Chapter 4 -

CST Features and Functions

This chapter describes the various features and functions of the CST console. It includes the following sections:

Console Views

Site Information

Cause Assign

Enterprise Hierarchy Panel

CST History Folder (Viewing and Managing System Events)

Configurations Folder (Viewing Past and Present System Configuration)

Statistics Folder (Retrieving Statistics)

Notification Folder (Configuring Email Notifications)

Print Folder (Printing Reports)

Console Views

The console displays all categories of data collected by CST. You can, among other things, view and annotate events, compare configurations, enter custom information, compute statistics and print reports.

There are two ways to view a CST console depending on the CST components installed.

CST Applet view from a Web browser
This is the default view when the CST server component is installed on the designated server host.

CST Console on the Sun Management Center user interface
This console can be viewed from the Sun Management Center user interface when the CST server modules for Sun Management Center package are installed on the designated Sun Management Center server host.

FIGURE 4-1 CST Applet Console

Screen shot of CST as displayed from a browser, including the hierarchy panel.

The difference between the two views is in viewing the hierarchy of the machines that are attached to the CST server.

CST Applet view includes the hierarchy view, as described later in this chapter.

CST Console in the Sun Management Center framework does not include the hierarchy. You can view the hierarchy of those machines where Sun Management Center is installed on the Sun Management Center Console.

Screen Sections Overview

The screen is divided into three sections (or panels). The following table explains each section.


Section	Description
Banner/Summary section	This section is at the top of the screen. The name of the selected system, its system status, and status of CST on that system. Also included in the banner section are two buttons: Site Info and Cause Assign.
Enterprise Hierarchy Panel (CST Applet console only)	This section is the left portion of the screen and runs the full height of the screen. The hierarchical representation for all (CST Applet console only) the CST agents. The agent hostname can be clicked to view details about that system. Note: For CST installed in the Sun Management Center framework, the hierarchy panel is not included. The system can be selected from the main Sun Management Center window.
Folders	This section is the bulk of the screen and is below the banner and summary portion. Select one of the five folders listed horizontally to display detailed information about the selected system. Specifics about the data included in each folder is explained later in this chapter.

FIGURE 4-2 CST Console in the Sun Management Center Environment

Screen snapshot of CST run from within Sun Management Center software. No hierarchy panel displays.

When a system is selected from the hierarchy panel (or the Sun Management Center main window), all the sections in the CST console display information about the selected system. The only exception is the Global Cause Code function, which is accessed by clicking on the CAUSE ASSIGN button in the summary section. This function displays the information about outage events for all systems tracked by this CST installation.

Summary Section

The system summary section is located at the top of the CST console. It displays information about the selected system.

FIGURE 4-3 Summary Screen

Screen snapshot of the top portion of the CST screen, referred to as the system summary section.

The following table describes the elements included in the top section of the screen, referred to as the summary section.


Field	Description
REFRESH	Button to update System View or Enterprise View information. Enterprise View refreshes the entire set of data displayed on the CST UI, including the hierarchical information on the left side panel. The refresh can take a prolonged time, depending on the size of the enterprise and on the status of the systems in the top level of the hierarchy. System View refreshes the details of the system with its name displayed in the Summary section right below the Refresh button and selected in the Hierarchical panel. Refreshing the Enterprise, or hierarchical, View reverts the display to the top level hierarchy only, and the middleware system is selected for System View.
Log Out	Button to enable the user to exit CST and close the session.
HELP	Button to access information About CST plus details about installing and using CST.
[Username]	The login ID of the current user as entered in the Login screen for this session.
Site Info	This dialog box enables the entry of Customer Contact, Sun Contact, and Site Registration information. See Site Information for details.
CAUSE ASSIGN	Button that opens the Global Cause Code Update dialog window which enables you to view all system failure or panic events for all systems tracked by the installed middleware and assign an event cause code, to each event individually or to multiple events.
System	The name, as entered by the customer during CST installation, of the selected system, highlighted in the hierarchical list.
Status	The status of the highlighted system as of the last refresh. The system can be either up or down.
CST Status	The status of the CST application on the selected system as of the time the selection was made. The application is either up or down.

