Web-based System Manager for AIX 5.2 README

README

Web-based System Manager for AIX 5L Version 5.2

Limitations

Various preference file problems have been discovered.

Depending on what features you use, preference files may not be compatible between AIX 5L Version 5.1 and Version 5.2. When an incompatibility exists, you will receive an information dialog during startup: "Unable to load preferences from ...". In this situation all of your preferences will be reset to their default settings. If you do not want to modify the preference file saved on disk (in case you want to use the preference file on a 5.1 system), be sure to not save the file on exit, or use Save As to specify another preference file name.

If your managing server does not have the monitoring applications installed and you are managing a machine that does have the monitoring application, such that it is downloaded onto the managing server, then any preferences saved may cause Web-based System Manager to display the dialog "Unable to load preferences from..." the next time it is started from that managing server. This is due to the data stored in the preference file can not be fully interpreted by the applications local to that machine. Either install the offending application (monitoring) on the managing server, or choose one of the posible solutions listed in the previous bullet.

The preference file used by the monitoring applications may not be compatible between AIX 5L Version 5.1 and Version 5.2. This may result in warning dialogs being displayed which contain Java exceptions. This problem can be resolved by deleting the monitoring preference file from the user's home directory. The monitoring file is named wsmmonitoring.data.

The 'All Users' and 'All Groups' plugins only work with locally defined users and groups. Virtual NIS users and groups defined in NIS, NIS+ and other similar services are ignored.

The Configurations/Classes plugin of the Workload Manager application is not dynamically refreshed when the applicable configuration has changed inside a configuration set. To have the effective current configuration, select the reload icon on the toolbar while in the Configuration/Classes plugin.

Cluster Systems Management is a new application to manage clusters. More information can be found in the document: IBM Cluster Systems Management for AIX 5L Administration Guide Version 1.3, order number: SA22-7918-00 .

The new plugins to manage a CSM cluster only appear in Web-based System Manager under the following conditions:

The initial machine that is connected to when Web-based System Manager is started must be at an AIX 5.2 level.

A user must select an AIX 5.2 machine in the Web-based System Manager navigation area that is configured as a CSM management server. At that point the new CSM cluster plugins are discovered and are available for use.

Visual monitoring is supported in the Web-based System Manager navigation area for the children (which are the nodes defined in the CSM cluster) of the new CSM Nodes plugin. This visual monitoring only occurs after the Nodes plugin has been loaded/selected.

There is no compatability with releases prior to: sysmgt.websm.rte 5.1.0.15

Recommendations

Users may use Web-based System Manager in one of the following Client-Server management modes:

From a local display on AIX: manage one or many AIX or HMC systems by adding the host names to the Management Environment within Web-based System Manager.

From a Windows or Linux system using the Web-based System Manager Remote Client application.

From a Windows system using applet mode from either Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.

Remote XServer (exporting DISPLAY from one AIX system to another) performance is slower than using a local display. This is due to a Java 2 design problem.

The wsm_remote software bundle is available (smitty install_bundle) to automatically enable remote management from a Linux or Windows remote client. Following installation of the base IBM HTTP Server, additional processing is performed to enable Web-based System Manager to be accessed from a Linux or Windows system using either the Remote Client application or Applet mode from a web browser. This processing also runs the /usr/websm/bin/wsmserver -enable command to start communications between the AIX and Remote systems. You must, however, manually perform a few steps to complete the configuration:

First, start the HTTP server as root:

/usr/HTTPServer/bin/httpd>/dev/console 2>&1

After the HTTP Server is running, type the following command to configure Web-based System Manager:

/usr/websm/bin/configassist

Next, Proceed in Configuration Assistant until you reach the main panel.

Select Configure a web server to run Web-based System Manager in a browser.

Click Next.

Follow the instructions on the subsequent panels to finish the configuration.

To use a web server other than IBM HTTP Server, refer to the Web-based System Manager FAQ for more information.
If either your managing or managed server is a 5.1 system, you may want to install the Netscape software bundle (smitty install_bundle) so that you can display help messages.
The suggested minimum memory configuration to run a Web-based System Manager session is 512 MB. You may require additional memory if you run more sessions simultaneously, such as multiple Web-based System Manager sessions running the Monitoring plugin.
Reliable Scalable Cluster Technology (RSCT), which includes the Web-based System Manager Monitoring application, is contained in a separate software package, rsct.core, which is installed by default. For more information about the Monitoring application, refer to the file: /usr/sbin/rsct/README/rsct.core.README.

New Features

Following are features that are new or have been modified from the previous release, and which are not included in the current product documentation.

