MS Windows, Hyper-V Monitoring

Skip Prerequisites, Web and LPAR2RRD tabs in case of configuring Virtual Appliance, Docker or a Container

HW sizing


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Follow installation procedure for your operating system platform

LPAR2RRD is able to monitor stand-alone MS Windows servers and MS Hyper-V performance metrics.
Implementation is done through single Windows OS agent running on any Windows host in the Windows domain.
This OS agent gets all required configuration from the AD and performance data of monitored hosts through WMI.
It passes such data to LPAR2RRD server where data is saved and presented.

LPAR2RRD Windows OS agent works everywhere where is available PowerShell 3 and higher
It does not directly depends on Windows version, if you are able to upgrade PowerShell to 3.0+ on older machines then it will work.

Hyper-V schema

Installation summary

  • Allow TCP connection initiated from Windows LPAR2RRD Hyper-V agent server to LPAR2RRD server on port 8162
  • PowerShell version 3 and higher only is supported on Windows hosts

User creation

  1. Create LPAR2RRD user in the AD with membership in these groups:
    • Event Log Readers
    • Hyper-V Administrators
    • Performance Log Users
    • Performance Monitor Users
    This must be done for all Hyper-V nodes and MS Windows servers that are supposed to be monitored (this can be set globally in AD).

  2. Set rights in GPO and AD using this manual

  3. Give local admin rights to the LPAR2RRD user on the Win server where LPAR2RRD Hyper-V agent will be running.
    Add him into Domain Users group.

  4. Assign read-only rights for monitored Hyper-V clusters to LPAR2RRD user
    Hyper-V cluster rights 1
    Hyper-V cluster rights 2

OS agent installation


    Unzip LPAR2RRD-Win-agent-1.3.3.zip
    Unblock these files by right clicking them and checking "Unblock"
    Setup.vbs, Configuration.vbs, LPAR2RRD-agent.ps1
    LPAR2RRD-agent-Configuration.ps1, LPAR2RRD-agent-Installer.ps1
    Hyper-V OS agent install

    Run Setup.vbs

    Select installation directory
    Hyper-V OS agent install

    Put hostname of the LPAR2RRD server
    Hyper-V OS agent install

    Test connection to the LPAR2RRD server
    Hyper-V OS agent install

    Put user which will run LPAR2RRD OS aget on this machine
    Hyper-V OS agent install

    Select monitored mode (agent v1.3.3+)
    Hyper-V OS agent install
    You can also use manuall OS agent installation
    In case of a cluster: add there cluster name and names of all nodes as well like: cluster1,node1,node2,cluster2,node...
  • Wait about 30 minutes, then Ctrl-F5 in your LPAR2RRD UI and you should see Hyper-V folder in the main menu

Monitored modes

    The agent can run in these modes:
    1. leave it in default mode and monitor just the server where it is installed
    2. monitor all visible servers from AD
    3. monitor only specific servers (recommended), added into cfg file
      for monitoring of cluster - add its name to servers/nodes too like: cluster1,node1,node2,cluster2,node...

    Mode configuration is selected during installation or run whenever Configuration.vbs in the agent install dir.
    Win OS agent release notes
Troubleshooting

Install LPAR2RRD server (all under lpar2rrd user)

  • Definitelly use the latest available version (6.10+ at least)

  • Install it: 
    # su - lpar2rrd
$ tar xvf lpar2rrd-7.XX.tar
$ cd lpar2rrd-7.XX
$ ./install.sh
$ cd /home/lpar2rrd/lpar2rrd
  • Make sure all Perl modules are in place
    cd /home/lpar2rrd/lpar2rrd
. etc/lpar2rrd.cfg; $PERL bin/perl_modules_check.pl
    If there is missing "LWP::Protocol::https" then check this docu to fix it

  • Enable Apache authorisation 
    umask 022
cd /home/lpar2rrd/lpar2rrd
cp html/.htaccess www
cp html/.htaccess lpar2rrd-cgi
  • Schedule to run it from lpar2rrd crontab (it might already exist there)
    $ crontab -l | grep load.sh
$
    Add if it does not exist as above 
    $ crontab -e

# LPAR2RRD UI
0,30 * * * * /home/lpar2rrd/lpar2rrd/load.sh > /home/lpar2rrd/lpar2rrd/load.out 2>&1
    Assure there is just one such entry in crontab.

  • You might need to add lpar2rrd user into /etc/cron.allow (Linux) or /var/adm/cron/cron.allow (AIX) if 'crontab -e' command fails
    Allow it for lpar2rrd user as root user. 
    # echo "lpar2rrd" >> /etc/cron.allow
  • Assure you have a cron jobs for Hyper-V in place (upgrade script might do it automatically)
    Skip it on the Virtual Appliance, it is already there. 
    $ crontab -l | grep "load_hyperv.sh"
$
    Add it if it does not exist like above 
    $ crontab -e

# MS Hyper-V support
0,20,40 * * * *  /home/lpar2rrd/lpar2rrd/load_hyperv.sh > /home/lpar2rrd/lpar2rrd/load_hyperv.out 2>&1
  • Initial start from cmd line: 
    $ cd /home/lpar2rrd/lpar2rrd
$ ./load.sh
  • Go to the web UI: http://<your web server>/lpar2rrd/
    Use Ctrl-F5 to refresh the web browser cache.

Troubleshooting

  • If you have any problems with the UI then check:
    (note that the path to Apache logs might be different, search apache logs in /var) 
    tail /var/log/httpd/error_log             # Apache error log
tail /var/log/httpd/access_log            # Apache access log
tail /var/tmp/lpar2rrd-realt-error.log    # STOR2RRD CGI-BIN log
tail /var/tmp/systemd-private*/tmp/lpar2rrd-realt-error.log # STOR2RRD CGI-BIN log when Linux has enabled private temp
  • Test of CGI-BIN setup 
    umask 022
cd /home/lpar2rrd/lpar2rrd/
cp bin/test-healthcheck-cgi.sh lpar2rrd-cgi/
    go to the web browser: http://<your web server>/lpar2rrd/test.html
    You should see your Apache, LPAR2RRD, and Operating System variables, if not, then check Apache logs for connected errors
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct schema

S2D prerequisites

  1. WinServer 2019
  2. Performance history enabled (enabled by default) docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-spaces/performance-history
In case LPAR2RRD OS agent detects Storage Spaces Direct enabled in cluster it also collects additional data from Performance History once per hour in 5 minute samples.

Just install the latest Windows OS agent and upgrade to LPART2RRD 7.30+ to get S2D statistics.