Site Information

Clicking the SITE INFO button (located in the upper left corner of the screen) displays the Site Info Dialog window. The system administrator should use this form to enter site information that is pertinent to the entire site supported by this middleware.

FIGURE 4-4 Site Registration - Customer Contact Information Screen

Screen snapshot of the Customer Contact Information screen where the customer enters details on those responsible for CST administration.

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Specifying Site Info

The dialog box (see FIGURE 4-4) includes three tabs:

Customer Contact Info, see FIGURE 4-4

Sun Contact Info, see FIGURE 4-5

Registration Info, see FIGURE 4-6

A snapshot of each of these screens and an explanation of the fields is included in the following sections.

Customer Contact Info

Customer info--Name and address of the customer. Enter the name of the business for the Customer name, e.g., Sun Microsystems.
Fields are: Customer Name, Business Unit, Ticker Symbol, Street Address, City, State, Country, and Zip/Postal Code.

Customer Contact, lower section --Name and contact details of the system administrator for this group of systems, as well as the name and contact details of an alternative customer contact.
Fields within the System Admin Contact section are: Name, Phone #, Pager #, and Email ID. The same fields are included under the Alternate Customer Contact heading.

Data Transfer - Whether CST is configured to transfer event and configuration data to Sun Microsystems. If the field reads Enabled, CST is configured to transfer data to Sun into the AMS database.

There are two buttons at the bottom of the screen, Apply and Close. Click Apply to save entered contact information and close the screen. Click Close to discard any entered contact information and close the screen.

Note - If the customer site includes an installation of Sun Remote Services Net Connect version 3.0 or later, and if CST detects that transfer method, CST automatically uses Net Connect for its data transfer into the AMS database at Sun. If CST does not detect Net Connect, the data is transferred via email.

Sun Contact Info

This dialog box includes fields where the customer system administrator can enter details on contacting Sun for support on the CST installation.

FIGURE 4-5 Site Info Dialog Window - Sun Contact Screen

The two sections are:

Primary Sun Contact
Fields are: Name, Phone #, Pager #, and Email ID.

Secondary Sun Contact
Fields are: Name, Phone #, Pager #, and Email ID.

There are two buttons at the bottom of the screen, APPLY and CLOSE. Click APPLY to save entered contact information and close the screen. Click CLOSE to discard any entered contact information and close the screen.

Registration Info

Completion of this section is required to register your site. See Chapter 5, Administration, Site Registration.

FIGURE 4-6 Site Info Dialog - Registration Information Screen

Screen snapshot of site registration screen.

The three sections of this screen are:

Request Key - Service Selection
Fields are: radio buttons for SunUp and Other, where there is a blank field for the definition of Other.

Request Key - Agreement
This section requires that you indicate details surrounding your agreement to transfer CST collected data to Sun.
Fields are: Check box for "I accept the terms of the agreement," with a button to VIEW AGREEMENT, plus check box for "Auto-requester using CST local email account? Request will be emailed to:"
Two buttons are within this section: SUBMIT and HELP.

One button is at the bottom of the screen, REGISTER.

Note - Completion of this section is required to register your site. See Chapter 5, Administration, Site Registration.

Note - The Data Transfer option at the bottom of the Admin dialog box only appears for customer sites which have registered using the Site Registration function.

To Specify Customer Contact Information

1. Click the SITE INFO button on the CST console.

2. Click the tab for the contact information to be completed, customer or Sun contact information.

3. Enter information about your company and contacts into the fields provided on the Customer Contact Info screen. Enter information about your Sun Contacts in the Sun Contact Info screen.

4. Click APPLY.

5. to close the screen without saving any entered information, click the CLOSE button.

Cause Assign

Events tracked and reported by CST 3.0 can be defined by the customer by assigning a cause code to events. A cause code can be assigned to a single event, or a cause can be created and then assigned to multiple events.

Note - To define and assign a cause to a single event, go to the History folder and use the Event Cause Code function as defined in To Assign an Event Cause Code.

Access the Cause Assign function to define and assign cause codes to multiple events.

To Globally Assign a Cause Code

If multiple outage system events are "Undefined," and there is a common cause behind those events, you can assign a Cause Code to multiple events at once.

FIGURE 4-7 Global Cause Code

Global Cause Code Dialog screen including all events for this quarter.

