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1 - Overview of Writing Management Applications

Site/SunNet/Domain Manager products are platforms upon which to develop management capabilities and explore issues surrounding the management of complex, heterogeneous environments. Site/SunNet/Domain Manager is designed for extensibility and includes a number of mechanisms to support customization. Part 1 focuses on the features for one of those areas--writing new managers.


1.1 Manager/Agent Model

The Site/SunNet/Domain Manager design is based on the manager/agent model in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) management framework. The manager is a process started by the user (for example, the Console). The agent is a process that collects data from the managed object and reports it to the manager. Figure 1-1 shows the manager and agent relationship.

The Manager/Agent Services libraries provide the management infrastructure and handle the communication services. The agent and manager need not be concerned with the underlying networking involved in their communication. The agent process need be concerned only with collecting data from the managed object. The manager and agent processes make use of the Services through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

Figure 1-1 Manager/Agent Model

1.2 Manager Services

Managers can do many different kinds of things, depending on the goal of the application. These include keeping a database of network elements and their capabilities, sending and receiving requests for information, interacting with the user, and so on.

The Manager Services library provides services needed to support the manager-agent communication model. These services are provided to relieve the application writer of the burden of managing connections, encoding/decoding network data, etc. It also lays the groundwork for a standard mechanism where manager and agent applications can communicate without prior agreements.

As such, the Manager Services library simplifies the job an application programmer needs to do to send requests to agents and collect data and event reports. It does not help the manager support a database of network elements and requests and does not provide any support for user interaction. Manager application libraries will become available for these functions in the future.

Applications interact with the Manager Services library in several different functional areas. These areas are:

Not all activities pertain to every manager application. For example, a trouble-ticketing application might only be interested in getting event reports, which would mean registering for them, getting them, and finally unregistering on application exit. In this case application will not need to start/stop requests, handle data reports, and so on.

The remaining chapters in Part 1 describe each area in detail.


1.3 Default File Locations

This section lists the default locations for files and directories that are mentioned in this guide, such as configuration and sample source code files.

1.3.1 API Examples Source Code

The default location for the example manager applications is indicated in Table 1-1 .

Table  1-1 Location of API Example Source Code
SNM 2.3 version
Directory

for Solaris 1.x  

/usr/snm/src/API_examples  

for Solaris 2.x  

/opt/SUNWconn/snm/src/API_examples
 


There is a README file in this directory that explains its contents.

Throughout the rest of this guide we will refer to this location as simply "the API_examples directory."

1.3.2 Header Files

At various points in this guide we make reference to header files that you can include in your programs. Table 1-2 indicates the location of these files.

Table  1-2 Location of Header Files
SNM 2.3 version
Directory

for Solaris 1.x  

/usr/snm/include/netmgt  

for Solaris 2.x  

/opt/SUNWconn/snm/include/netmgt
 


1.3.3 Default Locations for Various Files

In addition to the API examples and header files, a number of additional files referred to in this guide have different default directory locations in the Solaris 2.4 version than in the Solaris 1.1.1 version. Table 1-3 lists the default location for these files for both the Solaris 1.1.1 and Solaris 2.4 versions of Site/SunNet/Domain Manager 2.3.

Table  1-3 Default Locations for Various Files
Files
Default Location
for Solaris 1.1.1 version

Default Location
for Solaris 2.4 version

Description

inetd.conf  

/etc  

/etc  

Internet servers database  

libnetmgt library files  

/usr/snm/lib  

/opt/SUNWconn/snm/lib  

Manager Services libraries  

na.logger  

/usr/snm/agents  

/opt/SUNWconn/snm/agents  

Agent logs data reports launched by snm_cmd  

Sample agent  

/usr/snm/src/sample  

/opt/SUNWconn/snm/src/sample  

Source code files  

rpc file  

/etc  

/etc  

Lists RPC numbers associated with network applications  

snm.conf  

/etc  

/etc/opt/SUNWconn/snm  

Configuration file used by agents and daemons  

snm.glue  

/usr/snm/struct  

/opt/SUNWconn/snm/struct  

Starting definitions for Console  



NOTE - If you install any of the files mentioned in this section into non-default locations, then you will need to make appropriate modifications to the path names used in examples in this guide.



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