GROUNDWORK-917

Make it possible to click on the Degraded numbers in Home dashboard

Some of you asked for more drill-down capabilities on the numbers in the home screen. You can now not only hover, but click through to the Status Summary with a filter engaged. 

GROUNDWORK-950

Add Roles to the Login screen

The Login screen has more information about the install. If you have several GroundWork servers, don't forget to brand them to make them even more distinct!

GROUNDWORK-1139

Inventory Purge function

Ever add something to GroundWork as an experiment and delete the source? We have, and we wrote some scripts to remove it automatically, but really this is an occasional thing. Now you can remove the inventory from the Status Summary (as an admin role user). 

GROUNDWORK-1198

Make Elastic connector work for queries as well as filters

When we rolled out the Elastic connector, we made it work for filters in Elastic. You asked for queries too, so now a service can be an Elastic query. 

GROUNDWORK-1563

Added Monitoring Plugins to the Nagios container

Why not have all the great plugins from the Monitoring Plugins project in the same place as the Nagios plugins? This makes GroundWork EE and CE easier to configure. 

GROUNDWORK-1595

Support references to host-level Custom Object Variables in GDMA externals

A requested enhancement to GDMA configuration is now in this release: Host CustomObject Variable can be added to GDMA externals. Documentation pending.

GROUNDWORK-1597

New  Monitoring Method Search app

We have added a monitoring method search to the menu bar. Click the Search icon next to the GroundWork logo after login to try it. 

GROUNDWORK-1638

Unknown state now has a badge

If a service is in an unknown state, a badge is created on the host or hostgroup icons. 

GROUNDWORK-1640

Remove bsm-host from default load

If you need Business Service Monitoring (BSM), you can add a host in the config screen. This example wasn't useful, so we removed it. 

GROUNDWORK-1641

Remove Server connector

The experimental Server connector is now outdated, since the APM connector can do so much. We have suspended that branch and removed it from the product to avoid bit-rot issues. 

GROUNDWORK-1652

Inhibit creation of TCG configs that are not functional

It was possible to create some configurations of TCG that were incorrect and would not function. We closed off these possible ways into misconfiguration. 

GROUNDWORK-1669

Add GroundWork Operator role run only access to custom reports

It's now possible to define a special role that allows members to see and run reports, but not edit or administrate them. Documentation pending. 

GROUNDWORK-1676

Add to existing GroundWork start up message in the GroundWork Messenger log

As notifications are now tracked in the audit log, we direct you there by showing a message in the GORT container log.  

GROUNDWORK-1680

TCG Basic Authentication

Added support for Basic Authentication to TCG based on validation with Foundation in addition to current schema (appTokens in headers). This is to support Prometheus server writing metrics to TCG.

GROUNDWORK-1714

Added SHA-256 and AES-192 support to net-snmp

We have updated the encryption routines in the TCG-SNMP connector to allow support for SNMP v3. 

GROUNDWORK-1715

Add batching and time-batch support to TCG

TCG connectors now support directives to batch requests to foundation by time (e.g., every 5 seconds) or size (e.g., 100k), whichever get hit first. Documentation pending. 

GROUNDWORK-1748

Added perl packages to Monarch, Nagios

The following packages were added to support plugin development and custom plugins:

• libcgi-pm-perl
• libdatetime-perl
• libshell-perl
• libterm-shell-perl

GROUNDWORK-1773

New structure of crontab

The location of the GroundWork crontab file has changed. Users who may have created Entrypoint scripts to modify the old crontab will need to update them to the new location. 

In addition, we now allow user cron jobs in a separate crontab that will remain unmodified on upgrade and restart. See the updated documentation here and here. 

GROUNDWORK-1776

Devices and Hosts Relationship should be 1:1

All device records in the the device table in the gwcollagedb (Foundation) database are now identified with a unique host. This simplifies the database structure. The prior structure was in place to support the use of SNMP Trap and Syslog hosts, which are phased out as of 8.2.1 (SNMP Trap and Syslog are handled differently now). 

GROUNDWORK-1813

GroundWork Messenger 24/7 rule lifespan too short

GroundWork Messenger notification system includes the capability of limiting notifications to a certain time frame. The most common, and default time frame is 24/7, which has a default expiration date of 12/31/2021. This configuration is adjusted in Configuration > Notifications > Configuration > Time Frames. The Validity Information section for the Valid To field needs to be adjust to a later date e.g., 12/31/2099. This configuration change may result in queued notifications being sent. Note, for an installation prior to 01/12/2022 refer to the documentation GroundWork Messenger Timeframes Remediation. For a download and installation as of 01/12/2022, this issue has been fixed in the latest release 8.2.1-1.

GROUNDWORK-1148

Blacklist not working on merged hosts

The blacklist of a merged host (that is, a host with services from more than one source) would fail. It now works with the exception  of merged hosts using services from a TCG-APM connection, which is treated as a separate issue for a future release. 

GROUNDWORK-1149

Blacklist works temporarily, then fails

Actually this was a transient error - the blacklist appeared to work, but then the hosts reappeared. Eventually the cache expired and the black list was permanent. This version updates the cache as well, and so this issue no longer occurs. 