1. Click the CAUSE ASSIGN button, at the top right of the console. This displays all of the system outage events for all systems tracked by this middleware that occurred during the lasts 24 hours.

2. To change the time period of displayed events, click on the LAST 24 HOURS button and select the time period for which you want to view events.

3. Click on the events, in the Check column, to which you are assigning the same Event Cause Code. Or, you can select all displayed events by clicking on the SELECT ALL button.

4. Click the APPLY button. The Event Cause Code Dialog window displays.

FIGURE 4-8 Event Dialog in Global Cause Code Window

Main CST screen, overlaid with the Outage Events and Event Cause Dialog screens.

Note - The lists of Planned and Unplanned event cause codes are the same as are available in the CST History, Event Cause Code assignment process. In this function, multiple events can be defined at once instead of one at a time as available in the CST History folder.

5. Click on the appropriate categories, PLANNED or UNPLANNED, then the specific cause to be assigned to the selected events.

6. Click OK to save the definition of the cause for the selected events.

Enterprise Hierarchy Panel

The Hierarchy Panel displays the complete enterprise hierarchy view of the various systems tracked by this CST server. The hierarchical view is a graphical tree structure that can be expanded and collapsed by clicking on the desired system.

Include two screen shots to demonstrate the main CST graphical user interface (GUI) and the enterprise view, displayed on the hierarchy panel.

FIGURE 4-9 Main CST Applet Screen with Hierarchy and Enterprise View

Hierarchy panel, events list and Configuration Changes for a Cluster system displayed.

There are five system folders, also called tab folders. The tab folders display information about the selected agent system. The following sections describe the folders in detail.

CST History Folder (Viewing and Managing System Events)

The CST History folder displays three sub-sections.

The top section of the folder lists the event information, which includes the event number, event description, date/timestamp, whether the event was planned or un-planned, and comments entered by the user.

The events are displayed chronologically and in ascending order (most recent event last). Only the first few words of the comments are displayed in the comment column.

The middle section of the folder displays any assigned event cause code and the full text of the comment associated with the current selected event. In addition, you can modify both the cause code and/or the comments.

The lowest section displays the configuration changes, if any, associated with the selected event.

FIGURE 4-10 History Folder


Section	Description
Event list	The list of events is specific to the selected system. The number for each event is static as the number is assigned when the event is generated and is connected with the history for the selected system. The name of the event comes from a list of standard CST tracked events. The timestamp is attached to the event when the event occurs and is recorded in the database. CST doesn't know if the event was planned or unplanned, and a question mark is populated into the field by default. You can define the details of the event in the next screen, Event Cause Code. To further define the event, you can enter comments pertaining to the cause, resolution, and other details that would be valuable in current and future event analysis and resolution. See the Comments section below for details on entering comments.
Get Latest dialog	To control the displayed events, click the Get Latest field. The choices in the drop down are: Get Latest, Get Previous 10, and Get All Events.

To View Different Events

The events displayed when you first bring up the CST console are the latest events for the selected system. The GET LATEST drop-down dialog window on the right side below the list of events allows you to control which events are listed.

1. Click the GET LATEST button beliw the listed events to open the drop-down menu. The choices are: GET LATEST, GET PREVIOUS 10, and GET ALL EVENTS.

2. Click the GET ALL button to pull all events from the repository and display them.

Note - The Get All function can take a significant amount of time to complete, depending on the total number of stored events for the selected system.

To Assign an Event Cause Code

You can add value to an event that is listed with a question mark in the Planned field by assigning the Event Cause Code

FIGURE 4-11 Event Cause Code Dialog

Unplanned tab with list of choices for defining cause.

1. Assign an event cause code by clicking on the UPDATE button in the right side of the Event Cause Code section of the screen.

This brings up the Event Cause Code dialog box, where the reason can be assigned.

FIGURE 4-12 Event Cause Code Dialog Screen

2. Choose from the Undefined, Planned, or Unplanned tabs on the top row.

Events can be marked as Planned if the system administrator had planned in advance and notified other users about the event to minimize event impact. This information can be useful for computing system availability statistics.

FIGURE 4-13 Cause Code Assignment Dialog Screens

Two screens: Planned and Unplanned lists displayed.

