GroundWork Monitor Enterprise 8.1.2

These release notes describe the new features and improvements, known issues and limitations for GroundWork Monitor 8.1.2. They also provide announcements as of version 8.1.2, including currently supported and end-of-life versions of GroundWork Monitor.

This is feature-rich release, and you will notice several welcome enhancements. As usual, we listened to our customers and made changes to enhance the usefulness of the user interface, along with repairing some missing or imperfect functions. Thanks to all those who contributed suggestions and reported issues. We love to hear from you anytime at support@gwos.com. Please read the Fixed Issues section below to see what has been addressed in this release. We recommend all users look through this section when upgrading, and for this release we want to make sure you do so, since so much has been added and changed.

New features

GroundWork Monitor 8.1.2 has several new enterprise level features to announce. Please read on for details:

Updated Network Discovery

The Network Discovery portion of GroundWork provided by NeDi is now greatly enhanced, with many new UI screens, updated help, and better graphing, mapping and setup screens. We also updated our Policy Monitoring in the NeDi connector to allow more flexible tracking of connections in NetFlow traffic and packet capture.

Status Filters

The Status Summary always sorts bad things to the top, so this feature isn't as essential as it was in older versions, but still it's nice to be able to filter by state as well as by name.

Look for the new Monitor Status and Host Service Monitor Status filters located at the top of the Status dashboard. These filters will persist for your session, and apply to the objects you list. They are also present in the actions menus for the member lists. » Learn more

Login Page Branding

You will see a new menu item Administration > Branding. This allows you to change logo images and add a text field of up to 2k to the login page. This is useful for access warnings or to explain to users what the system is for, and the logos allow you to personalize your copy of GroundWork, making it obvious what system you are logging into. » Learn more

Application Performance Monitoring Connector

We are seeing a trend in the industry towards code instrumentation for monitoring. This is a good thing, and one we have long advocated. While JMX monitoring has long been an option for Java apps (and we have a new profile for this), we are super-pleased to announce the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) connector. This all-new TCG Connector allows your developers to post data directly into the GroundWork Monitor system from running applications of virtually any type. The data shows up in easily processed form (metrics and status derived from thresholds), right next to all the data you gather from networks, cloud providers, and your data center systems. » Learn more

Separate Download for Custom Reporting Server

We constantly look for ways to improve GroundWork, both technically and in terms of honoring the commitments we have to our community, and so we decided to pull out, as a separate free download, the jasperserver container. We wanted to do this to honor the license restrictions pertaining to this reporting server, since it's really a stand-alone server and not a component feature of GroundWork Monitor. You can of course use it free, according to the terms of the Jasper Server license. This is the first containerized optional open source package we have done this with, but probably won't be the last!

Make sure you read the installation and upgrade instructions to enable the Custom Reports menu option and use this free download. » Learn more

Fixed issues

This section describes the fixes we have included in the 8.1.2-GA release.

