Visual Consoles

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Pandora FMS allows to build visual maps where each user defines their own way to visually represent the monitoring. The Visual Console editor allows the user, by dragging elements with the mouse, to visually design the final aspect, choosing the background and icons that represent the status of each relevant aspect you want to display. With Pandora comes a series of icons, but the user can easily customize their own. Different visual consoles can interact with each other, viewing in a hierarchical way the status of maps that are “under” a superior map, being able to abstract that way the monitoring, and viewing at high level a whole series of elements.

These are real-life examples of visual consoles, as seen on a 40“screen:

More information can be found in the video tutorial «Create visual consoles in Pandora FMS».

To work with a visual map, go to Topology Maps → Visual console. A list appears with all created maps. To create a new one, click “Create”. On the list you can edit a map, delete it or “clone” an existing one to modify it.

For large environments where there are multiple visual consoles, a filter option has been created by searching for free text, by group and with recursion of secondary groups and subgroups.

When creating a new visual console you will access the main view (Main data) and right above it you will see the editor icons. The editor's organization is made up by several tabs:

From left to right its icons are:

• Full screen mode: An access to full screen view.
• View: The default display tab.
• Wizard: Wizard to add elements.
• Services wizard: Wizard to add services.
• List of elements: A list of the visual console elements.
• Main data: It contains visual console general data, there you may change the name, among other elements.
• Show link to public Visual Console: Link to share the visual console with a third party through a URL.
• List of visual consoles: Link to go back to the created visual console list.

Using the favorites system you will be able to add the visual consoles you need to have at first sight after logging into PFMS Web Console.

Clicking on the star icon located next to the visual console name in its main view will add (or remove) it from the Visual Console section in the Favorite menu of the Operation menu:

From the menu Topology maps → Visual console you will access the full list of created visual consoles. You may search by keyword in the Search text box and filter by groups in Group (including subgroups if you activate Group Recursion), to display the result, click on the Search button.

To edit a visual console click on the corresponding name in the Map name column. For more details see ” Creating and editing visual consoles “.

From version 766 onwards, the Maintenance Mode option is available.

Enabling this option will stop other users from viewing and editing, even for the public URLs of the visual console and in the Web Console mobile version it belongs to.

However, if a user has editing rights on a visual console in maintenance mode, they will have a different warning indicating who activated the maintenance mode and the estimated time when it will be available again. If the user clicks OK they will be able to deactivate the maintenance mode:

In the Main Data section you can edit and create the basic data of the visual console. It will be the only visible one to a new map until it is saved. The basic values it contains are: visual console name, ACL management group, and background image, which can be resized regardless of the size of the image. The background color is important, because if the screen where the visual console is displayed is larger than the background image, it will fill in the rest with the background color selected here.

The background images are located in Pandora FMS console directory, inside the directory:

./images/console/backgrounds/

You can upload your own images through the file manager that Pandora FMS has integrated (Admin tools → File manager).

Visual Console Access Permissions

Visual Console ACLs imply that anyone who has visual console reading permission, because they have access to the group with the Visual Console (VR) flag, will see all the contents of the VC, even if there are elements of another group in it.

Users can only assign a group the user creating the Visual Console belongs to, unless that user explicitly belongs to the ALL group.

The wizard allows you to add elements to the VC quickly and conveniently. You can create different types of elements, and it is recommended that before creating many elements you use it with only a couple of them, so that you do not have any troubles later on when deleting the elements. If you make a mistake it might be faster to delete the entire VC.

The most relevant element is the one that allows to create one element per agent, or on the contrary, to create one element per module. That way you can add dozens of elements that represent a complete agent, or an element of an agent, or show all the modules of different agents, creating many elements at once, which can be identified by the agent name, the module name or both. The interface is not difficult to use and the easiest thing to do is try some elements and see how it works.

The service wizard tab contains a small form to create several service type elements at once with just a couple of clicks. The selected services will appear in the visual console automatically placed with the selected icon.

Screenshot of the service wizard tab

This tab provides a form in rows of the items contained in the visual console you are editing. It is a quick way to edit the different items, besides being an useful tool for users who need to tune in certain item values.

The actions allowed in this form are: editing (but not changing the element type) and deleting elements (but not creating them). This action must be done in the Editor tab. Each row of the screen will be an element of the VC.

From the list of created visual consoles, you may edit one of them by clicking on its name. At the top right corner there is a button that allows to edit the selected visual console and duplicate it ir delete it with the appropriate icons:

This section contains most od the visual console editors functions and here is where you may add and modify the elements that make up a visual console (except for the background image).