3. If you choose the Planned or Unplanned tab, select the appropriate category and cause for the event.

4. Select the specific cause from the second displayed menu.

5. Click APPLY.

To Globally Assign a Cause Code

If multiple outage system events are "Undefined," and there is a common cause behind those events, you can assign a Cause Code to multiple events at once.

FIGURE 4-14 Global Cause Code

Global Cause Code Update & Event Cause Code Dialog displayed.

1. Click the CAUSE ASSIGN button, at the top left of the console. This opens the Global Cause Code Dialog window.

2. Click the LAST 24 HOURS button and click on the period for which you want to display events for this function. The choices are: Last 24 Hours, This Week, Last Week, This Month, Last Month, This Quarter, Last Quarter, This Year.

3. aWhen you click your selection, the events, that occurred during the selected period for the selected system, display.

4. You can pick specific events from the displayed list by clicking on the events to which you are assigning the same Event Cause Code. Or, you can select all displayed events by clicking on the SELECT ALL button.

5. Click the SELECT button. The Event Cause Code Dialog window displays.

6. Click on the appropriate category, Planned or Unplanned, then the specific cause to be assigned to the selected events.

7. Click APPLY to apply the definition of the cause for the selected events. The list is refreshed with the assigned cause included with each event to which the cause was assigned.

8. Click CLOSE to close this dialog and return to the main CST screen.

To Add Comments to an Event

1. Add comments to a specific event by clicking the APPEND button. The Comments window is activated, and you can type your comment.

2. Type the comment you wish to add to the event.

3. After completing the comment input, click the SAVE button. The comment displays in the Comment field of the event. The login ID of the session is appended to the comment.

Note - After selecting the APPEND button, click inside the User Comments window to enable writing.

To Create a Service Event

1. Select the History folder in the CST console.

2. Click the SERVICE EVENT button.

You can create a custom service event in the middle section of the History folder. Service engineers or system administrators use this button to capture any specific action or information about the system that might be useful for future reference.

3. Add comments.

4. Click the SAVE button to create a service event. The Event description will be User's Service.

The new event automatically displays in the event log.

Note - Service engineers should use this feature every time they service a system, as these events can provide a useful audit trail describing the actions taken on the system.

To Look Up Configuration Changes

1. Select the History folder in the CST console.

2. Select the event for which you want to see configuration changes.

3. Select a Configuration Changes folder at the bottom.

The bottom section of the History folder displays several smaller folders. These folders contain information about configuration changes that were detected at the time of the selected event. The folders match those of the configuration files: System Information, Installed Hardware, Software Packages, Software Patches, Solaris Internal Info, and Custom Info.

Folders which contain data are indicated by a bullet next to the folder name.

The content fields vary according to the folders, and their labels are indicated just above each data section. FIGURE 4-15 gives an example.

FIGURE 4-15 Configuration Changes in the History Folder

Hierarchy panel, History folder with events list and Configuration Changes for a Cluster system displayed.

Configurations Folder (Viewing Past and Present System Configuration)

The Configurations Folder describes the hardware and software configuration of the system. There are two selections to choose from: current and inception configuration.

FIGURE 4-16 Configurations/Software Packages Information Folder

Configurations folder, with Current Software Packages events.

The current configuration selection shows information that was recorded immediately after the most recent event on the selected system.

The inception configuration selection shows information that was recorded at the time CST was first installed on the selected system.

For either choice, there are several sub-folders that contain different categories of configuration information.


Section	Description
Current vs Inception	Displayed configurations can be those present at the time of inception of CST tracking on the selected system: Inception, or the current configurations on the selected system: Current.
System Information	The machine-populated specifications on the selected system are displayed in this folder. For instance, ROM type and Host Name.
Installed Hardware	All hardware detected by CST is listed with details in the following fields: Label, Description, Part #, Revision #, Serial #, Hierarchy, and Other. A blue dot in the Other field indicates there are other details about the installed hardware not included on this screen.
Software Packages	All software packages detected by CST are listed with details in the following fields: Label, Description, and Revision #. The packages are listed in alphabetic order within the Label field.
Software Patches	Each software patch installed on the selected system, from inception to the current time, is listed with details.
Solaris Internal Info	All of the parameters available within your Solaris operating environment are listed with the assigned values. For instance, "Size of virtual address cache" is listed with its assigned value.
Volume Manager	For systems with volume manager installed, this folder displays the disk media, disk groups, volumes, plexes and sub-disks.
Cluster	For systems that are part of Sun clusters, this folder displays the cluster summary information, member status, resource list, resource type, resource group, resource, transport path, and quorum votes.
Custom Info	Custom information includes the specifications of the system not automatically system populated. For example, Serial # of system and Room/Lab #.
Edit Custom Info	Edit any or all of the fields in the Custom Info on the form that displays when you click this button. There is no validation for information entered in this function.

