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<table border="0" width="500"> |
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<font size="2" face="arial,sans-serif"> |
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<center><h3>Project News</h3></center> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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<b>Thursday 7 Feb 2002</b><br><br> |
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The alerting section of the i-scream monitoring system now makes |
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full use of an externally developed IRC bot for it's IRC |
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connectivity. To find out more about this IRC bot, please visit |
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the authors website at <a href="http://www.jibble.org"> |
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http://www.jibble.org</a>. |
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</p> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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<b>Tuesday 8 Jan 2002</b><br><br> |
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Java ACL (Access Control List) code has been added to the util |
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package of the i-scream server. This code will ultimately allow |
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the server to be more secure when exposed to the Internet. More |
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details can be found <a href="http://www.cs.ukc.ac.uk/people/staff/tdb/#acl"> |
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here</a> on the authors website. |
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</p> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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<b>Tuesday 18 Dec 2001</b><br><br> |
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The i-scream ihost package has undergone significant changes to |
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make it more flexible and modular. It now incorporates plugins |
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which can be written in any language, and automatically XML |
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encodes data it is given (as opposed to the hardcoded approach |
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in the old version). It has also been made more robust, and |
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where possible optimised to reduce the load on the host system. |
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</p> |
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<p> </p> |
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<center><h3>About i-scream</h3></center> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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<a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-alerter-email.gif" width="100" height="107" align="left"></a> |
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Details of the i-scream central monitoring system can be found |
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on the <b><a href="features.shtml">features and overview</a></b> page. |
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A variety of <b><a href="screenshots">screen shots</a></b> from the |
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system show some of the key features in use. The <b><a href="reports">reports demo</a></b> |
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page provides a static example of what the i-scream reports (alerts, |
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historical graphs, and live data) could look like on a production system. |
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</p> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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<a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-conient-main.gif" width="100" height="107" align="right"></a> |
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The latest source code is available in the <b><a href="cvs.shtml">CVS</a></b> |
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repository, with binary downloads on the downloads page. The |
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<b><a href="documentation">documentation</a></b> page has details of |
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installation, use and maintenance for the end user and developer. |
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We value feedback and comments from you, so please drop us an e-mail |
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to <a href="mailto:dev@i-scream.org.uk">dev@i-scream.org.uk</a>. |
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</p> |
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<p> </p> |
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<center><h3>Current Work</h3></center> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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<b>Historical/Realtime graphing package</b><br><br> |
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<a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-reports-raptor-load15.gif" width="100" height="107" align="left"></a> |
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The current system for graphing i-scream data from the i-scream |
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system is good, but proving to be unscalable and very resource |
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hungry. This is mostly due to the MySQL database backend, |
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and the vast quantity of data recorded. The new system |
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in development makes use of <a href="http://rrdtool.eu.org/"> |
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RRDtool</a> to generate the graphs in realtime. This reduces |
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the peak loads of the system, and allows generation of more |
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flexible graphs. This work is nearing completetion. |
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</p> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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<b>Server security</b><br><br> |
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Security was something mostly overlooked in the original stage |
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of this project (due to the academic nature of the work). However, |
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once in production use this has become an issue, and is being |
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addressed. Initially the plan is to lock down the external points |
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of access (TCP & UDP) in the server to specific hosts. In the |
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longer term, encryption of data would be nice, but would take a |
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lot more time and work. |
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</p> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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<b>Testing and Development</b><br><br> |
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<a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-winhost-main.gif" width="100" height="62" align="right"></a> |
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The i-scream system is being tested and developed within the |
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Univeristy of Kent Computer Science department by the Systems |
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Group. This has led to many bug fixes and minor feature |
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enhancements, and will hopefully help to aid the long term |
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development of the system. |
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</p> |
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<p> </p> |
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<center><h3>Project History</h3></center> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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pjm2 |
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<a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-reports-raptor-latest-misc.gif" width="100" height="104" align="left"></a> |
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The i-scream Distributed Central Monitoring System started off as |
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a final year project for a group of <a href="http://www.cs.ukc.ac.uk"> |
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Computer Science</a> students at the <a href="http://www.ukc.ac.uk"> |
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University of Kent at Canterbury</a>, UK. The project was completed at |
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4pm on 29 March 2001. It consisted of five lever-arch folders containing |
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mostly source code and documentation. The CVS repository was tagged to |
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signify this even, however, the project is still being developed by the |
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<a href="acknowledgements.shtml">core development team</a>. |
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</p> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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pjm2 |
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<a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-ihost-main.gif" width="100" height="51" align="right"></a> |
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As can be seen in our "<a href="/probdomain.shtml">problem domain</a>" document, the project |
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was aimed at the UKC Computer Science department, and as such |
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we believed that a demonstration to the "customer" was important. The |
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feedback from our demonstation was more positive than we had |
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anticipated. We believe that the system may now be of interest |
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to anybody who wishes to monitor a number of machines on their |
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network using a central configuration. The i-scream central |
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monitoring system is now being used by the UKC Computer Science |
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department, and their feedback is being used to further improve |
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the product. |
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</p> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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pjm2 |
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<a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-conient-config.gif" width="100" height="48" align="left"></a> |
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The name <i>i-scream</i> arose from a meeting whereupon one member |
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of the <a href="acknowledgements.shtml">development team</a> felt a strange urge to draw an ice cream on the discussion board. |
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It later became apparent that we had no name for our project (other |
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than 'The Project'). It seemed only natural to name our project after |
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the ice cream that had been oh-so-randomly drawn on the white board. |
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Copyright issues immediately ruled out anything involving Mr Whippy, |
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so we had to settle for <i>i-scream</i>. And thus, we were left with a cunning |
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play on words - it still sounded like <i>ice cream</i>, yet also |
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served as a functional description of our system - namely, one which |
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screams at somebody if something has gone wrong... |
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</p> |
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<p align="justify"> |
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<p> </p> |
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<center><h3>Searching i-scream</h3></center> |
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<!-- Search Google --> |
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<center> |
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<FORM method=GET action=http://www.google.com/custom> |
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<TABLE bgcolor=#FFFFFF cellspacing=0 border=0> |
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<tr> |
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<td valign="middle"> |
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<A HREF=http://www.google.com/search> |
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<IMG SRC=http://www.google.com/logos/Logo_40wht.gif border=0 ALT=Google align=middle width="128" height="53"></A> |
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</td> |
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<td valign="middle"> |
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<input type=hidden name=domains value="i-scream.org.uk"> |
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<input type=hidden name=sitesearch value="i-scream.org.uk"> |
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<INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=35 maxlength=255 value=""> |
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<INPUT type=submit name=sa VALUE="Search"> |
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<INPUT type=hidden name=cof VALUE="T:#000066;LW:502;ALC:#3333cc;L:http://www.i-scream.org.uk/i-scream.gif;LC:#0000ff;LH:37;BGC:#ffffff;AH:left;VLC:#3333cc;AWFID:d646a9fd69e7d9cb;"> |
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</td> |
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</tr> |
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</TABLE> |
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</FORM> |
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</center> |
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<!-- Search Google --> |
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</p> |
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</font> |
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</td> |
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</tr> |
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</table> |