GROUNDWORK-1470

Backup and Restore fail when using alternate location

In some cases an alternate to the default location for backup and restore (/tmp) would fail. This is now fixed. 

GROUNDWORK-1545

Update Metric buttons misaligned

The SNMP connector metrics tab had misaligned update buttons. 

GROUNDWORK-1546

Service list icon does not reflect DT state

In the tabs in the host info pane where services are listed, some were not properly showing the downtime icon when in downtime. They now do so. 

GROUNDWORK-1552

Add Secure Connections to Cloudera Connector

HTTPS connections to Cloudera clusters were broken, now fixed. 

GROUNDWORK-1603

Filter controls do not line up in Host list

In the Status Summary host list, you can filter extensively using the controls in the top bar. These didn't line up well, but are improved. 

GROUNDWORK-1657

Empty parentheses after host name in top-ten list

We saw there were some erroneous empty parentheses after the hostname in the top ten list, and suppressed them. 

GROUNDWORK-1663

Containers do not handle SIGTERM correctly

There were several issues with containers not handling SIGTERM requests properly by shutting down. These are resolved for all containers. 

GROUNDWORK-1665

Large numbers of metrics caused errors on screen

In some cases (such as with the SNMP connector), it was possible to generate a host info panel in the Status Summary that has literally hundreds of graphs for metrics. This would overload the browser and cause it to show red error messages (toaster messages). This version now limits the graphs drawn and pages further graphs, so they can be scrolled to. 

GROUNDWORK-1671

Missing modules in NeDi required for SNMPv3

Some SNMP v3 modules were missing from the NeDi package that inhibited the use of v3. Now fixed and you can use SNMP v3 with NeDi. 

GROUNDWORK-1677

Fixed Network error handling in TCG

We now handle all sorts of possible network connection errors with appropriate responses. This fixes some resiliency issues in TCG connections. 

GROUNDWORK-1683

Error shown on event for downtime end

The end of downtimes results in an event, which was shown in the event viewer as a error. As this is a normal condition, we no longer show it as an error. 

GROUNDWORK-1711

Bad permissions on /tmp in monarch and nagios containers

The incorrect permissions were getting in the way of some build and test operations, but not normal operation. These were fixed nonetheless. 

GROUNDWORK-1712

Nagios CGIs dashboard access permissions don't work

This release fixes a bug that did not allow users with roles other than Admin to see the Nagios CGIs, even when correctly permitted by the menu editor. 

GROUNDWORK-1719

Nagios passive check reports old data

A confusing bug in Nagios where old data was reported in the status text has been fixed and is also noted as fixed upstream (in the Nagios project).  

GROUNDWORK-1727

Deleted host's queued messages are sent

An issue with GroundWork Messenger occurred in the case where a disabled rule sends queued messages when enabled, even if the related host or hosts were deleted. It will now ignore same. 

GROUNDWORK-1730

Service List in SLA Dashboards shows wrong time when using other timezone than UTC

The service list now uses the set timezone for timestamps

GROUNDWORK-1733

Blacklist is slow and takes a lot of memory

We cleaned up the blacklist operation to make it faster and use less RAM. 

GROUNDWORK-1740

Single Address changes are not reflected in GroundWork

The changing of IP addresses on a single host was not working - IP address did not change in Foundation. This now is working. 

GROUNDWORK-1772

Service Group Synchronizer Inefficient

When synchronizing a configuration with several service groups, initial sync is efficient, but subsequent syncs even without changes were slow. 

Nagios Monitoring

Renaming a host to the same name except for case will require 2 commits. The renaming of a host to the same name with differences only in the case of the characters is possible, but requires committing the configuration twice.

Run the Commit (or, for Parent-managed-child, the Build Instance) process a second time, and the renamed host will appear. 

Nagios Monitoring

Adding two hosts with the same name except for case will not work. If you ever find you need to have two hosts with the same name except for case in the Nagios system, this is allowed. It will not show both hosts, however, only the first one you add, and it won't work at all if you do it in a single commit.

To do this (admittedly really rare thing), fist add one of the hosts. Choose the one with the name you want to see, add it and commit. Then add the second and commit. The second host's services will be merged into the first. 

LDAP

Cannot delete users 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. 

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.

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. 

TCG-SNMP restart generates unknown status

When restarting the (new) TCG-SNMP connector, the initial poll may generate UNKNOWN status for the network interfaces. 

We recommend adjusting the notification rules for this to avoid alarm fatigue. 

Cron-Controlled GroundWork containers generate SUSPENDED alerts

Jobs scheduled VIA the cron container generate SUSPENDED alerts. This is correct behavior, but may cause unwanted alarms.

We recommend adjusting the notification rules for this to avoid alarm fatigue. A separate rule for the DOCK-H:cadvisor group with a 1-minute delay can suppress these alarms.

Unattended mode install is not enabled

The installer won't support the --unattended  mode option to install standalone with default settings in this version. 

This convenience feature will be enabled again in future versions.  

Archive Migration initially incomplete

Upgrades to the system will migrate the foundation database but will not completely migrate the archive database until the first archive run (overnight in the cron timezone)

This may affect any queries you want to run against the archive database, especially those for host address values, but only for the day of upgrade.