To Edit Custom Information

1. Click the Edit Custom Info button in the Configurations folder.

A dialog box displays the current information, such as the type of system, building and room address, and service contract information.

2. Edit the necessary fields.

3. Click the Apply button to save and apply the changes.

Statistics Folder (Retrieving Statistics)

The statistics folder displays the up-time statistics for the selected system.

FIGURE 4-17 Statistics Folder

Statistics folder with Statstics Dialog displayed.


Sections	Description
Get Statistics	Define the time period for the statistics displayed with the Get Statistics button and by selecting the appropriate time period from the displayed window, as in the above picture. The statistics for that date range display in the Statistics folder, with the date range displayed on the left side.
Selected Period	Left section displays the selected time period for which the displayed statistics apply.
Total Time	The total time for which these statistics apply.
Time Up	Time Up--the accumulative time in days, hours, minutes, and seconds that the system was up. A system is up when one or more of the following events occur: Processes such as the CST daemon and CST heartbeat daemon are executing. Interprocess communication is enabled (CST and the CST heartbeat daemons communicate with each other through IPC at regular intervals). Disk access to the system disk is functional as the CST heartbeat writes the timestamp into the system disk at regular intervals.
Time Down	The time when the system was down. For example, the Solaris operating environment kernel was not running or not executing processes, or the basic interprocess communication or disk access was not enabled.
Up %	The ratio of Time Up to Total Time expressed, as a percentage.
Down %	The ratio of Time Down to Total Time expressed, as a percentage.

Note - Statistics do not include downtime events (panic or shutdown) that have been marked as Planned. The amount of planned downtime on a system is not calculated in either the Time Down or Total Time figures. For instance: if a system's statistics cover 100 hours, two of which were marked as Planned downtime and two of which were unplanned shutdowns or panics, the CST statistics report shows that the system was up for 96 out of 98 hours-- a 0.9796 Up%.

Notification Folder (Configuring Email Notifications)

The notification folder allows a system administrator to configure different user email addresses to receive email notifications on select events.

Note - If this folder is disabled, then it means that either the agent CST is down or the agent CST is of lower version and does not support this operation.

FIGURE 4-18 Notification Folder

Screen includes the Notification Folder sections as described in table 4-6.


Section	Description
Email Recipients	Screen section which displays all email addresses configured into the system to receive email notifications from the agent.
Add, Delete	Buttons that allow the administrator to create and delete an event list to email address mapping.
Events Assigned	Screen section which displays the events for which the email notifications are desired for every email address in the list displayed in the Email Recipients screen section.
Modify	Button that starts a dialog to modify an event list attached to the selected email address.

To Add a New Email to Event-list Mapping

This function includes a list of events in the categories:

Outage Events

System Events

Cluster and Volume Manager Events

Other Events

You can select one or more events for which you want a notification email sent to one or more email addresses. Then, you enter the email address(es) where notification is to be sent.

Use this function to change the events and the email recipients.

1. Click on the Add button. This opens the Selective Email dialog.

FIGURE 4-19 Selective Email Dialog Window

Lists of events on left, buttons that allow addition and deletion in center, and Selected Events box on right.

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2. Click on the events from the event list on the left-side of the dialog window. With one or more events selected, click on the ">>" button. This adds the selected event to the Selected Events list.

3. OR, to add all events to the Selected Events list, click the Add All button.

4. Enter an email address or a comma-delimited list of email addresses in the space provided.

5. Click the Apply button and the OK button in the resulting confirmation dialog. This creates an email to event-list mapping in the main Notification window.

