ESXi Health Monitor Plugin
Well it’s finally here, the plugin we have all been waiting for, Vmware ESXi Health Monitor plugin for Labtech. This plugin installs into your Labtech system as a Location plugin to monitor the CIM data available in most hardware. Easy to configure controls and full view of the CIM data collected is just part of what this plugin can do. We have incorporated new functions into this plugin that are stark differences from our earlier version 2 and version 1 ESXi Health Monitors. We are now supporting multiple usernames and passwords per location for ESX hosts and only require 1 probe system to monitor all the ESX hosts at a single location. I could talk all day about the plugin but maybe it’s better if I show you.
Here is the main view of the ESXi Health Monitor plugin.
The hosts get listed with status face based on current status and when you select a host the CIM data is displayed so you can see all the reported statuses of the hardware.
This is the ESXi host configuration tab of the ESXi health Monitor plugin.
This is where you will add and edit your host systems to monitor, you can set the system you want to be responsible for probing the ESXi hosts for the CIM data. Then you select a system and “Set” it as the probe the plugin will launch a script against the probe to prep it for monitoring automatically. You will not need to “install” the probe software manually as this is handled by the plugin when the probe system is selected.
The ESXI Health Monitor plugin uses a custom group to locate all the probes available by using a custom search to locate all systems with the EDF of “VMware Master CIM Scanner” selected as seen it the example below. You will find this setting under the Info tab -> VMWare on any system console. Just checking it will not install probe software so you must “Set” the probe via the plugin.
The Custom group should look like this and have the custom search setup as seen in this example.
The custom group also has a scheduled script to run every 2-4 hours and I use the exclude time range as I do not need this data so bad that I can’t sleep with out it running every hour or 2. This is just my personal preference but saves on CPU cycles during backup windows and maintenance schedules. You will need to reset this when you import your group as this seems to always get rest to nothing during imports.
You can see your probe run on the system by watching the script logs on the probe systems console. This helps when troubleshooting common issues.
This version is in Beta! this is the first release of this plugin and as such may have odd behavior issues and or may not work for you as expected. I seriously doubt you will have any issues but as this is Beta expect a few minor glitches. We are actively working on updates and with your help we can make this a great plugin!
You can run the version 2 and version 3 side by side and they will not effect each other.
Updates:
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Changes in New Version 0.3.0.3
Changed Version number back to what it should of started at. It was a typo starting with (3)
Added Internal monitor called CIM – VMWare ESXi Health Monitor
Added Client View and Global View of System Statuses
Corrected a few minor coding mistakes
Added Linux Probe Support
Updated the data views
Changes in New Version 0.3.0.5
Added Last Scan Time Stamps
Added color coded data views
Added new images
Changes in New Version 0.3.0.6
Fixed Scan Time not updating
Changes in Version 3.0.7
Updated Python Packages to 2.7.8
Fixed several SQL issues with table creation.
Minor enhancements
Changes in Version 3.0.8
Added new instant host probe from the configure tab
Fixed minor issues in plugin
Fixed issues with installer script
Changes in Version 3.0.9
Fixed CIM Monitor in LT
Fixed Versioning context
Fixed password bug when resaving the same password for esx probe.
Changes in Version 3.0.10
Fixed Issues with Installer where latest PY script requires several new Python modules.
New Client Level View
This view give you a look at all systems under the clients control. you can select the system and review the CIM data returned.
This plugin monitors the condition all the systems and will alarm when a system is found to be in error. You can customize the alarms and the methods of alerts received through the Monitors management interface in Labtech .
You can download the latest version here.
Version 3.0.10 Now Available
Download extra packages only if needed
If you like what we are doing then please donate to our cause, help keep our software free.
How to install plugin
Please post here any comments and issues you may have so we can get them fixed and out in the next release.
Enjoy
Cubert 😎
Ok I have the plugin working and am monitoring a test esx server. I pulled a power supply on the server but my monitoring is still showing up green. What am I missing?
Keep in mind the alerting process is script based. This means that a script fires off every so often (see ESX group schedule for times) When that script fires off it hits the ESX host and queries it’s current status. If at that time ESX says we have a power supply down we take that info bring it into LT and the monitor that is watching that data to show up sees the failure and alarms. if the script is set to run every 4 hours then it may take up to 4 hours and 10 minutes to get the alarm that power has died.
To speed this up you can test more often like every 1 or 2 hours but in a very large environment this may be more load then desired. If your hosts are built correctly then they are redundant so a single failure does not need to be reported in “real time” as long as it is reported in short order.
So check you schedule in the ESX group and then when testing make sure that time for monitor to alarm is given.
