How to create service profiles

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Overview

Profiles aid in the design and management of hosts and services. Host profiles contain everything you need to configure a device other than a host name, alias, and an IP address. Host profiles can incorporate service profiles, and service profiles are made up of multiple service definitions. This page provides an overview of service profiles.

Service Profile Definition

A service is a monitor, of a particular parameter or status, associated with a host. This can  be an actual service that runs on the host (POP, SMTP, HTTP, etc.) or some other  type of metric associated with the host (response to a ping, number of logged in  users, etc.). A service profile definition (e.g., snmp-network) stores Service definitions such as snmp_if_1, snmp_ifbandwidth_1, snmp_ifoperstatus_1, and udp_snmp. GroundWork Monitor contains several commands and services for checking these and many other parameters on Linux hosts. These services are grouped into service profiles, which you can use as is or modify to fit your needs. One or more hosts and/or host groups can be added to and then managed by a service profile. Additionally, you can add host profiles to which this service profile is assigned. When these combined definitions are applied to a number of hosts, for example to 50 specific web servers and you change one of the parameters - it would be applied to all of the specified hosts. You can make a change to either the host profile, the service profile, or in the service, which will then be applied to all associated hosts.

Steps

Services

1. Select Configuration > Profiles.
2. Select Service Profiles and then New.
3. Enter a Name and Description for the new profile and select Add, the Service Profile screen will be displayed.
4. In this screen select and add the services from the right side list to be included in this profile. You can select multiple service names by using the CTRL key while selecting, or select a range by selecting the first item and using the SHIFT key to select the last item.
5. Select Save.

   When making changes you must select Save for each tab. If you do not select Save and go to another tab you will lose your changes. Additionally, for the saved changes to take place you must select the Apply tab to push the changes made to hosts, host groups, etc. Read the Apply screen carefully as caution should be taken before taking this action.

   When service dependencies have been assigned to service names, be careful to include the parent service names as defined in the dependency templates.

   Figure: Services as part of service profile
   

Assign Hosts

The Assign Hosts tab enables you to add or remove hosts to be managed by this profile. Removing a host means the host is no longer managed by this profile. The host will retain its properties until the host is assigned and applied to another profile, or modified individually.

1. Select the Assign Hosts tab in the service profile screen.
2. In this screen select the hosts from the right side list to be included in this profile, and Save.
3. Select the Apply tab and check the appropriate options to instantiate changes to the host.
   
   Figure: Assign Hosts to be managed by this profile
   

Assign Host Groups

The Assign Host Groups tab enables you to add or remove host groups to be managed by this profile. Removing a host group means the host group is no longer managed by this profile. The member hosts will retain their properties until the host group is assigned and applied to another service profile, or the member hosts are modified individually.

1. Select the Assign Host Groups tab in the service profile screen.
2. In this screen select the hosts groups from the right side list to be included in this profile and Save.
3. Select the Apply tab and check the appropriate options to instantiate changes to the member hosts.
   
   Figure: Assign Host Groups to be managed by this profile
   

Host Profiles

The Host Profiles tab enables you to add or remove host profiles to which this service profile is assigned. Adding or removing a host profile here has no effect the host profile's member hosts until the Apply tab is used on the host profile, or the profile is applied on the individual hosts.

1. Select the Host Profiles tab in the service profile screen.
2. In this screen select the hosts profiles from the right side list to be included in this profile and Save.
3. Select the Apply tab and check the appropriate options to instantiate changes.
   
   Figure: Host Profiles to which this profile is assigned
   

Apply

As mentioned above, for the saved changes to take place you must select the Apply tab to push the changes made to hosts, host groups, etc.

Read the Apply screen carefully as caution should be taken before taking this action.

Applying a service profile at this point will modify the current service configuration across probably multiple hosts. Before taking this action, be sure to double-check:

• your service profile changes
• your chosen set of target hosts that reference this service profile
• how you want to modify the existing services
  
  Figure: Apply changes