Big Brother Professional Edition Windows Client Getting Started Guide. Version 4.60

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Big Brother Professional Edition

Windows Client

Getting Started Guide

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© Copyright Quest Software, Inc. 2002–2011. All rights reserved.

This guide contains proprietary information, which is protected by copyright. The software described in this guide is furnished under a software license or nondisclosure agreement. This software may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of the applicable agreement. No part of this guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording for any purpose other than the purchaser’s personal use without the written permission of Quest Software, Inc.

Warranty

The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. Quest Software makes no warranty of any kind with respect to this information. QUEST SOFTWARE SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS THE IMPLIED WARRANTY OF THE MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Quest Software shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or other damage alleged in connection with the furnishing or use of this information.

Trademarks

Quest, Big Brother, Foglight, and Spotlight are trademarks or registered trademarks of Quest Software, Inc. Other trademarks and registered trademarks used in this guide are property of their respective owners.

Acknowledgements

SocketTools by Catalyst Development Corp.

Portions of this software based on SocketTools(TM) licensed from Catalyst Development Corporation

Regex++ library © Copyright 1998–2000 by Dr. John Maddock

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. Dr. John Maddock makes no representations about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

Cryptographic routines

Numeric paging

This product includes POWERP32.DLL, a product written by Ron Tanner of Tanner & Associates.

SMS Messaging

libcurl

IPv6

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

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World Headquarters

5 Polaris Way Aliso Viejo, CA. 92656

USA www.quest.com email: [email protected] U.S. and Canada: 949.754.8000

Please refer to our Web site for regional and international office information.

Big Brother Professional Edition Windows Client Getting Started Guide

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Description of Big Brother Professional Edition ... 1

About This Document ... 1

Big Brother Professional Edition Terminology... 2

Getting the Product ... 2

Big Brother System Requirements ... 2

Installing the Big Brother Client... 3

Setting Configuration Options ... 5

Upgrading the Big Brother Client Software ... 6

About Quest Software ... 8

Contacting Quest Software ...8

Technical Support ...8

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BIG BROTHER PROFESSIONAL EDITION WINDOWS CLIENT GETTING STARTED GUIDE

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Description of Big Brother Professional Edition

Big Brother Professional Edition (BBPE, or Big Brother) is a software tool for monitoring computers, other devices with an IP address, and processes. As long as the machines are connected to a network, the physical locations of the stations being monitored are not important. This lets you monitor computer networks remotely, 24-hours a day. Big Brother generates web pages that can be viewed internally or externally and can notify one or more people of the network status via e-mail, pager, SMS or SNMP traps. Here is a sample of the Big Brother status display Web page:

Big Brother consists of two parts: a server and a client. The server monitors services which can be tested over the Internet: HTTP, FTP, and so on. It does this by sending messages over the Internet to the host and seeing if it receives a reply. The server also collects status logs, prepares and makes available the display Web pages, and processes all notifications. The server can be installed on one or more than one computer; a single server instance can monitor many host computers.

The Big Brother client tests services which can only be monitored internally by checking the computer itself: CPU and disk space usage, message files, and so on. The client must be installed on each host where you want to monitor these internal processes; it sends the results of its tests over the network or Internet to a Big Brother server.

Big Brother is very flexible. You configure the hosts to monitor and what tests to perform on each. You also select when e-mail or pager notifications are sent based on test results, and who they are sent to. You can have different recipients based on the color, the host, the test, the day, and/or the time. You can also add external scripts to extend the processes and services Big Brother can monitor.

About This Document

This document describes installation and initial configuration of the Big Brother client software on a Windows host. It does not discuss installing or using the Big Brother server.

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Big Brother Professional Edition Terminology

This guide uses the following terminology throughout. Understanding the terminology is important to running Big Brother successfully.

 Big Brother server — A computer running the Big Brother server software. It may function as any or all of BBDISPLAY, BBPAGER, and BBNET.

 BBDISPLAY — The computer that accepts incoming reports and prepares them for display. It is also called the display server. Big Brother uses the Web as its user interface, so it can be accessed by anyone with clearance to access the Big Brother site.

 BBPAGER — The computer that sends notifications if alarm levels are exceeded. It is also called the pager server.

 BBNET – The computer that performs all network tests for each protocol, for each system listed in the bb-hosts.cfg file. Starting with BBPE 4.00, you can have multiple BBNETs running in parallel (as long as each are defined with a unique location tag)

 Big Brother client – A computer that retrieves CPU, disk, memory, event logs, network protocols, paging file, process, and services information using the Big Brother client software. This document describes how to set up the client software.

Getting the Product

You can download the product from the Quest website at http://www.bb4.com/download.asp.

Big Brother System Requirements

 Pentium II 400Mhz or later, or equivalent, server  1GB memory

 20MB of disk space for installation

 Windows XP, 2003 Server or 2008, Windows 7  TCP/IP networking

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Installing the Big Brother Client

Before installing the Big Brother client, you should have a running installation of the Big Brother server on your network. The client software can only provide information through a Big Brother server. At a minimum, one working BBDISPLAY server is required.

These instructions are for first-time installation. If you are upgrading an existing Big Brother client installation, follow the upgrade instructions on page 6.

