Sophie: smokeping-2.4.2-9mdv2010.0 noarch

smokeping-2.4.2-9mdv2010.0.noarch.rpm

SMOKEPING_MASTER_SLAVE(7) SmokePing SMOKEPING_MASTER_SLAVE(7)

NNAAMMEE
smokeping_master_slave - How run multiple distributed instances of
SmokePing

OOVVEERRVVIIEEWW
Normally smokeping probes run their tests from the host where smokeping
runs to some target host and monitor the latency of the connection
between the two.

The Master/Slave concept enables all smokeping probes to run remotely.
The use case for this is to measure the overall connectivity in a net-
work. If you are interested in checking that your central DNS server or
your file server works for everyone, you could setup several smokeping
instances checking up on on the two servers from multiple locations
within your network. With the Master/Slave smokeping configuration this
process becomes much simpler, as one smokeping master server can con-
trol multiple slaves.

All monitoring data is stored and presented on the server, but col-
lected by the slaves. The slaves will also get their configuration
information from the master, so that you just have to maintain the mas-
ter server configuration file and the rest is taken care of automati-
cally.

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
AArrcchhiitteeccttuurree

The slaves communicate with the master smokeping server via the normal
smokeping web interface. On initial startup each slave connects to the
master server and asks for its assignments. When the slave has done a
round of probing it connects to the master again to deliver the
results.

If the assignment for a slave changes, the master will tell the slave
after the slave has delivered its results.

The master and the slaves sign their messages by supplying an HMAC-MD5
code (RFC 2104) of the message and a shared secret. Optionally the
whole communication can run over ssl.

[slave 1] [slave 2] [slave 3]
| | |
+-------+ | +--------+
| | |
v v v
+---------------+
| master |
+---------------+

The slave is a normal smokeping instance setup where the configuration
comes from the master instead of a local configuration file. The slave
tries to contact the master server after every round of probing, sup-
plying its results. If the master server can not be reached, the
results will be sent to the server together with the next round of
results. Results will be stored in a perl storable so that they survive
a restart of the smokeping instance.

MMaasstteerr CCoonnffiigguurraattiioonn

To configure a master/slave setup, add a slaves section to your
smokeping configuration file. Each slave has a section in the slaves
part of the master configuration file. The section name must match the
hostname of the slave. If some configuration parameter must be set to a
special value for the slave, use an override section to configure this.

The slave names must be the names the hosts think they have not their
outside hostnames or ip addresses or anything like that. When the slave
calls the master to get its config or report its measurements it will
tell the master its 'hostname'. This together with the shared secret is
used to authenticate and identify who is who.

*** Slaves ***
secrets=/etc/smokeping/slavesecrets.conf

+slave1
display_name=erul22
location=India
color=ff0000

++override
Probes.FPing.binary = /usr/bin/fping
...

Then in the targets section you can define slaves at every level. Again
the settings get inherited by lower order targets and can be overwrit-
ten anywhere in the tree.

A slave will then get the appropriate configuration assigned by the
server.

*** Targets ***
slaves = slave1 slave2
...
+dest1
slaves =
...
+dest2
slaves = slave1
...
+dest3
...

The data from the slaves will be stored in _T_a_r_g_e_t_N_a_m_e_~_S_l_a_v_e_N_a_m_e_._r_r_d. So
the example above would create the following files:

dest1.rrd
dest2.rrd
dest2~slave1.rrd
dest3.rrd
dest3~slave1.rrd
dest3~slave2.rrd

The _s_l_a_v_e_s_e_c_r_e_t_s_._c_o_n_f file contains a colon separated list of hostnames
and secrets.

host1:secret1
host2:secret2

SSllaavvee CCoonnffiigguurraattiioonn

A smokeping slave setup has no configuration file. It just needs to
know that it runs in slave-mode and its secret. The secret is stored in
a file for optimal protection. By default the persistent data cache
will be located in _/_t_m_p_/_s_m_o_k_e_p_i_n_g_._$_U_S_E_R_._c_a_c_h_e.

./smokeping --master-url=http://smokeping/smokeping.cgi \
--cache-dir=/var/smokeping/ \
--shared-secret=/var/smokeping/secret.txt

The _s_e_c_r_e_t_._t_x_t file contains a single word, the secret of this slave.
It is NOT the same as the _s_l_a_v_e_s_e_c_r_e_t_s_._c_o_n_f file the master uses.

SSEECCUURRIITTYY CCOONNSSIIDDEERRAATTIIOONNSS
The master effectively has full access to slave hosts as the user the
slave smokeping instance is run as. The configuration is transferred as
Perl code that is evaluated on the slave. While this is done inside a
restricted "Safe" compartment, there are various ways that a malicious
master could use to embed arbitrary commands in the configuration and
get them to run when the slave probes its targets.

The strength of the shared secret is thus of paramount importance.
Brute forcing the secret would enable a man-in-the-middle to inject a
malicious new configuration and compromise the slave.

LLIICCEENNSSEE
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER-
CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

AAUUTTHHOORR
Tobias Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch>

2.4.2 2008-06-30 SMOKEPING_MASTER_SLAVE(7)