topic Re: Custom Tools Windows without SSH in Server Management - Systems Insight Manager

Custom Tools Windows without SSH

justin brady_2 — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:03:28 GMT

The SIM 5.2 TRG suggest that you can avoid having to install SSH on each managed node in order to run custom command (e.g. netstat)by modifying the following two global properties parameters.

mx_dtf_ssh_bypass_user and mx_dtf_enable_ssh_bypass

I have done this but still get the task error message

The "Run as" user does not have adequate permission to manipulate this file: Connection refused: connect

Using TCP monitoring tools I have still noticed that mxdtf is attempting to make SSH connection with the target node despite the bypass being set. Has anyone else had this problem and what did you need to set in the custom tool or SIM overall to force the bypass. Thanks in advance. Justin

Re: Custom Tools Windows without SSH

David Claypool — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:43:27 GMT

From the TRG:

"SSH Bypass is used to boost performance by bypassing the overhead of setting up SSH connections for specified users when the **Central Management Server (CMS) is executing a tool locally on the CMS.**"

SSH Bypass is only for local commands run on the CMS. Using a 'remote tool' AKA a Single-System-Aware tool on a system that is not the CMS requires SSH.

Re: Custom Tools Windows without SSH

justin brady_2 — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:06:37 GMT

David,

Thanks for the swift response. It is disappointing that SIM does not allow straight forward remote execution of commands without SSH as this would be an extremely useful tool for running scripts. Is this something that the HP SIM developers are looking into?

Regards,
Justin.

Re: Custom Tools Windows without SSH

David Claypool — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:51:04 GMT

SSH is not planning to go away because that gives us a single interface we can use to provide a consistent experience across Windows, Linux and Unix (and even NetWare). It has the added benefit of being able to establish keytrusts so you don't have to muck about with passwords, etc.

As a workaround, you can run things on the CMS itself and use the target device variable to address one or more remote systems. This is limited, of course, to utilities that let you specify a remote system (e.g. shutdown lets you do this, netstat does not). I haven't played much with PowerShell, but this would let you do a lot of things for which there is not an ability in the utility to specify a remote device. MS has published a number of sample administration scripts. PowerShell would only need to be present on the CMS and not on all of your devices.

Re: Custom Tools Windows without SSH

Derek_56 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:17:17 GMT

Justin,

Another potential work around would be to use the Systernals PSTools package: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896649.aspx You will still have to run these ON the CMS (SIM server) remotely against the nodes. The psexec utility will let you execute something on a remote system, but I've never used it in a SIM tool to see what the returned data looks like.