Key	Summary	Notes
GROUNDWORK-204	Add timezone to timestamps in status	Minor UI enhancement.
GROUNDWORK-476	Status Summary does not update when Cloud Hub connector removed	Long standing rare case of a problem deleting dynamic inventory on removal of a connector. This is now fixed.
GROUNDWORK-503	Merge in latest NeDi 2.0 into GW8	Major update to Network Discovery features.
GROUNDWORK-531	Missing plugin check_casperjs.pl	There's a useful little plugin to use phantomjs/casperjs scripting to test web sites we are now including.
GROUNDWORK-569	Event viewer filters contain impossible states for hosts, services	We were not careful enough to filter out the possible (in context) states from all states. This is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-732	SLA Dashboard service list not listing all host services in a host group	There was an issue with a widget on the SLA dashboard not getting all the data it needed. Fixed.
GROUNDWORK-754	Add Alias to NOC Board	We now show the host alias as a NOC Board column.
GROUNDWORK-758	Add link to NOC Board	We now show a link to any relevant Nagios CGI as a NOC Board column (t his was a feature request).
GROUNDWORK-805	More Actions button wrong shape, color	The "More Actions" button is now the correct color and shape.
GROUNDWORK-856	Tab style needs to be more obvious	Minor UI enhancement.
GROUNDWORK-893	Allow access to Cloud Hub connector screen if over license limit	Sometimes you add a Cloud Hub connection and inadvertently start monitoring more hosts than your license allows. You can now access this screen and remove or scale back monitoring with Cloud Hub.
GROUNDWORK-952	Parent-managed-child Commit with empty host group still shows host group	There is an edge case where a phantom (empty) host group got displayed, which is now suppressed.
GROUNDWORK-1043	Add ability to acknowledge any app type from the SLA/Business dashboard	A feature request to add the acknowledge feature to the SLA dashboard was fulfilled.
GROUNDWORK-1067	Installer should exit on failed migration	Sometimes firewall rules can block aspects of migration or installation. In such cases, the installer will now exit without actually doing anything, allowing you to adjust the firewall and retry.
GROUNDWORK-1112	Popup error messages should be visible only for defined interval of time	Popup errors can occur when connections fail or are interrupted, or errors are exposed. These will now time out and not accumulate indefinitely.
GROUNDWORK-1117	Metrics, Synthetic Metric names and Custom names should not allow spaces	Minor validation issue fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1118	Elastic Connector Synthetics	We added the ability to create synthetic metrics using the Elastic connector. This improves the features available using this method to include monitoring ratios, calculated values, etc.
GROUNDWORK-1119	Allow Elastic Connector Group Naming by End User	Enhanced the naming of host groups to include user input, not just automatic field values from Elastic Stack.
GROUNDWORK-1124	NeDi connector improvements	We revamped the policy monitoring for Network discovery, including NetFlow and packet capture.
GROUNDWORK-1131	NOC Board buttons disabled after form update	The NOC Board had an error where it wasn't possible to update the board after updating it once. This is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1144	Synchronizer aggressively takes host group ownership	A subtle issue with ownership setting that could make it difficult to remove host groups from the system in some situations has been fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1153	Connectors: Choose connector type is overlapped by main menu	A simple UI issue in the connector screens.
GROUNDWORK-1161	LDAPS usability improvements	We have greatly simplified and clarified the use of LDAPS. See documentation for details.
GROUNDWORK-1164	Metrics with unchecked graphs contain graphics on Status dashboard	The selection for graphs was ignored on some Cloud Hub and TCG connector configurations - graphs were always generated.
GROUNDWORK-1166	Synthetic Expression evaluation failing	Synthetic expression evaluation was not working correctly for TCG connectors. This is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1167	Make option to show/hide Group Summary in NOC Board	The NOC Board has an option to suppress the display of the summary portion of the screen when expanded.
GROUNDWORK-1170	Connectors tab page refresh navigates user to another screen	Minor UI issue was fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1175	Please add indication of logged in user	Feature request for showing the logged in user was fulfilled (see the menu bar).
GROUNDWORK-1177	Form validation not needed for setting downtime	A validation of input was restricting valid input on the Downtime scheduler screen. Fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1180	Metrics: 500 error for adding metrics with decimal threshold	Connectors now support decimal (e.g., 0.5) values as thresholds.
GROUNDWORK-1191	Monitored flag not handled for synthetics in some Cloud Hub connectors	It wasn't always possible to set the monitored flag for synthetic metrics. Fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1201	Dashboards search field color improvement	Minor UI issue fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1205	Ctrl limit reached in TCG NATs Queue	We were hitting a limit in the NATS queues in some connectors due to inadequate configuration settings. Fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1208	Preview of Command "yiic downtime removeorphans"	Feature request was made for this. When cleaning up old expired downtime records (for example on deleted hosts or services), it' now possible to run the deletion script by hand and get a listing of what would be deleted.
GROUNDWORK-1210	LDAP user names can be longer than the Monarch DB allows	We made the Monarch DB take longer names.
GROUNDWORK-1211	Multiple NOC Boards sometimes refresh to the wrong one	NOC Board display bug was repaired.
GROUNDWORK-1212	NOC Board counts do not reflect filters	The NOC Boards always displayed the counts from all services in the group, regardless of filter settings. This was changed to show only matching services.
