I look forward to your comments on my new blog.]]> OpsMgr 2007 http://www.aquilaweb.com/blog/index.php?itemid=96 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:12:23 +0100 http://www.aquilaweb.com/blog/index.php?itemid=94 After implementing Operations Manager in your environment you may find some of your servers experiencing WMI problems. This can result in not being able to collect data or monitor what you need as the WMI queries in the rules and monitors will fail.

Here are some simple command sets to reset and re-register WMI which in my experience I have found to solve many WMI issues.

Resetting WMI

1. net stop winmgmt
2. c:
3. cd %windir%\system32\wbem\
4. rmdir /s /q Repository
5. rmdir /s /q Logs
6. mkdir Logs
7. net start winmgmt

Re-registering WMI

1. net stop winmgmt
2. c:
3. cd %windir%\system32\wbem\
4. for %i in (*.dll) do RegSvr32 /s %i
5. for %i in (*.mof, *.mfl) do Mofcomp %i
6. net start winmgmt

"For more information about this error navigate to the report server on the local server machine, or enable remote errors"

Enabling remote errors does in most cases give very good information as to the cause of the error and MS has a good guide on how to enable remote errors which I thought I would share.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa337165.aspx

It's really quite simple.....

As all the default SCOM reports use the same JPG image files as their header, all you need to do is update those files with your lovely company logo banner. So, open a web browser and navigate to SSRS (http://ReportServer/Reports), this will open the reporting services home page. On this page will be banner_landscape.jpg and banner_portrait.jpg, these two files are the files used as the header on the reports so these are the files you need to change. Before doing this, make sure you have your replacement JPG file for both portrait and landscape reports and name them banner_landscape.jpg & banner_portrait.jpg - usually the landscape file is the same as the portraight but just a bit wider.

With everything ready, click Upload File on the reporting service home page, click Browse and navigate to one of your two new banner files, check the box to overwrite item if it exists and click OK.

That's it, you're done. Run a report and you'll have your nice banner heading the report :-).

To seal a management pack is relatevely straight forward and Microsoft have a "How to Seal a Management Pack" guide here, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb309498(TechNet.10).aspx which outlines the basic steps and options. The problem with Microsoft's guide is that the pre-requisistes state that it is possible to create a private certificate using Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Certificate Services. This is not the case and I will show you how you can create the file required and seal your MP. I have also contacted MS about there misleading prerequisites and they should be sorting it out soon :-).

Before sealing a management, or even generating the key required, there are a couple of prerequisites.

For key generation you will require .NET Framework 2.0 and any one of these:

.NET Framework SDK

Micorosft Viual Studio 2005

Business Intelligence Development Studio (from SQL 2005 Client Components)

For management pack sealing you will require:

System Center Operations Manager 2007 Support Tools (available on install media)

Once the prereq's have been met you can now create your key and seal up your management pack. For my example I have copied the contents of the Support Tools folder to C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007.

1. Create the key file by running this command: sn -k c:\pairkey.snk

2. Extract the public key to file: sn -p c:\pairkey.snk c:\pubkey

3. Extract public key and public key token from file: sn -tp c:\pubkey

4. With the key created, run mpseal.exe from the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Support Tools to seal a management pack:

C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007>mpseal.exe "c:\test_mp.xml" /I "c:\program files\system center operations manager 2007" /Keyfile "c:\pairkey.snk" /Company "My Company" /Outdir "c:\newmps"

5. The new sealed management pack is successfully created !

For full deatils on the options available when running mpseal.exe, check out the MS guide here, How to seal a management pack.

You can then verify the MP by running MPVerify.exe located at C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007:
MPverify /I "c:\newmps\test_mp.mp"

Available for download under Guides.

The next WMUG event has been announced, it will be taking place on 15th July 2008 at Microsoft Cardinal Place, London.

There will be two presentations, one on SCCM presented by Rob Marshall and one on SCOM presented by myself and Gordon McKenna. And, for the first time all the content will be presented in real time using Virtual Machine technology.

Check out full details of the event and register to attend here http://wmug.co.uk/groups/wmug_event_content/pages/wmug-event-15th-july-2008-cardinal-place-london.aspx.

Each of these rules has its own schedule to execute a stored procedure within the database and it is these stored procedures that keep the database maintained. The stored procedures work very well and having them controlled by rules makes things even better as you can control when OpsMan performs its maintenance and how often which is great; except you can't. As the rules are part of the System Center Internal Library management pack you can't alter the schedule as it is a sealed management pack and you are unable to override the schedule as there are no overridable parameters for the schedule. This can cause some unwanted issues as a number of these rules only run once per day in the early hours of the morning which might not be to everyones needs, that might be your most critical time of the day.

To get round this issue I have put together a management pack which has...

...all these maintenance rules with configurable schedules.

Download:http://www.aquilaweb.com/blog/download/OpsDBMaintenance.zip
10/06/08 - Updated version, see comment below.

Import the management pack as you would any other, this will make the rules available under Rules in the Authoring pane in the Ops Console. To make viewing easier, scope the management pack objects to Root Management Server and sort by Management Pack column.

Select the rule where the schedule needs changing and select Properties from the Action pane. Select the Configuration tab from the Properties window and click Edit next to Data sources.

Update the schedule as required then click OK and OK again. Done !

Any questions, please contact me or leave a comment.

This just covers the Recovery Task, not the creation of the whole monitor.

1. Locate your monitor, right click and select Properties. This example is using the Messenger service.

2. Select the Diagnostic and Recovery tab, then select Add under Configure recovery tasks and click Recovery for critical health state.

3. The Create Recovery Task Wizard will open, select Run Command as the type of Recovery task to create and then select a destination Management Pack. Click Next.

4. Give your recovery task a name and description if required. Select the health state for which the recovery action will run and recovery target to what is relevant for your monitor. Make sure the Run recovery automatically is checked if you want the task to run automatically. Click Next.

5. In Full path to file type the command %windir%\System32\net.exe. In Parameters, type start Messenger, obviously replace Messenger with relevant service. Set working directory as '%Windir%' and set an appropriate timeout based on how long the service usually takes to start. Click Create.

6. There isn't a stage 6, you're done. :-)

If you navigate to this link, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb310604(TechNet.10).aspx, it will take you to the System Center Operations Manager TechCenter. There is plenty of information on OpsMan here including the MP guides which have been split under two different headings, Windows OS's and Server Products, which should make the guide you are looking for easier to find. And, with the addition of Community Content you can now leave your comments, tips and tricks about the management pack and its guide.