At the top left corner you may find the different elements that can be included in a visual console (from left to right):

1. Static image : Insert a static image.
2. Percentile item: Insert a progress bar or progress circular.
3. Module Graph: Insert a Module Graph.
4. Basic Chart.
5. Serialized pie graph: Insert a serialized pie graph.
6. Bars graph: Insert a bar graph.
7. Event history graph: Insert a history graph (AutoSLA).
8. Simple value: Insert raw data, a simple value.
9. Label: Insert a text tag.
10. Icon: Insert an icon.
11. Clock: Insert a clock item.
12. Group: Insert a group.
13. Box: Insert a box.
14. Line: Insert a line.
15. Color cloud: Insert a color cloud to an Agent Module.
16. Network Link: Insert a network link.
17. Odometer: Insert a graph meter either for percentages or absolute values (calculated to percentages according to established or fact registered maximum and minimum values).
18. Service: Insert a service.

The elements share common elements grouped in two tabs: Label settings and General settings). Some, such as Network link, do without these tabs, others, such as Color Cloud, have only the General settings tab.

In label settings you can set size, font etc. and even images and web links.

In general settings you will be able to set the location, if it is displayed above other elements, etc. However, some elements will have more or less common fields, for example the Link enabled parameter allows you to disable clicking to open the element's data source (Agent, Module, etc.) but not all elements have this feature.

This item (Static graph) displays a static image that will be displayed in four possible colors:

• Red, for CRITICAL.
• Green, for OK.
• Yellow, for WARNING.
• Grey, for unknown.

Depending on the status of the module, agent or map, it will show one image or another. In a normal Pandora FMS installation these images should be in:

./images/console/icons

And these files use a special nomenclature for these images: <name_image>_<status>.png where the status can be:

Example of images with name and status

• Bad: When the agent has a failing module, the module fails or the visual console that links to contains some element in 'bad'.
• Ok: When the agent, module or visual console that it links to are correct.
• Warning: When the agent has some module in warning, the module is in warning or the visual console that it links to contains some element in warning.
• (No text): When the agent, module or visual console that it links to has no status.

A tag can be associated to the static image, or it can be left blank, that tag can be formatted and certain macros can even be added to the text.

The static image can be associated to a specific module, to a whole agent (so that if it has at least one bad module, it will become red and will only become green if all its modules are in normal state).

You can also choose whether to enable the last value, not to display it or just hide it for True or False modules (default option).The static image can also be associated to the general status of another visual console.

(Version 763 or later) When this item has a triggered alert it will display an orange box that can be disabled in the visual settings.

Progress items (Item percentile) allow to see the status of a module in a very graphic and descriptive way. They can be progress bar, ball, donut or full doughnut type graphics.

Example of an element of Percentage bar type. In this example, the result of a module that monitors the CPU is shown

Options

The percentage bar has far fewer controls than the rest of the elements:

• Max value: It is the maximum value that the module can possibly represent. So it is interesting that you examine the module to be monitored well to see what the maximum value is; for example, in the case of the screenshot it is the CPU module that goes from 0 to 100.
• Type: The type will allow you to define how to represent the element graphically (bar, ball, doughnut, etc.).
• Value to show: It shows the percentage value or the value itself.
• Linked visual console: By default it links to the data source Module, but it may change its behavior and link it to any other visual console.

It displays a Module graph in real time. It can be a graph of an ordinary data module, a combined graph or one of the graphs that obtain its value in tabular form, which can belong to several types.

Options of a module graph

In the graph, it is necessary to define the width and height, so it is no longer hidden in the advanced options to be displayed.

• Interval: The data range that the graph will display from the current moment backwards, e. g. 1 day.
• Size: Width and height of the image that the graphic will take on screen and the figures of the axes.
• Background color: White, black or transparent. This allows to make it fit visually with your VC.
• Type: It allows you to choose the type: module graph, combined graph or tabular graph.
• Agent/Module: If you have chosen a graph associated with a data series.

Graphs are not “previewed” in edit mode, so a white box is displayed instead.

Example of editing view of a VC with several items

Example of user view for that same VC

These two visual console elements allow complex pie or vertical or horizontal bar charts to be incorporated into a visual console. Unlike a combined “Pie” or “Bar” chart, these serialized charts incorporate data from a single module, with a special format.

You may only incorporate data from a “Text” module (string) containing data series with the following tag,value format:

tag1,value1
tag2,value2
tag3,value3
tag4,value4
tag5,value5
tag6,value6

Up to a maximum of six elements. To create a module with this data, it is recommended to do it with an agent plugin.

