total memory for HP-UX servers.
-1 is returned for collections:
Some collections are not supported on all platforms, and will return a default value of -1. The following collections are not supported:

Platform Collector Collection

AIX Memory SWAP_OUT_RATE

AIX Processor RUNNABLE_PROCESSES

Linux Memory PAGE_SCAN_RATE

Linux MEM_FREE_PCT is higher than expected:
Longitude’s value for MEM_FREE_PCT on Linux is calculated to include the amount of free memory in the cache. Longitude runs the free -k command and uses the memory listed on the -/+ buffers/cache: line. This line displays all the memory that is usable, regardless of whether or not if has been allocated. The top line of the free -k output displays allocated memory, some of which may be cached and still available for processes.