Do these scripts support ESXi 6.0? I just found out that the current Virtualization Manager plugin does not support 6.0
I just installed the plugin and out of 4 ESXi hosts, only 1 is reporting CIM data. The 3 that are not are ESXi 5.x, and the one that works is 4.1. The error I am seeing in the script output is:
L16 Variable Check Parameter1: MYSQLSTMT Parameter2: 9 Parameter3: , Time Taken: 7756.2388671
Script Engine – MYSQLSTMT variable doesn’t exit – Performing Legacy Comparison
L33 Script Log Message Parameter1: No CIM Data for 192.168.168.13 Parameter2: Parameter3: Time Taken: 7756.7388671
Any help or suggestions you can offer? I checked on the hosts and CIM is running and the firewall settings show connections are allowed from any IP.
Would be nice to add a dataview or a central location where you can check health of everything without having to open every location. Other than that, very useful. Thanks!
Afternoon Cubert,
We are running into an issue where we are not able to see the Hard Drives in the Status of the ESXHealthMonitor tab. The hard drives and the RAID controller are showing up when running the “Test Host” option on the Configuration tab.
Can you explain why this is happening?
Thank you,
Hmmm, not sure. If you comment out any place where script deletes files after processing them then it should leave those files behind in the ltsvc directory.
If you send them to me I can review them and see why that is doing that for you.
Wanted to say thank you very much for this piece of outstanding work. It really fills a large gap in our monitoring. I can’t thank you enough!
This seems to work better than the LT10 one. We have 15 ESX Enterprise servers , and when I setup LT10 to monitor them #1 I never get a ticket, and #2 we saw 40-50MB/xfer rate all day on the server to the ESX hosts. Crazy!
One thing I was wondering was if there was a way to make tickets from this ?
Hey Cubert,
I just added the plugin to our LabTech server (LT version 10).
When trying to add an ESX Host nothing happens.
I enter the IP address of the host. Then the username, password and vendor and click save. After I click save the prompt comes and asks for me to hit ok or cancel. I hit ok and nothing happens. The host is not being listed in the ESX Hosts area.
Thanks!
I myself did not have much luck with getting alot of data from the Plugin. Although in Labtech 10 there is now a virtualization plugin manager that works great with esx 5.0-5.5 with notifying of problems and see resources.
https://docs.labtechsoftware.com/LabTech2013/Default.htm#AddOnSolutions/Virtualization/VirtualizationManager/VirtualizationManagerOverview.htm
Hello. I’m hung up mid installation (I’m following your video steps). When I open a client, the ESXHealthMonitor Tab is present, but there is only a Status tab within it and no Configuration tab. I was careful to follow your steps exactly, so I’m a bit lost. I appreciate any help you can provide. Thanks
How do I remove this program?
Having an issue with the search. Not able to get anything to show up. I have to host configured and they test properly.
First thank you for writing the plugin, I installed it on about 8 clients and working great. Went to add additional servers and now i’m getting an error when adding the prob in the monitor.
ESX Health Monitor 3.0 Plugin License Error “Licensing Error Object refrence not set to an instance of an object.”
Thanks
Sutart
Cubert:
You list a 3.0.10 bugfix version, but the download folder only contains 3.0.7-3.0.9.
I’m unable to connect to a host. The connection is refused. What ports need to be opened?
Starting Scans
Start CIM Collection on 192.168.254.214
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20160520 12:47:25 Connection to https://192.168.254.214
20160520 12:47:25 Check classe OMC_SMASHFirmwareIdentity
CRITICAL: (0, 'Socket error: [Errno 10061] No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it')
Scan is now complete.
Cubert,
The download link on the plugins site is still offering 3.0.09 and not 3.0.10
-Jason
Hi Cubert,
Great stuff you have here. Any way to utilize your creations in Kaseya?
Arthur
Funny you asked, we did reserver the domain Plugins4Kaseya.com for that very reason.
It’s not on our short list, but it’s on the list.
Hey guys, now that your remade version of this is out, what’s the full procedure for uninstalling this one from LabTech?
Use Plugin manager to delete plugin, delete scripts, remove group and search, drop all plugin_sw_vmware_esx*
That will fully remove old versions from LT server. As for each probe, remove the Python25 and 27 directories from the C drive of each agent.
The new plugin does not use any groups or searches, no EDFs or other hard to manage stuff. It is a very stream line plug and go plugin!
Will this effect my labtech version of VMmanager?
Will I be able to see what VMHost a computer is on while on the computer screen?
@ Robert
Nope completely independent from any LabTech services, We have released version 4 of this plugin which has huge improvements over version 3. Please visit http://www.plugins4labtech.com to see all our free and paid plugins for LabTech.
Hi, we have 1 server which failed to alert on a faulty disk. This server does not populate info in the ESXi monitor front page. We have other servers reporting correctly.
Could you please direct me to some troubleshooting tips?
Is there a dashboard to view all ESX hosts and manage hosts from the main control screen? If not, do you plan on adding this functionality?
Hi Cubert
This look like a good feature! Does is log tickets if anything fails or is this a passive dashboard?