This would be an example of a GNU/Linux local plugin that generates an XML for such a module. In this case Integria IMS REST API is used to retrieve data from open incidents, separated by status:

#!/bin/bash
#
URL="https://support.example.com/integria/include/api.php"
CRD="?user=admin&user_pass=integria&pass=1234"
 
#NEW
echo New,`curl -k -s "$URL$CRD&op=get_stats&params=opened,,1"`> /tmp/support2.tmp
 
#UNCONFIRMED
echo Unconfirmed,`curl -k -s "$URL$CRD&op=get_stats&params=opened,,2"`>> /tmp/support2.tmp
 
#ASSIGNED
echo Assigned,`curl -k -s "$URL$CRD&op=get_stats&params=opened,,3"`>> /tmp/support2.tmp
 
#REOPENED
echo Reopened,`curl -k -s "$URL$CRD&op=get_stats&params=opened,,4"`>> /tmp/support2.tmp
 
#DEVELOPMENT
echo Development,`curl -k -s "$URL$CRD&op=get_stats&params=opened,,5"`>> /tmp/support2.tmp
 
#PENDING TO BE CLOSED
echo PendingToBeClosed,`curl -k -s "$URL$CRD&op=get_stats&params=opened,,6"`>> /tmp/support2.tmp
 
echo "<module>"
echo "<name>Support_Status</name>"
echo "<type>generic_data_string</type>"
echo "<data><![CDATA[`cat /tmp/support2.tmp| tr -d ' '`]]></data>"
echo "</module>"

This will generate an XML similar to his one:

<module>
<name>Support_Status</name>
<type>generic_data_string</type>
<data><![CDATA[New,0
Unconfirmed,1
Assigned,2
Reopened,1
Development,2
PendingToBeClosed,1]]></data>
</module>

That will show a graph like this one when interpreted (in the case of a pie graph):

This element allows the visual console to show the value of a module in real time. Just define a label (optional), and choose the agent and module. To replace the value, use the macro (_VALUE_). Several examples can be seen in the screenshot from the previous section.

(Version 763 or later) When this item has a triggered alert it will display an orange box that can be disabled in the visual settings.

It displays a horizontal bar, similar to the main agent view, where events that took place in the last 24hrs for an agent or an agent/module combination are shown (Event Histogram/AutoSLA).

Display example of an autoSLA with several elements

It allows to represent (and provide a link to) the current status of a service. It also indicates the SLA compliance percentage in real time.

This type of item can be used to create a text tag without associated content. It contains text and HTML code (which can create an internal link or other advanced options).

It is a static image that represents the status of a group.

(Version 763 or later) When this item has a triggered alert it will display an orange box that can be disabled in the visual settings.

It allows to add boxes of different colors to order and enhance the look of your visual console.

It allows to add lines to order and enhance the look of your visual console.

This element allows representing colored blurred clouds that depend on the value of the assigned module. This is commonly called “heat map”.

Element edit view.

The configuration allows to create ranges of values (for now only numerical). Each range must keep consistency with the next one and each one is added with the icon ”+“.

When the value of the selected module is between the range values (including limits), the chosen color for that range will be used for the element. If no range is reached, the default color will be used.

Example of a visual console with several elements of the color cloud type.

Two objects (static image elements) that have been configured via Agents with Modules for network interface of type <prefix>ifOperStatus, can be linked via a Network link. To do this, add a static image, specify an Agent and select a Module, see the example images:

Then add a Network link and drag one of its ends to one of the static images previously configured:

Finally, drag the other end to the second static image:

The three elements will be joined together and when moving one of them they will be moved as a whole, for example:

By double clicking on the Network link you will be able to see the two graphs and perform the operations inherent to them, for example:

Module modification (example):

Established units, if applicable (example):

Updating in the Visual Console (example):

It allows you to select an Agent and then one of its Modules, which is of numerical type. It has two types of operation: absolute values or values with percentage. The percentage will be used only if it has as units the percentage symbol, and has defined minimum and maximum (100). In that case, the percentage value is shown as a value, otherwise the absolute value of the module is shown, although the odometer represents it as a percentage in the graph. It takes the maximum and minimum defined, and if not defined it takes the maximum and minimum of the last two days. If it has thresholds it will be shown according to its green, yellow or red status; otherwise it will always remain green.

If the module is a string type data, and contains a binary data encoded in Base64, it will display the image. It must start with data:image.

Screenshot showing editor creating a single-value item with base64 content.