The Filter Dialog has been significantly changed. Using the Advanced tab you can now add more than 3 rules and you can choose whether the rules are combined using logical AND or logical OR. In addition, you can disable the filter without loosing the filter rules. The documentation currently states that you can have a filter from both tabs (Filter and Advanced), however this is incorrect. Your filter will be set to whatever rules were set on the last tab that either the Apply or OK button was pressed. Finally, the contains operator has been changed to the matches operator. The matches operator provides a more flexible pattern matching syntax than was provided by contains. See the next bullet, below.

The pattern matching syntax in the Find and Filter Dialogs have changed to be more flexible. Now, in addition to performing a substring match, the '*' wildcard character can be used to specify where characters can be ignored (similar to the shell). In 5.1 a pattern of abc would match any string that contained abc within it. In 5.2, you can specify that a string begins with abc by using the pattern abc*. You can use as many wildcard characters as you like. The character's case is ignored for the pattern match.

Pattern Effect

abc* Match any string that begins with abc

*abc Match any string that ends with abc

*abc* Match any string that contains abc

abc Match any string that contains abc

*a*b*c Match any string that has the characters a, b and c in it and in that order. The string must end in c

Examples of new 5.2 Find/Filter pattern syntax

It was recongized late in the development cycle that the 5.1 pattern syntax of Find/Filter was broken. This will be fixed in an upcoming update. Until then if you want to match any string that contains abc, you will have to enter the pattern as *abc*.

Examples of new 5.2 Find/Filter pattern syntax
Pattern	Effect
abc*	Match any string that begins with abc
*abc	Match any string that ends with abc
abc	Match any string that contains abc
abc	Match any string that contains abc
ab*c	Match any string that has the characters a, b and c in it and in that order. The string must end in c

Known Problems

Following are problems that have been identified and are being addressed. Current workarounds, recommendations, and problems identified after this version of the product is released will be posted to the Web-based System Manager FAQ.
General

Viewing Remote Queue status using the All Print Queues view for AIX remote printers can inaccurately indicate a problem. Check the actual status of the queue from the command line by entering the following command: enq -q -P queue. If the command returns the status that the queue is ready, printing will function normally.

There are known Java problems with using PC-Exceed that result in random size dialogs (and other problems). A suggested workaround is to (in Exceed):

set: Protocol->Enable Custom Vendor String
to: "eXcursion"
For further information, see Java bugs 4340199 & 4279670 at http://java.sun.com

There may be a delay encountered between the time that the system name is selected in the navigation area and the username and password are requested. This is a performance issue and will be addressed in a future release.

When connection problems occur with a Host, there may be a delay before feedback in the form of an error message is returned to the user. This is a performance issue that is being addressed.

If the following message is encountered: The wizard script file, tguides/.../...sgs, was not found or could not be opened, there is an inconsistency between the managed machine and the managing server where the taskguides are not installed on both systems. Please refer to the Web-based System Manager FAQ for details.

Out of memory or out of virtual memory. You can change the heap size for out of memory problems by setting the Web-based System Manager environment variable W_HEAP_MAX_SIZE. The default heap maximum size is 1GB. For example, to change the heap maximum size in AIX the user would need to export the following variable at the command line: export W_HEAP_MAX_SIZE=380m where m is megabytes. To set in gigabytes then export W_HEAP_MAX_SIZE=20g where g is gigabytes.

Management Environment

Due to support for applet mode, a fully qualified host name is not equivalent to a non-fully qualified host name. For example "foo" and "foo.austin.ibm.com" are not equivalent. A Java security exception would occur in applet mode if the InetAddress class was used to determine if "foo" and "foo.austin.ibm.com" are equivalent. Because of this, it is possible to have multiple entries for the same machine (differing in case or domain specification).

Accessibility

Pressing and releasing the Alt key does not shift focus to the menu bar in Java. In order to use a mnemonic, the Alt key must be held down while the mnemonic character is pressed. This causes an accessibility limitation. This problem is scheduled to be fixed in Java 1.4.

In certain instances the mnemonics on the Web-based System Manager menu bar do not work unless the mouse cursor is within the console frame. It has not been determined if this is a Java problem or a Web-based System Manager problem.

Extended/Tips Help

With this release extended help and tips are implemented via JavaHelp. Prior releases used a web browser to display help.

Any remote system that you manage, whether 5.1 or 5.2 must have an HTTP server configured in order supply any help that is not available on the managing machine. If the remote and managing systems are configured the same, then you do not need to have the HTTP server configured.

In order to display help from a 5.1 managing or managed server you will have to install the Netscape bundle on your client machine.

Clients prior to 51F will not be able to view help messages from a 520 system.

To be able to view 5.1 help messages on Windows or Linux systems, make sure that a default browser has been set.