GROUNDWORK-1213	Add CA Cert configuration to Revproxy	We now support private CA configurations in GW8 via the Entrypoint scripting. Previously this was possible only through manual adjustments.
GROUNDWORK-1214	Large child configuration does not sync to parent	Some very large (10s of thousands of devices) configurations would fail to load on the parent server when sent to (or from) a child. This is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1216	Adding and deleting users / admins should be recorded in audit log	This was a feature request, which we added.
GROUNDWORK-1217	Duplicate key error on device table when synchronizing child to parent inventory	There was an issue with the process of synchronizing child inventory. This is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1224	Elastic connector does not work with newest version 7.8.1 Elastic Stack	Actually, it did work, but the port and URL changed. We updated the documentation.
GROUNDWORK-1225	Installer fails when no Internet available	We had an issue with a specific container which was being pulled from an Internet registry instead of locally. This was fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1226	Installer should support command line options	Feature request to support the --unattended and other command-line options on the installer was fulfilled.
GROUNDWORK-1228	Wrong cursor used in alerts for close action	Minor UI bug. Fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1230	Adding downtimes for all services on a host is broken	We inadvertently disabled a useful method of scheduling downtime using regex patterns. This is now restored.
GROUNDWORK-1231	Stopped containers should not be removed by Docker connector	We had an issue where the stopping of a container would remove it from the UI, effectively disabling monitoring for it. This is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1232	Decommission Nagios GW8 inventory	We changed the way parent-child default inventory was added to be simpler. Actually we just took it out, since it was confusing.
GROUNDWORK-1236	GWMEE installer Welcome page should display correct version	We enhanced the version display on the login page.
GROUNDWORK-1240	Containerize included connectors
GROUNDWORK-1244	Maintain NOC Board column layout changes	You can re-arrange the columns in the NOC Board by dragging them, and now this re-arrangement will persist, where previously it did not.
GROUNDWORK-1245	Secure NOC Board Edit and Delete buttons	Only the "admin" role can add, edit, or delete the NOC Boards now.
GROUNDWORK-1249	Add option to auto-expand NOC Board on page load	You can select one (or more) NOC Boards on a page to auto-expand from the summary line.
GROUNDWORK-1253	Errors from tcg-elastic service not showing in connector status page	There is a status page for each running connection, which was inaccurate. This is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1254	$HOSTALIAS$ nagios standard macro not being passed to noma	This was an issue when including the alias in notifications. This is now available.
GROUNDWORK-1258	Add filesystem monitoring to default docker profile	This was a routine enhancement to the monitoring we do with the Docker Cloud Hub connector by default.
GROUNDWORK-1259	Column titles in Connectors UI have resizable flag	Minor UI issue fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1265	Stopping Cloud Hub Docker connector fails to update with NPE	There was an error in the shutdown of the Docker connector for Cloud Hub. This is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1272	NOC Board pagination causes hang on navigation	There was a UI navigation error in the NOC Board, which is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1276	First NOC Board created on every fresh install fails with error	There was a harmless 500 error thrown each time you set up a new NOC Board. This is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1277	NOC Boards created with "Add New Board" button don't fill defaults in UI	Minor UI issue with the NOC Board. Fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1278	Improve synchronizer to handle service groups	There was a bug in the synchronizer code that ignored Nagios defined service groups. They were not added to the Status UI. This is now fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1279	Connector status dates are suppressed in UI	There was another issue with the container status page we fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1284	Filter by state	Feature request added as noted above.
GROUNDWORK-1287	New User: uploading a photo always fails	If you create a new user, you couldn't upload a profile picture.
GROUNDWORK-1289	SNMP V3 not working correctly	There was a missing library for SNMP plugins that use SNMP v3. This is now included.
GROUNDWORK-1293	Dynamic inventory	We enhanced the way we add monitored resources to the system to be more dynamic, supporting on-the-fly additions and deletions as metrics are sent.
GROUNDWORK-1295	Deleting all default host groups breaks entire UI	Turns out there was an edge case when all hostgroups were deleted. Rare that you would want to do this, but it is fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1302	database slareport uses reserved word "group" for a table name	Reserved word for a table name required a fix. It's now called "bsmgroup".
GROUNDWORK-1311	AWS Cloud Hub connector fails without explicit logs	There was an edge case where the AWS connector could stop unexpectedly. We fixed this, and the log messages.
GROUNDWORK-1313	Delete a downtime in the UI before it's regularly scheduled end time, the actual DT in Nagios persists	There was a time zone issue with removing active downtimes from Nagios (not from GroundWork Foundation). This is now fixed.
GROUNDWORK-1314	Monarch and Nagios input/output must match the stored data	Some special characters in the Monarch database were not being displayed in Status Summary or the Nagios CGI interfaces correctly.
GROUNDWORK-1319	Errors in Nagios log on startup	Some startup race conditions caused errors in the nagios container log. These were changed to warnings/info messages, as they are expected.