To install the Big Brother Windows Client:

1. Go to the directory where you downloaded the installation file. 2. Double-click the bbntpe-4.60.exe file.

3. Select Yes when asked if you want to install the product. 4. Accept the Big Brother license agreement.

5. Enter your name and a company name.

6. Enter the directory to install Big Brother in. The default directory is: C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Big Brother\BBNT\4.60.

7. Click Next to accept the installation settings or click Back to change them. After you accept the settings, the installation program copies and sets up the required files for the client.

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8. Click Finish to complete the installation program. (If the installation program asks for a system reboot, select No. It is not required).

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9. Your NT Computer Name and BB Name Alias are already filled in with the domain hostname and the DNS name of this computer. You can use the NT Computer Name field to copy configuration information to another client; see the online help for details.

10. Set the BBDISPLAY and BBPAGER host addresses:

 Select the DISPLAY hosts address shown and click Del to delete it.  Type the correct IP address for your BBDISPLAY host and click Add.  Repeat this for the PAGER hosts.

 If you have multiple BBDISPLAY or BBPAGER hosts, add their addresses also. 11. You can change the default values in the other fields and enter information in blank fields as

desired to finalize the client configuration. See the online help for information about the fields on the screen.

12. After making your changes, click Save.

13. Click Start Service to start the Big Brother Client Service with your changes in effect. The client installation is now complete.

Important! The new client must also be defined on the appropriate Big Brother server(s).

You must add it to the list of hosts on the BBDISPLAY, BBPAGER, and BBNET host or hosts. Follow the server instructions for adding a host to the etc\bb-hosts.cfg file on a Windows server or the etc/bb-hosts file on a UNIX server. You must do this even if you are installing the client on the same computer as the server software.

Warning! Do not toggle on “Perform/Trend” until the target BBDISPLAY is upgraded to a 4.20 or higher version.

Setting Configuration Options

You’ve now entered enough information for the Big Brother client to start performing its default tests and sending the results to the Big Brother server(s). After a few minutes, when you view the Big Brother Web page, you should see extra columns for tests performed by the client. This is a typical display as it appears before the client is installed:

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Here is a typical display after the client is installed:

There are now columns showing results for the CPU, disk, memory, event logs, network protocols, paging file, processes and services tests performed by the client.

You can use the Configuration Editor to modify the behavior of the standard tests and to tell Big Brother to perform external scripts and report their results to the servers. For information on using the Configuration Editor, including descriptions of each field, please see the online help.

Starting and Stopping the Client

The client installation adds a menu for the client to the Windows Start menu. There are four entries: Start and Stop, which let you start and stop the Big Brother client service; Configure, which starts the Configuration Editor, and Help, which displays the online help. The help includes more detailed information than is found in this Getting Started Guide.

Upgrading the Big Brother Client Software

1. If you are going to install the new version of Big Brother to the same location as the existing version, copy the Big Brother <prev.ver>etc\, ext\ and logs\ files (if they exist) to a safe location. The logs\ and ext\ directories are usually in C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Big Brother\BBNT\. If you will install the new version into a new directory (this is the default), you do not need to do this.

2. Note your client configuration options. Here is one way to do this:

 Start the Configuration Editor by selecting Start, Programs, Quest Software, Big Brother, Client, Configure.

 Press Alt-Print Scrn to copy the window to the clipboard.  Paste the screen capture into your favorite editor.

 Close the Configuration Editor.

3. Install the new version of Big Brother client; see page 2. Stop after step 8.

4. Run the Configuration Tool and set your options to match those you were using before the update. Warning! Do not toggle on “Perform/Trend” until the target BBDISPLAY is upgraded to a 4.20 or higher version.

5. If external scripts are in a new location, copy the scripts from the previous installation and reconfigure the Saved Logs Location and Add External options, if required.

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6. After making all your changes, click Save.

7. Wait five minutes and check update times to make sure everything is updating properly. 8. It is recommended that you reboot your system to make sure the proper version of Big Brother

automatically starts.

9. Use the Windows Add/Remove Program feature to remove the earlier version of Big Brother. 10. Add/Remove Program will not remove the Start menu items for the earlier versions. You can

remove these by hand if you wish.

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About Quest Software

Quest Software, Inc. delivers innovative products that help organizations get more performance and productivity from their applications, databases and Windows infrastructure. Through a deep expertise in IT operations and a continued focus on what works best, Quest helps thousands of customers worldwide meet higher expectations for enterprise IT. Quest’s Windows Management solutions simplify, automate and secure Active Directory, Exchange and Windows, as well as integrate Unix, Linux and Java into the managed environment. Quest Software can be found in offices around the globe and at www.quest.com.

Contacting Quest Software

You can contact Quest Software for product and pricing information in any of the following ways:

Phone 949.754.8000 (United States and Canada)

E-mail [email protected]

Mail Quest Software, Inc.

5 Polaris Way

Aliso Viejo, CA. 92656 USA

Web site www.bb4.com

www.quest.com

Please refer to our Web site for regional and international office information.

Technical Support

Visit the support web site for current contact information and hours of operation: www.quest.com/support

Permanent License

To receive a permanent license, you must purchase Big Brother Professional Edition. To do so, contact your Quest sales representative, send e-mail to [email protected], or call (949) 754-8000. Once you’ve purchased the product, send your key string in an e-mail to [email protected]. Please see the online help for instructions on finding your key string and entering your permanent license.

Big Brother Professional Edition Windows Client Getting Started Guide. Version 4.60