Problems rendering Extended or Tips Help from 5.1 systems can be encountered if the configuration is not complete. Troubleshooting tips are provided in the Web-based System Manager FAQ.

Remote Client Mode
Begining with this release, both Linux and Windows systems can act as remote clients for Web-based System Manager. For this reason, PC Client mode is now being referred to as Remote Client mode. The URL for downloading the remote client application from a web browser is now:
http://<hostname>/remote_client.html
Where <hostname> is the name of the Web-based System Manager server configured for remote client installation. Links have been established to continue supporting the previous URL used in 5.1.
The only supported Windows platforms at this time are Windows NT, 2000 or XP.

The popup menu (right mouse click) will in some contexts deselect all objects except the one under the cursor. The workaround is to use the pull-down menus from the toolbar instead of using a popup menu.

Linux distributions supported are Red Hat 7.2 and 7.3 using the GNOME desktop.
Security for Remote Client Mode

Web-based System Manager Remote Client security provides for secure operations in Remote Client mode. You must install the Web-based System Manager Remote Client on your client system before you install Web-based System Manager Remote Client Security. Follow the instructions in the Web-based System Manager Administration Guide to install the Remote Client.
To install Web-based System Manager Remote Client Security, you must first install the sysmgt.websm.security and/or sysmgt.websm.security-us filesets on a Web-based System
Manager server. These filesets are available on the Expansion Pack. The steps for downloading and installing Remote Client Security are similar to the procedure for the Remote Client.
Enter the following web address in the client web browser:
http://<hostname>/remote_client_security.html
where <hostname> is the name of the Web-based System Manager server configured for Web-based System Manager Remote Client Security installation.
If your remote client is a Windows system, click the Windows link that appears on the web page. This will download the setupsec.exe file to your client. If your remote client is a Linux system, click the Linux link that appears on the web page. This will download the setupsecl.exe file to your client.

Run the downloaded file (setupsec.exe on Windows, setupsecl.exe on Linux) to start the installation wizard. To complete the installation, proceed through the installation wizard by clicking Next on each panel.
To establish secure connections in Remote Client mode, you must copy the public key file (SM.pubkr) of the Certificate Authority you used to configure security on the server to the Remote Client codebase directory on your client system. Follow the instructions in the Web-based System Manager Administration guide for configuring Web-based System Manager security on your servers.
Applet Mode

Netscape 6 is not supported. Use Netscape 4.79 or Internet Explorer 5.x (or newer).

When the javahelp system is invoked from applet mode, a dialog appears with the message: "An applet would like to print. Is this OK?" In order to dismiss this dialog press either "Yes" or "No". This is a javahelp system bug that will be fixed in an upcoming update.

The initial load time is significant, particularly when the class files are not cached. Setting your browser's cache size to a large value (10M or more) will help on subsequent launches of Web-based System Manager.

If you encounter difficulty using applet mode, review the following document: http://java.sun.com/products/plugin/1.3/troubleshooting.faq.html

Problems have been found with the proxy configuration in Internet Explorer 5 that prevent use of Web-based System Manager. If IE's proxy configuration is not correctly specified, a "load: class <X> not found" error will appear in IE's status bar when you try to access wsm.html in applet mode. You may get this error even though IE appears to function correctly with regular http files.

If you experience this problem, carefully review your proxy settings. To view your proxy settings in IE 5, select:
Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings.
Notice that you can specify a single proxy server that will supply the needed configuration info for every protocol (i.e. http, ftp, etc.) or, through the "Advanced" button, you can specify a proxy server for each protocol individually.
Make certain that if you specify servers for each protocol separately, they are correct.
Problems such as screen flicker can occur in some situations while using applet mode. The problem seems to be a configuration problem of the browser, or operating system, since it does not consistently give trouble on all similarly configured machines. If you encounter such problems, you should consider changing browsers.

Currently the Web-based System Manager requires the 1.3.1_04 Java plug-in. The plugin should be automatically installed if it is not on your system already. This version can be found at http://java.sun.com/products/j2se/1.3/jre/index.html

Other Useful Information

See: http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/os/wsm/51/index.html for information about Web-based System Manager.
Vendors needing information about how to integrate their product with Web-based System Manager can contact their IBM representative for more details.

Hardware Management Console (HMC)

The HMC, or Hardware Management Console is the controlling hardware for the eServer p690 system. The HMC system provides the basic functionality needed to configure and manage the eServer p690 system. The HMC provides partition management, service, and problem determination software for maintaining the eServer p690 system. For more information about the HMC see the publication: IBM Hardware Management Console for pSeries Installation and Operations Guide, order number: SA38-0590.

Hardware Management Console and Web-based System Manager are products of International Business Machines (IBM) Inc.