Known issues

This section lists any known issues and limitations with work-arounds.

Category	Title	Description	Work-around
Monitoring Plugins	Some plugins may not work	The plugins included with GroundWork Monitor 8.1.2 are incompletely tested	If you encounter a plugin you need to work that doesn't, please file a support case. We will get you a working version as soon as possible, and include it in later releases.
LDAP	Cannot delete user created by LDAP sync	If you sync LDAP to GroundWork, the users who log in are imported. There's not much point in deleting them unless you disconnect the LDAP server, but even if you do so, the delete function isn't working.	There is a work-around, but then again there's no harm in leaving these user accounts alone. They will fail login once the LDAP server is inactive. If you really must delete them, please contact support.
Business Service Monitoring	Default bsm-service-01 configured but empty	The service bsm-service-01 on host bsm-host is included as an example of Business Service Monitoring. It is in the unknown state as the member list is empty.	You can remove this (or add members) by going to the Configuration > BSM and SLAs > BSM > Manage Groups, and clicking the delete icon next to the group.
Acknowledgements	Notify Contacts check box does not work	There is a Notify Contacts checkbox on the Acknowledgment modal dialog that does not work	Do not use this checkbox, It will be removed in a future version.
Nagios Container	It's possible to overload the Nagios instance in GroundWork	Nagios uses workers that communicate with the services it runs. In some cases the default provisioning isn't enough to keep up with a really active alert stream.	You can override the default provisioning of workers in Nagios with the check_workers directive. See How to configure check_workers.
Docker Connector	Docker connector does not detect service unknown on down containers	Theres a bit of a strange look when a container goes down, since the services for memory and CPU etc. remain in an OK state.	Use a ping to the container address to make sure you know and get notified when a container dies.
Custom Reports	Optional Jasper Server slow to start	If one starts the optional Jasper Server, it may take several minutes to become available.	Wait several minutes after starting the system with the Jasper Server loaded before accessing the Custom Reports menu item.
Status Summary	Empty Connectors Hostgroup	There's an empty hostgroup called Connectors that gets created.	You can delete it under Configuration - Custom Groups - Hostgroups. It is harmless.

Announcements

Supported Versions

Current supported versions of GroundWork Monitor Enterprise include the latest versions 8.1.2, 8.1.1, 8.1.0, 8.0.1, and version 7.2.1. Support for version 7.2.1 will expire December 31, 2021.

For supported architectures and browser compatibility see System Requirements.

New Open Source Project

The GroundWork Transit Connection Generator (TCG) is open source and available on GitHub. Based on the popular NATS project, TCG allows connections between monitoring sources and GroundWork servers using the API to GroundWork Foundation.

Copyright 2004-2020 GroundWork Open Source, Inc. ("GroundWork"). All rights reserved. Use is subject to GroundWork commercial license terms. GroundWork Monitor products are released under the terms of the various public and commercial licenses. For information on licensing and open source elements please see Licenses used in GroundWork. GroundWork, GroundWork Open Source, GroundWork Monitor Professional, GroundWork Monitor Open Source, GroundWork Community Edition, GroundWork Monitor Enterprise, GroundWork Foundation, GroundWork Status Viewer, Monarch, and GroundWork Guava are trademarks of GroundWork Open Source, Inc. Other trademarks, logos and service marks (each, a "Mark") used in GroundWork’s products, including Nagios, which is a registered trademark of Ethan Galstad, are the property of other third parties. These Marks may not be used without the prior written consent of GroundWork Open Source or the third party that owns the respective Mark.