OP5 Monitor ["OP5 Monitor"]
["Technical Reference"]

Manage dashboards and widgets

Overview

Dashboards are displays which give you an overview of your monitoring data. They are made up of one or more widgets, which display monitoring information and statuses in different ways.

You can create multiple dashboards for different purposes, which you can save to access later from the OP5 Monitor Dashboards menu. For example, you can have a dashboard dedicated to a mission critical system and its dependencies on a performance data level, giving you a view of the system health.

The first time you log in to OP5 Monitor, it generates a default dashboard for you. You can update or remove the default dashboard, and you can choose which dashboard to set as your default dashboard.

Widgets

Widgets are containers for information about monitoring and statuses. OP5 Monitor includes many different types of widgets, designed to fulfil different data display needs. You can add, remove, and customise widgets to personalise your dashboard, displaying only the data which interests you. Some widgets also allow you to perform actions and access other OP5 Monitor pages.

You can update settings in different instances of the same widget type on the same dashboard. For example, if you want to add different map views to one dashboard, you can add multiple map widget instances with different settings. All changes you make to widgets are saved on a per-dashboard basis.

You can manage widgets in the Dashboard options menu.

Widget list

The list below gives a brief description of each of the widgets available, with their default settings. You can update the settings to change what they display.

Widget Description
Acknowledged problems List of acknowledged problems. You can click the links to see more details in the host and service list views.
Acknowledged service Problems Detailed display of acknowledged problems at service level. You can perform service actions from the widget.
Big numbers

Host or service aggregates as a factor, percentage, or count. Given a configured threshold it can display with a red, yellow, or green background. If you do not specify a threshold, then it displays with a blue background. It can also display the performance data of an object and use the performance data thresholds to determine its state colour.

Business Services List of business services.
Disabled Checks List of currently disabled checks.
Geomap Displays the map defined in Geomap.
Getting started with OP5 Monitor Default widget for the default login dashboard, containing information and links relating to getting started with the application.
Host performance Performance display list of services by host.
Hosts Hosts by status. You can click the links to see more details in the host list views.

List View

The All Hosts list view.
Merlin Node Status Merlin status, including checks and latency.
Monitoring features List of program-wide monitoring settings with state.
Monitoring performance Overview of performance-related information.
NagVis NagVis Automap.
Network health Percentage of hosts and services which are up, with colours to show when the percentage of each drops below a defined threshold.
Network outages Display of any current network outages.
Scheduled downtime List of scheduled downtimes.
Services Services by status. You can click the links to see more details in the service list views.
State summary Number of objects in different states for a service or host filter.
Table Stat Overview of all objects by status.
Unacknowledged service problems Detailed display of unacknowledged problems at service level. You can perform service actions from the widget.
Unhandled problems List of unhandled problems by current state.
   

Update widget settings

Each widget includes a header, with the title on the left and icons for performing actions on the widget on the right.

The settings you can update vary by widget. Some examples of settings you can update are as follows:

  • Widget title
  • Widget refresh time
  • Filters and column settings for table displays
  • Monitoring objects to display
  • Display colours
  • Thresholds

To change a widget's settings:

  1. Click the settings icon in the widget header.
  2. In Custom title, enter a new widget display name.
  3. Change the default widget Refresh time, in seconds.
  4. Update the other widget-specific settings, as required.
  5. Click Save.

Dashboards

Create a dashboard

  1. Click Dashboards > New dashboard.
  2. Enter the dashboard name.
  3. Select the dashboard layout.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Add new widgets to the dashboard by clicking Dashboard options > Add widget. For more information on the widgets available, see Widget list.
  6. If you want the dashboard to be your default landing page, follow the procedure Set a dashboard to display after login.

Delete a dashboard

  1. Click Dashboard options > Delete this dashboard.
  2. Click Delete.

Rename a dashboard

  1. Click Dashboard options > Rename this dashboard.
  2. Enter the new name.
  3. Click Save.

Set a dashboard to display after login

To set a dashboard as a login dashboard:

  1. Click Dashboard options > Set as login dashboard.
  2. Click Save.

Share a dashboard

Only users with the Dashboard Share right, found under the Dashboard category in the Group rights function, can share dashboards.

