New VMware modules dropped
Did anybody else notice the ~44 new and ~5 updated modules around VMware dropping in the last hour or so? Does anyone know how to implement these new modules? Since there was talk of making the instances into resources I don’t want to just bring them in without knowing how it’s going to mess with my device list (which is tightly bound to billing for us).
My Module Toolbox Pro-Tips
As a Customer Success Manager here at LM, I wanted to share a few key features found in our new Module Toolbox that have made keeping LogicModules up to date easier than ever! Search functionality Upon opening your Module Toolbox (found among your tabs under the Reports tab), you will notice there is a search bar in the top left. This will allowyou to search for any specific modules instead of spending time combing through looking for the one you need! Multiple filters You can now filtermodules you’re searching for by type (datasource, eventsource, configsource, etc.) as well as by customized, skipped updates, author, group, status and report! Bulk updating You now have the ability to update your modules in bulk(-given that you don’t have any customizationson the modules you have selected). This is going to savetime when it comes to keeping your modules up to date, rather than having to update them one by one.If you have customized modules, simply select the filter for “customized” and select “no”. From there you can select all and update. ba-da-boom! Customization preservations This is one that so many of our customers have been asking for. When updating a customized module, again, select the filter for “customized” and select “yes”. From there you will click the update button (depicted as an up arrow inside a circle) on the module you’d like to update. Review any changes made to the module in the diff viewer, click final review and then you will see a “Preservations” option on the right hand side which allows you to preserve customizations made to that particular module. You can currently preserve settings for Active Discovery filters, AppliesTo, Collection Interval, Discovery Interval, Display Name, and Group. No more updating the module to only have to go back in and rewrite all your customizations! Happy updating! :)
When Will My Module Toolbox Work Properly?
So we recently received a banner in one of our portals stating that in a future release the LogicModules section will no longer be available. This concerns us greatly as I noticed something after I just had a new portal spun up. I logged in, went to the Modules section in the new UI and told it to show me all of our outdated items. Nothing shows up. I then went into the Exchange, told it to show me all of the Installed and Update Available. Nothing shows. I also checked for anything Official that isn’t installed, and nothing shows up.So I naturally go the legacy route, load up DataSources, and tell it to look at the repository. Lo and behold, I have 85 DataSources. Some are new, some are updated. We were told at one point that the Modules/Toolbox/Exchange area look at a different repository, so we gave the benefit of the doubt and checked one of the new modules and an updated module, and both were 3 months old and not showing up in the new UI. Stu brought up some concerns as well inUpdates to modules showing in repo but not modules toolbox | Community (logicmonitor.com), but I didn’t want to necro post with a slightly different issue.Updates to modules showing in repo but not modules toolbox
Why would this be? There were 5 updates to aws_billing_* modules today, but they only show up when i use the traditional repo update option. No combination of filters could show those in the module toolbox, except by clearing all filters and just searching by name. Even then, once found by name, they showed already up to date. In addition, when trying to make a filter to show them, i was frustrated (once again) that the filters are filtering by values we cannot see: The “Customized” field isn’t displayable on the table at all, or if it is, it’s displayed as an icon in the status column. However, the dropdown for the filter is not an icon, it’s text. The status column shows an icon, but the filter values are text. Which icon corresponds to which text? For these 5 modules, the “Support” column was blank, even though these modules come from LM so should be “official”? How can you filter by “Support” == null? It’s all very Duolingo: make mistakes and wander your way through until you figure it out?Parity? What is that?