It is very similar to the static image, except that the selected icon will always appear in gray, as if it were in unknown status. Often, icons that do not have status information are used, meaning they cannot be used as a static image, but as an icon. A simple image, such as a logo, for example.

Icons linking to other pages

In the dialogue box it is possible to link an icon to a visual console.

Through the Label settings field and in case a full URL address is entered, the icon can be linked to a website. For example, to link a visual map icon to the SNMP console viewer, an icon element must be created that has the full URL of the viewer as a tag field:

http://<pandora_home>/index.php?sec=snmpconsole&sec2=operation/snmpconsole/snmp_view

(Version 763 or later) When this item has a triggered alert it will display an orange box that can be disabled in the visual settings.

This item allows you to add to your visual console a dynamic clock, both analog and digital of any time zone, showing and updating the exact time at all times without having to refresh the page.

Elements share common elements grouped in two tabs: Label settings and General settings. Some like Network links don't have those tabs, others like Color Cloud only have the General Settings tab.

In Tag settings you may edit the size, font etc. and even images and web links.

In general settings you may set the location, whether it is shown on top of other elements, etc. However some elements will have more or less common fields, for example the link enabled allows to disable opening the element's data source when clicking (Agent, Moduke, etc.) but not all elements have this feature.

Position

The default position is 0x0, where the first digit is the X axis and the second digit is the Y axis. These values are in pixels, and note that the axis is defined in such a way that on the Y axis it is inverted, where the upper part is 0 and it grows downwards. The X axis is defined in the classical form, i. e. it starts at the left side and grows to the right. This position is automatically changed by clicking and dragging an item.

Parent

The relationship between visual console elements is represented with lines between them. The color of the line depends on the state of the parent element.

Associated Map

Several elements can be used to “summarize” the status of another visual console. That way, the status of the icon (Green, Yellow or Red) is shown using the status of the linked console. It is also possible to activate an element link to the visual console.

Ways to calculate the status of the linked visual console

• By Default
  It calculates the status based on the status of all elements, as an agent would do.

• By weight
  It calculates the status of the elements that have a visual console, a module or an agent assigned in relation to a percentage of elements configured by the user. This percentage is the one that must exceed the number of elements of a non-normal status regarding the number of elements taken into account for the calculation for that status to change.
  For example, given an element with a percentage of 50% and a visual console linked to 5 elements:

1. 1 critical, 1 warning and 3 normal → Status normal.
2. 2 critical, 2 warning and 1 normal → Status normal.
3. 1 critical, 3 warning and 1 normal → Status warning.
4. 3 critical, 1 warning and 1 normal → Status critical.
5. 1 critical, 1 warning and 3 unknown → Status unknown.

If several status exceed the weight, the priority is the same as in the rest of the status calculation (critical > warning > unknown). If there are no elements to perform the calculation, the status becomes unknown.

• By critical elements
  It calculates the status using the elements in critical status and the percentages of the thresholds defined by the user. If the number of elements in critical status regarding the number of elements taken into account in the calculation exceeds the percentage assigned as warning, the status becomes warning. The same applies to the percentage assigned as critical, which also has preference.

Restricted access to a group

Selecting one will restrict the display of this item in the visual console for those users who do not have reading permissions over said group.

It will also be taken into account when calculating the status weight in a linked console: it will only be calculated on the elements that the user can see.

It is possible to share a visual map with anyone, even if you do not have a username/password to log in Pandora FMS. You can share the visual console with any user, simply by providing access through a public URL. To do this, from the console view, access the “share” tab (the camera icon at the top right), as shown in this screenshot:

This is a static URL and it looks like this:

http://192.168.50.2/operation/visual_console/public_console.php?hash =86d1d0e9b6f41c2e3e04c5a6ad37136b&id_layout =3&id_user = admin2

Share that URL with anyone so that they may access the information displayed in the visual console. The user will not be able to access from there any of the links or information of any agent, only the information published in the visual console. This is an excellent way to share data with anonymous users

From version 712 onwards, it is possible to use keywords or “macros” that work dynamically, so when entering a macro in the text box when editing an element of the visual console, this macro will be replaced in the view mode by the data obtained from the feature of that macro.

List of visual maps' macros:

• _date_: It displays the date using the local PHP format.
• _time_: It displays the time using the local PHP format.
• _agent_: It displays the alias of the selected agent.
• _module_: It displays the name of the selected module.
• _agentdescription_: It displays the description of the selected agent.
• _address_: It displays the ip address of the selected agent.
• _description_moduledescription_: It displays the description of the selected module.

