Monitoring Hierarchy: Export Server

The Export Server is a data scaling mechanism that allows for a distributed deployment capable of monitoring an unlimited amount of information, provided it is properly designed and disaggregated into different information profiles.

The basic idea is to create a hierarchical structure that distributes the information from bottom to top, being global the upper point, which collects only an extract of basic information of the Pandora FMS installations that are at lower levels. This allows the upper installation of Pandora FMS to have a filtered vision with a higher density of information.

The exporting server is hierarchically below the server receiving this information. In a different scheme from the filtered view, this technology could be used to replicate all the data reported by a server, although it could affect the server performance significantly.

Each independent installation of Pandora FMS will be able to export those data that the administrator decides to one or several servers.

Data from modules can be exported, so that a hierarchically superior installation of Pandora FMS receives only those relevant data.

The server that receives the data, receives it by means of an XML similar to the one generated by an agent, so it only needs to have enabled a Dataserver PFMS in its configuration file. The upper server only receives data from the lower ones: it does not receive events, nor can it reuse the alerts defined in the server that originally receives the data; i.e., it must define its own alerts, reports, customized graphs, etc.

To export the data of a module (and once the Export server is enabled in the server configuration file), the first step is to define a scaling server with different configuration options, which allow to create the export link between an exporting server (client) and an importing server.

Menu Management → Servers → Export targets → Create.

Some important fields:

• Prefix: The prefix that is added to the name of the agent that sends the data. This allows to know the origin of the data in the case that a server receives different sources of information, coming from different Pandora FMS servers. This also avoids duplication of names.
• Transfer Mode: File transfer mode. You can choose between:

1. Local: The server that receives the data is on the same machine as the server that exports it.
2. SSH: The transfer is done by SSH. It is necessary to copy the certificate from the server that exports the data to the server that receives it.
3. FTP: The transfer is done by FTP.
4. Tentacle protocol: The transfer is done by Tentacle (recommended option).

• Port: For Tentacle the standard port is 41121.
• Target directory: It will be the destination directory (used for SSH or FTP only) where you will leave the data remotely.
• Extra options: Field for additional options, such as those required by Tentacle to work with certificates.

To edit a target server, click on the name of the target server or on the icon marked in the image. The menu will be displayed beforehand so that the necessary changes can be made.

Once you have modified the information or parameters, click on the Update button to save the changes.

To delete a target server you must click on the trash can icon to the right of the target server name.

To scale the information it is necessary to mark one by one those modules that will send information to a superior instance. For this, the Pandora FMS console module editor implements an option that allows to assign an export server for each data.

To do this you must go to the configuration of those modules from which information will be sent. Within the advanced options choose the Export target to be used:

By clicking on the Update button, Pandora FMS will start exporting the data to the chosen server.

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