Insight Manager WBEM Settings - Help Needed

[Megan Kielman]

I am attempting to configure WBEM settings for a particular system (overriding global defaults). I have a few questions about what the settings do.

I understand that WMI is MS's implementation of WBEM and if the setting is configured, RPC will be used.

1. If the SIM server and agent are in the same AD domain, will those credentials be passed in an encrypted form?

2. If the SIM server needs to use WMI to communicate to a system in a "non trusted" AD domain, should I place alternate domain credentials in that field? Will those be encrypted? How?

3. There is a spot to configure Port #. If you specify a port there, are you changing the fact that it uses RPC? Wouldn't a configuration change be required on the agent to listen on this alternate port?

4. If "use certificate instead" is selected". Is RPC no longer used?

[David Claypool]

HP SIM speaks 'pure WBEM' which is Common Information Model data from the CIMv2 namespace encoded in XML and transported over secure HTTP.

WMI is Microsoft's implementation of a Common Information Model Object Manager and it uses its own WMI namespace and transports data over DCOM.

HP SIM utilizes a "WMI Mapper" to map between the namespaces and to transport between the 2 interfaces.

HP SIM can't use a certificate to make WMI connections. It will use domain\user credentials to pass the request over HTTPS to the WMI mapper which will pass through the credentials using DCOM to the target. This is done for any system regardless of domain (although if domain is omitted, it assumes the same domain).

Port 5989 is the default port for WBEM and is what the WMI Mapper listens to. The only reason to change it is if you were to change the WMI Mapper's listening port and need to have HP SIM know what to use.

[Megan Kielman]

Thank you for the quick response. I am still confused about the communication blow between the agent and the SIM Server with regard to WBEM. Can you explain it in more detail? Who is initiating the traffic? Again this is only with Windows monitored systems.

[Rancher]

Are you only using Windows systems?
Mine are all Windows and I have WBEM disabled. I am only using HTTP, SNMP, and WMI. I was under the impression that WBEM was only needed for HP-UX systems, but I might be misinformed.

[David Claypool · Accepted solution]

Megan:

All of the communications are initiated by HP SIM. At some point in the future there will be an ability for the target to initiate events called "WMI Indications" (similar to an SNMP trap) for which the HP SIM server will subscribe.

Rancher:

You are misinformed. If you have disabled WBEM, then you can't use WMI. As mentioned above, HP SIM only uses WBEM. It then has to use the WMI Mapper to translate back and forth.

Generally speaking, if these are ProLiant servers you are dealing with, there is no reason to use WMI at this time. All of the ProLiant specific data is instrumented exclusively in SNMP.

Some more information is attached that helps to explain this from a presentation I did earlier this year at the HP Tech Forum.

[Rancher]

David,
Thank you SO much for the information and for setting me straight! I have been under this impression ever since I started using SIMS.

[MENAGER]

Hello,

A question :

For configure the settings snmp on HP SIM, should set the WBEM and WMI settings?

Thanks for it.

Regards

J.MENAGER

[marsh_1]

hi,

no the snmp settings are independent of the wbem settings.

HTH