HP Insight Event Notifier v7.80 crashes when no connection is possible to SMTP server at startup

[Arian van der Pijl]

Hello,

Observation;
When booting a server with Insight Agents 7.80 installed the HP Insight Event Notifier service crashes when there is no connection to the SMTP server possible defined in the e-mail notifier on the server itself.

Event ID 7024, source 'Service Control manager';
The HP Insight Event Notifier service terminated with service-specific error 4 (0x4).

Workaround;
I can resolve this to restart the 'HP Insight Event Notifier service' when network / WAN connections are restored.

I'm starting to use Insight Agents on the server (No HP Management HP) with the e-mail notifier because I do not have a management station.

So when this server crashes I would not get any messages regarding the health of a server.

If above observation is correct;
I think this service may not crash because of the moment there is no connection possible to the defined SMTP server. It should have a retry function instead of crashing.

Of course all above are my findings and I could be wrong but I thought i'd share this on this forum.

Regards,
Arian!

[Rob Buxton]

That does appear to be a timing issue.
Using HPSIM as a Management server is a pretty effective way of improving the visibility of the infrastructure, and it's free!

How many servers are you managing? If it is not too many then you could just manually manage the restart situation. If there are say more than 10 I'd seriously give HPSIM a go.

[Arian van der Pijl]

Rob,

Thanks for the reply.
I have to manage about 10 servers, it's not much compared to some numbers given by others but 10 or 100 should be no difference if you do it right and well planned.

Until recently I did not install any full PSP pack, only the necessary drivers.
I like my servers 'clean' and did not have the time to look at the management agents.

I examined the PSP pack and extracted the only bare necessary programs to prepare the servers for management. (HP Insight Agents)

I did load HP sim this week to see what's its all about. It looks very nice but for now I'd like to receive e-mail messages directly from the Agents only.

Maybe in the future I can free some time to full implement HP SIM. I do not like hasty implementations, it should be done right the first time.

I will try to 'tune' the startup time of the 'HP Notify service'. The server was booting the exact time when the VPN Server was rebooting therefore no connection to the SMTP server was available.

Best regards,
Arian!

[Rob Buxton]

Yes, definately agree and 10 servers is kind of the uncertain middle ground as to if the effort taken to install the management software equals the gains of the data returned from it.

The agents do help in threshold management etc. in addition to what the notifier would provide and you can even monitor services stopping / starting.

One thing I would advise if you do elect to install the agents, install the entire PSP. They're tested bundles so should work together. The agents do rely on te underlying management drivers so it does pay to keep them in step.