When sharing dashboards with users or groups that are managed by LDAP or Active Directory, the name or user group name is not auto-completed. The same applies to local users and groups if the user is not a member of a group with the Access Rights right. This does not prevent you from sharing dashboards with them, as long you enter the name of the user or group correctly.

For more information on access rights, see Update user permissions in Manage users, contacts, and permissions.

To share a dashboard:

  1. Click Dashboard options > Share this dashboard. Users or groups which are already sharing the dashboard are listed at the bottom.
  2. Choose whether to share the dashboard with a Group or User.
  3. Select the name of the group or user from the drop-down list.
  4. Click Share. The new user or group is added to the list.

To stop sharing a dashboard:

  1. Click Dashboard options > Share this dashboard. Users or groups which are already sharing the dashboard are listed at the bottom.
  2. Click the cross next to the user or group with which you no longer want to share the dashboard.
  3. Click Stop sharing.

External widget configuration

External widgets can be used to set up status displays on large monitors or share monitoring information on external websites.

The procedures below explain how to configure external widgets for display on external websites, using NagVis and list view widgets as examples.

Create a local user account

To be able to display content in an external widget, you need to configure a local user account for the widget in OP5 Monitor.

  1. Create a new local user account. For example, externalview. For guidance, see Create a user in Manage users, contacts, and permissions.
  2. Assign minimal permissions to the new user to be able to view the type of widget contents, such as NagVisNagVis View or Host > Host View All. For guidance, see Update OP5 Monitor user permissions in Manage users, contacts, and permissions.
  3. Log the user in to the OP5 Monitor user interface to create the necessary user configuration. 

Configure the widget

  1. Log on to the OP5 Monitor system as root, using SSH.
  2. Create a new file called external_widget.php using the following command:
    cp -pv /opt/monitor/op5/ninja/application/config/custom/external_widget.php
  3. Open the newly created file using a text editor:
    edit /opt/monitor/op5/ninja/application/config/custom/external_widget.php
  4. The new file is created with comment blocks beginning with /* ... */, and several lines beginning with $config, which you need to update as follows:
    1. Set the username parameter to the name of the user you created in Create a local user account:
      $config['username'] = 'externalview'; 
    2. Set the groups parameter to the user group of the user. If the user does not have a password configured, you must specify the group name manually. In this example, the group is set to guest as follows:
      $config['groups'] = array('guest');

      Alternatively, for several group memberships, specify them as comma-separated values, as follows:

      $config['groups'] = array('guest', 'external_users');

    3. Set the widgets parameter according to one of the examples below.

      NagVis example

      $config['widgets']['company_network'] = array(
      'name' => 'nagvis',
      'friendly_name' => '',
      'setting' => array(
      'width' => 1280,
      'height' => 1024,
      'map' => 'automap'
      		)
      		);

      List view example

      $config['widgets']['unhandled_problems'] = array(
       'name' => 'listview',
       'friendly_name' => '',
       'setting' => array(
       'query' => '[services] state != 0 and acknowledged = 0 and scheduled_downtime_depth = 0 and host.scheduled_downtime_depth = 0',
       'columns' => 'default',  
       'limit' => 50, 
       'order' => ''
                 )            
                 );
      

Configuration parameters and values

Parameters and values in the examples above are as follows:

  • company_network and unhandled_problems — these two values represent the external widget name, used in the external widget URL, for example:

    https://op5-monitor/monitor/index.php/external_widget/company_network

  • name — the internal widget name. You can find the internal widget names available for your system by running the following command:
    for d in /opt/monitor/op5/ninja/modules/*/widgets/* /opt/monitor/op5/ninja/application/widgets/*; do [ -d "$d" ] || 
    continue; echo "${d##*/}"; done | sort
  • friendly_name — can be empty or have any value.
  • setting — varies by widget.

Configure multiple widgets

To configure multiple external widgets, add the other widgets to the $config['widgets'] array. You must ensure you keep the keys unique. In the examples above, the keys are company_network and unhandled_problems.

Display the widget

Add an iframe to the HTML of the external website to display the external widget. For example:

<iframe src="https://<OP5_monitor_server>/monitor/index.php/external_widget/company_network" height="500px" frameborder=0 width="600px" scrolling='no'></iframe>

You need to set company_network in the URL to the name you created for the configuration.

Success: Your external widget can now render on any site which has access to the OP5 Monitor server.