So, this is happening at some point. Today, given the release of several updates to modules, I decided to abandon my really good workflow and the coolest tool LM never built in favor of the modules toolbox. Sigh. There’s no option that I can find to “show associated devices”, which in the old UI showed a list of devices with their associated instances. You could even filter to only show those devices that had instances. There was a CSV download option. It was great because you could tell the difference between a module applying to 500 devices that have instances and applying to 500 devices that didn’t have any instances. It’s the difference between impact and no impact. Later, I needed to clone at propertysource. The existing one was fine, just needed to add some stuff for a different purpose. Guess what there is no button for in the module toolbox? Cloning a module. On the plus side, there is now a “use status” column for display and filtering. That helps a ton. This isn’t a parity issue, but there’s a new “deprecated” indicator for those modules that have been deprecated. You know what you can’t find without going somewhere else? Which module replaces it. I really, really hope the old ship doesn’t get scuttled before the new ship can even float.Finding VMware's most recent vulnerability
I woke up this morning to an email pointing me to this:https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2021-0002.html My boss -Can LM tell us which ones need attention? We’d like to notify our customers proactively. Me - Sure! Oh wait, I only have version info for the ESX servers. I’ll have to build out something to grab the vCenter versions. So, I built a custom property source. AppliesTo: system.virtualization =~ "VMware ESX vcenter" && (vcsa.user || esx.user) && (vcsa.pass || esx.pass) Then the script looks like this: /******************************************************************************* * © 2023 Aqueduct Technologies Inc. * * External Resources: * - https://developer.vmware.com/apis/vsphere-automation/v7.0U1/appliance/rest/appliance/system/version/get/ * ******************************************************************************/ import groovy.json.JsonSlurper user = hostProps.get("vcsa.user")?: hostProps.get("esx.user") pass = hostProps.get("vcsa.pass")?: hostProps.get("esx.pass") host = hostProps.get("system.hostname") session_endpoint = "/rest/com/vmware/cis/session" //endpoint for establishing an ssl session vsphere_version_endpoint = "/rest/appliance/system/version" //endpoint for determining vsphere version jSlurp = new JsonSlurper() globalHeaders = [:] genSessionId()//get session ID for future API requests try{ def resp = httpRequest(vsphere_version_endpoint) if (!resp) {return 1} println("auto.vcenter.version=${resp.version}") } finally{deleteSessionId()} return 0 def genSessionId(){ String auth = "Basic " + "$user:$pass".getBytes().encodeBase64().toString() def headers = ["Authorization": (auth)] def resp = httpRequest(session_endpoint, headers, 'POST') globalHeaders.put('Cookie', "vmware-api-session-id=${resp as String}") } def deleteSessionId(){ httpRequest(session_endpoint, [:], 'DELETE') } def httpRequest(def endpoint, Map<String, String> headers = [:], def method = 'GET', String query = null){ URI _uri = new URI('https', null, host, 443, endpoint, query, null) def _session = _uri.toURL().openConnection() _session.setRequestMethod(method) (headers + globalHeaders).each { k, v -> _session.setRequestProperty(k, v) } def response = _session.getInputStream().getText() _session.disconnect() return (response) ? jSlurp.parseText(response).value : null } If you don’t have one under /Devices by Type, create a dynamic group for ESX hosts and another dynamic group for vCenter. We called ours “VMware Hosts” (AppliesTo system.virtualization =~ "VMware ESX host") and “VMware vCenters” (AppliesTo system.virtualization =~ "VMware ESX vcenter") respectively. Then create a Resource Inventory report where the Resource Group is “Devices by Type/VMware*”. Add the system.virtualization, auto.vcenter.version, and system.version properties and run it. Voila, you now know the version numbers of your ESX and vCenter resources and you can compare that to the versions in the VMware Advisory.Module Update Differences Report
I mentioned on the webinar today that I’d post an example output from my diff script. I’m not going to attach it here, so I’ll link to it instead. It’s an HTML page and it’s an older version of the script output, but opening it in your browser (use incognito if you’re worried) will show the list of modules whether they’re UpdatedNotInUse, UpdatedInUse, or New. Clicking on the blocks under a module (red=there’s a difference, green=there’s no difference) will show the existing vs. new versions. To generate this report, all I need is a RO set of credentials with view access to modules (I think). I use this as my checklist of updates to address. I have the history and existing definition on there (Old JSON) because I like to know if my version is out of date because LM changed an LM setting or if they changed something I had customized. And the old JSON is on there in case I need to revert (which I haven’t had to yet).
