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Zenoss

Supported Versions

Type

Authentication Type

Zenoss Core 4, 5, 6

Agent

Org Bearer Token

Zenoss monitors performance and availability across your IT infrastructure. The BigPanda Agent queries for all new Zenoss events and for changes in event states in real-time via the Zenoss API. To ensure a full sync of all current alerts, the agent also queries for all Zenoss events at regular, configurable intervals.

Key Features

  • Keeps you up-to-date on the status of Zenoss events and all relevant event attributes.

  • Correlates Zenoss events into actionable incidents in BigPanda, so you can easily manage the events and the associated devices.

How and when alerts are closed

When Zenoss sends a close event for an alert, the alert is automatically closed in BigPanda. However, closing an alert manually in BigPanda does not close the alert in Zenoss.

Install the integration

Follow the installation instructions for your server OS.

Zenoss Data Model

BigPanda normalizes alert data from Zenoss into tags. You can use tag values to filter the incident feed and to define filter conditions for Environments. The primary and secondary properties are also used during the deduplication and correlation processes.

Zenoss Standard Tags

Tag

Description

Attributes

device

Name of the device for which the event occurred.

Primary Property

check

Event key (or event class, if the event key does not exist) and component, if it exists.

For example: "/Status/Heartbeat on zenmodeler"

Secondary Property

severity

Number representing the severity of the event, mapped to:

0: Clear

2: Info

3: Warning

4: Error

5: Critical

summary

Summary of the event.

message

Message body of the event. This value may be the same as the summary.

component

Zenoss daemon reporting the event.

event_class

Event class the event maps to.

event_key

User-defined mapping for the event.

ip_address

IP address of the device.

prod_state

Production state of the device.

systems

Names of the Zenoss system organizers for the device.

stateChange

When state of the device last changed

Used as alert timestamp

device_groups

Names of the Zenoss group organizers for the device.

device_class

Device class.

device_url

URL of the device.

location

Names of the Zenoss location organizers for the device.

monitor

Monitor for the device.

Customize Zenoss

To ensure a full sync of all current alerts, the BigPanda agent queries for all Zenoss events at regular intervals. You can configure the query interval or disable the full sync by editing the config file for the agent.

Before You Start

Obtain access to the server where the BigPanda agent is installed.

Install the Integration

Install the integration by following these steps:

Configure the Query Interval

You may want to configure the full sync to reduce the load on your Zenoss server, depending on the average volume of events Zenoss generates.

  1. Open the config file, which is located at /etc/bigpanda/bigpanda.conf.

  2. Locate the settings for the Zenoss full sync, named zenoss/fullsync.

  3. Change the value of the full_sync_interval to your preferred interval between full syncs, in seconds. The default value is 900 (15 minutes).

Disable the Full Sync

Full sync

The full sync acts as a backup to the incremental sync to ensure accuracy. Disable this feature only if you need to reduce the load on your Zenoss server.

  1. Open the config file, which is located at /etc/bigpanda/bigpanda.conf.

  2. Locate the settings for the Zenoss full sync, named zenoss/fullsync.

  3. Add the following key and value pair: "enabled": false.

Add pair

Make sure you add the pair outside of the config property.

"name": "zenoss/fullsync", 
"enabled": false, 
"config": {
  "user": "BigPanda",...
  },

Uninstall the Integration

To stop sending Zenoss events to BigPanda, you can uninstall the agent from the server or remove the Zenoss integration from the agent.

Before You Start

  • Remove any data in BigPanda. For example, modify or remove any Environments or AutoShare rules that reference the integration. All active alerts from the integration will be resolved after deletion.

  • Obtain access to the server where the BigPanda agent is installed.

  • Determine if the agent on the server supports only the Zenoss integration or supports multiple BigPanda integrations.

  • Determine the OS on the server.

Replacing existing integrations

When replacing an existing integration with a new tool or system, we recommend configuring the new integration first to ensure no data is lost.

Deactivate the Integration

If you want to stop sending data to BigPanda but don’t want to delete your integration, you can temporarily deactivate it.

To deactivate an inbound integration:

  1. In BigPanda, navigate to the Integrations tab and select the desired integration from the list. This will open integration details on the right side of the window.

  2. At the top of the integration details, click the Active/Inactive toggle next to the application name to change the status of the integration.

Alert resolution for inactive integrations

Any active alerts belonging to an inactive integration must be manually resolved or they will stay in the system until the auto-resolve window is reached.

Uninstall the Agent

If the agent supports only the Zenoss integration, you can uninstall the agent from the server.

BigPanda Agent

Do not uninstall the BigPanda agent if it is supporting other BigPanda integrations. In this case, remove the Zenoss integration from the agent.

Remove the Zenoss Integration from the Agent

If the agent is supporting multiple integrations, you can remove only the specific integration without disabling the other BigPanda integrations that the agent supports.

  1. Stop the BigPanda agent by running the following command.

    sudo service bigpanda stop

  2. Remove the integration from the agent configuration file by running the following command. Replace the app key with the corresponding value in BigPanda.

    sudo bigpanda-config -r <INTEGRATION APP KEY>

  3. Start the BigPanda agent by running the following command.

    sudo service bigpanda start

Delete the Integration from BigPanda

  1. In BigPanda, navigate to the Integrations tab and select the desired integration from the list.

  2. In the integration details on the right of the page, click the trash icon, then confirm you want to delete the integration. The integration will then be removed immediately.

Alert resolution for deleted integrations

All active alerts from the integration will be resolved after deletion.

Data removal

This procedure does not remove any data from the integrated system.

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