One of the most important features of visual consoles is to allow automatic refresh and the option to display a QR code of your web link. There is a control that allows you to define how often you want the screen to be refreshed. You may activate the “full screen” in your web browser (usually with the key F11) to the visual console; at the top right you will finde the button to display the QR code with the visual console's URL and a deployable list to change the updating frequency (5 minutes by default).

There is a similar feature in dashboards, but they also allow you to rotate these screens, be it visual consoles or other types of dashboards. The chapter about dashboardsprovides further discussion about this topic.

You may see the service concept more clearly with the following example.

Chip Company is a company that sells computers over the Internet. Chip Company has three large departments:

• Online shop.
• Support.
• Management.

As you can see, there are three services offered to the customer: Online Shop, Support and, indirectly, Management. All services are critical to the business because if one fails, others can be affected, and the company could lose a lot of money, even customers.

In the end, essentially, what you want to know is whether you are fulfilling your customers' needs, since a satisfied customer can lead to more customers. That is why providing stable, quality service is so important.

To monitor Chip Company's services, it is necessary to know more about each one of them.

The Online Shop service is responsible for ensuring that the store's website is online, that all product prices are correct, managing product categories, and so on. In general, make sure that all information about products and payment methods is correct on the website to facilitate the purchase process.

We are interested in the following parameters of this service:

The Support service must answer all possible questions that customers may ask about the equipment they purchased. Some of the tasks of this department include: helping customers with their configurations, managing computer replacements and replacement pieces, and managing equipment returns.

This service, like the Online Shop, is directly related with the customer, so both are very important for the image of the company from the customer's point of view.

From this department, the following parameters should be monitored:

The third service is that of Management which includes the departments of: Marketing, Sales, Human Resources and others related to management. Their main task is to ensure that all internal company processes work properly. The services offered by this department are essential as they coordinate the other departments.

The most important parameters of the Management service are:

To represent these services, you may link several maps with the help of the Pandora FMS visual console and the images that describe the hierarchy of Chip Company.

The data from these maps are calculated in real time, so you will always know the status of the services at all times. The first thing to do was map each service independently.

The following image shows a visual console that simulates the Online Store service map with the status of all its parameters. As you may see, the parameter Updated Content has a red exclamation mark which means that there is something wrong. Regarding the other parameters, they are correct because they have green checks. The back arrow is used to go to the general map below.

If you want to know more about the problem, you can click on the red exclamation mark and you will see the technical view to find out more about the problem. This technical view shows the data collected by Pandora FMS from sources such as: CRM, ERP, SAP, Databases (MySQL®, Oracle®, etc), including devices such as PC, servers or routers.

There are also other maps for the Support service you can see in the image below. As you can see, all the important parameters of the Support service are correct as they all have green checks.

Finally, with the service maps a map for the Management service is created, which you can see in the following image. Again the map shows the most important parameters with their corresponding points, in this case all have green checks which means that all the parameters of the service are correct.

In addition, a general map with all Chip Company services has been created as shown in the following image. On this map you can see Chip Company's service hierarchy with the states of each state. If you click on one of the status reporting points you will see the specific map of each service. All these maps provide a complete navigable view of Chip Company's services. The status of each service is the same as shown on the specific maps of each service. As you can see, Management and Support are correct, but Online Shop has problems. As you can see, the state of services climbs positions within the hierarchy to the top, spreading out the state.

The options of favorite visual consoles allow you to have shortcuts from the menu bar or to access to a list of visual consoles marked as favorites.

To mark a visual console as a favorite, check the favorite visual console checkbox when creating or editing it in its main editing section:

To modify the options of favorite visual consoles, access the Setup > Visual Styles from the sidebar menu.

• View type of visual consoles: The section of visual consoles by default will be the complete list of visual consoles or just the favorite ones.
• Number of visual consoles to be displayed on the menu: Number of visual consoles to be displayed on the sidebar menu. In case of entering a number in the number field of favorite visual consoles, then these will be displayed like this:

Section of all visual consoles:

Section of favorite visual consoles:

To create a new template, all you have to do is choose a created visual console, a representative name and the group and a new template will be created.

In this section you may see created visual console templates, if any.

The visual console template wizard is used to use one of the previously created templates to apply to a new visual console. Choose the agents to which you want to apply the selected template. As many visual consoles will be created as agents have been chosen.

Once you have applied the template, create the visual consoles, which will appear on your list. If the template is created through a favorite visual console, all visual consoles created from this template will also be favorite.

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