6. OR, click the Close button or Cancel button to discard changes without saving any changes, and to close the window.

To Delete an Email from Event-list Mapping

1. Select the email address for which the mapping is to be deleted.

2. Click on the Delete button and the ok button in the resulting confirmation dialog.

Note - Once the mapping is deleted, there is no way to recover the mapping other than to recreate and add it.

To Modify an Email to Event-list Mapping

Use this function to change events for which notification is sent to an already identified email address or addresses. See prior sections to modify the email addresses to which notifications are sent.

1. Select the email address for which the mapping is to be modified.

2. Click the MODIFY button. This starts a dialog that is similar to the one in the Add operation, but the email address is displayed in read-only mode. The administrator can edit only the associated event-list.

3. Modify the event list by adding or deleting events from the Selected Events list.

4. Click on the Apply button and the OK button in the resulting confirmation dialog.

Lists of events on left, buttons that allow addition and deletion in center, and Selected Events box on right.FIGURE 4-20 Event-list Email Modification Window

Lists of events on left, buttons that allow addition and deletion in center, and Selected Events box on right.Assign Emails field and buttons are below the events section.

Print Folder (Printing Reports)

The functions within the Print Folder include retrieving, printing, and sending simple reports based on the system event and configuration for the selected system. The reports are sent to the designated email address(es).

FIGURE 4-21 Print CST History Folder

Print folder with CST History, Selected Event, and Email Address fields displayed.

To Specify a History Report


Sections	Description
CST History	To print a report on CST events, click on this folder within the Print folder.
Selected Event, All Events	After you select CST History, click on one of the radio buttons to specify the events to be included in the report. Click Selected Events to print a report including only event you have selected in the CST History folder. Click All Events to print a report including all events displayed in the CST History folder.
Configurations	To print a report of the configuration of the selected system, click on the Configurations folder and select from the displayed choices.
Current Configuration, Inception Configuration	Click on one of these radio buttons to specify the which events are to be included in the report. Current: prints the data which apply to the current system. Inception: prints the data which applied to the system when CST was initially loaded and run.
Categories	Select the category of data to be included in the report. One up to all of the categories can be selected. The categories that do not apply to the selected system can be selected, but an error displays telling you the category of data cannot be found. The balance of the report is sent to the indicated destination.
Transmit Data to	Select the appropriate destination for the report. Email Address: Type the email address of the recipient of the report. You can enter multiple email addresses separated by a comma but no spaces. Printer: Type the name of a printer that is recognizable by the CST middleware. Sun Microsystems: If this is an AMS version of CST, this pushes the report to Sun Microsystems into the established AMS database. If no AMS connection has been established, this option is not available.
Apply, Cancel	To process the selection, generate the report, and send it to the indicated destination, click the Apply button. To discard the selections and entered destination, click Cancel.

1. When you want a report on only one event, highlight that event in the main CST History folder.

2. Go to the Print folder.

3. Select the CST History folder within the Print folder.

4. Select either the Selected Event or All Events button (see FIGURE 4-21).

The event report is generated.

FIGURE 4-22 Print - Configurations Folder

Print folder with Configurations, Current Configurations, and all Categories selected.

Note - The option to transmit data to Sun Microsystems displays only for customer sites which have registered using the Site Registration function.

To Specify a Configuration Report

1. Select the Configurations folder within the Print folder.

2. Select either the Current Configuration or Inception Configuration button (see FIGURE 4-22).

3. Select one of the following categories:

System Information

Installed Hardware

Software Packages

Software Patches

Solaris Internal Info

Volume Manager

Cluster Configuration (unsupported in this release)

FRU Information

Custom Info.

Custom information can be generated by selecting the Custom Info button.

The configuration report is generated.

To Print or Email a Report

1. To send the report as an email message, select the Email Address button and type the desired email recipient.

2. To send the report to a printer, select the Printer button and type the printer name.

Note - In order to print a report, you must type the name of a printer that the middleware is configured to recognize.

3. To send the report directly to Sun, select the Sun Microsystems, Inc. radio button.

4. To send the report to a printer or send it as email, after selecting the type of report, click the Apply button.

5. To clear and discard your entries, click the Cancel button.