Topic: E-smith Monitor -- No stats for eth1

[Dan]

Hi all,

I installed e-smith Monitor yesterday, and everything works great except for the stats on eth1, my external interface.  Where would a newb go to check on what's broken?  Has anyone seen this before?

The E-smith Monitor website mentions that sometimes it takes a bit of time for the proper databases to be built --- but I have been through a full night and a reboot an there is no action on eth1.

Thanks,

Dan

[Jaime]

Hi Dan,

  I'm one of the developers of this package.Could you please be a little more specific? Does the graph appear? Does it have data?

  E-smith monitor detects hardware quite fast (1 minute) and will show it fast too (1 or 2 minutes depends). If eth1 graph doesn't appear maybe is because you are in server only mode?

  The script looks is /dev/proc/net to "see" what to show. Anything listed here (besides lo) should show as a graph. Maybe after a reboot eth1 wont show anymore if you have disabled it.

  Have you looked in /var/rrd/ to see if there is a file called eth1.rrd?

  Hope it helps. Fell free to post any other question (with a little more data please)

  Regards.

[Dan]

OK,

Here is the expanded info:

"Does the graph appear?"
Yes

"Does it have data?"
No

"If eth1 graph doesn't appear maybe is because you are in server only mode?"
No, I am in server and gateway mode ---- or else I couldn't be posting this

"Have you looked in /var/rrd/ to see if there is a file called eth1.rrd?"
This is what I meant by "Where would a newb go to check on what's broken?"  
There is not a directory named /var/rrd/, but there is var/lib/rrd.  It's contents are as shown:

eth0.rrd  eth1.rrd  mainhd.rrd  usedcpu.rrd  usedram.rrd  usedswap.rrd

eth1.rrd is a binary file with nothing readable inside.

Any further assistance is appreciated.

Dan

[Dan]

My eth1 nic is a Netgear FA311 --- is it possible that the cheap card doesn't respond properly?

[Dan]

Just swapped out the FA311 NIC, and installed another 3C905 --- all stats work now.  The Netgear card apparently doesn't reply properly to the monitor query...

[Jaime]

Hi again Dan,

  Well I don't understand why now it works

  Lets see. E-smith monitor has two parts: a data gathering daemon and the web page script.

  This problem only relates to the data gathering daemon. Every minute the daemon starts a series of forks that look into some system info to update a series of rrd RRDTools databases.

  In this case it looks into /proc/net/dev Every device listed here except lo is considered active and updated. If the database doesn't exist, it creates the database in /var/lib/rrd/ If it exists just updates the value. This is done every minute.

  Then comes the webpage. When you click in the manager page, the script looks into /proc/dev/net too see what network interfaces to show. If the device is active or it has been it should show up.

  This is why I don't understand why you didn't see the graph. The package works in a high level not messing directly with devices. If the kernel is capable of updating this info, the monitor will "see" it. If it doesn't, well I can't understand how your card works either )

  Hope the explanation is clear. Every one please update to 2.0-01 as this was an important update.

[Dan]

Jaime,

Thanks for the expanded explanation.  Just to help you complete the picture, the PhpSysInfo package (http://phpsysinfo.sourceforge.net/) does not see the Netgear FA311 card either. It is apparently not creating usable output.

Dan