Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Remedy SPI - Config file & Rules Files

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HP OM is an Event Management tool. For the complete ITIL workflow this has to be integrated with any one of the ITSM tools available in the market.
We have used Remedy Smart Plug-in(remspi) by HP to integrate HP OVO with BMC Remedy Action Request System (ARS) in our environment.

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The above diagram shows a basic flow within the integration.
This post expects the reader to be well versed with HP OVO and Remedy ARS. Also refer to the SPI_RARS_AdminRef.pdf for more information.
This post gives a brief example of the cfg file and the rules file.

1. The SPI for Remedy ARS server receives the ID of an HPOM
message from the HPOM management server via a submission
program.
2. The SPI for Remedy ARS server retrieves details of the HPOM
message from the HPOM management server via an application
programmer interface (API).
3. The SPI for Remedy ARS server creates and updates action requests
using the ARS API.
4. When an action request changes, the action-request system calls the SPI for Remedy ARS client and passes on the details of the update via the ARS filter mechanism.
5. The SPI for Remedy ARS client sends the update details to the SPI for Remedy ARS server.
6. The SPI for Remedy ARS server updates the HPOM message on the HPOM management server using HPOM’s API.
7. When an HPOM message is modified, the SPI for Remedy ARS server receives a message-change event via the HPOM API.
8. HPOM sends the details of the message-change event to the SPI for
Remedy ARS server via the HPOM API.
9. The SPI for Remedy ARS server updates the action request by means of the Remedy-ARS application-programming interface (API).

The data components that are used in the data flow are:

  • External Actions and Data
  • Configuration file - remspi.cfg
  • Rules File - remspi_rules.txt
  • The SPI for Remedy ARS database
Configuration File - /etc/opt/OV/share/conf/remspi/remspi.cfg
The configuration file remspi.cfg defines the user name and passwords that the SPI for Remedy ARS uses to log in to HPOM. The passwords are encrypted.
There has to be a user in HPOM with appropriate permissions in HPOM.
Use remspipasswd  to encrypt the password of this user.
remspipasswd <new_user_password>

Example of a configuration file : 
# File: remspi.cfg
# Description: Configuration file for Remedy(tm) SPI
# Package: HP Operations SMART Plug-In for
# Remedy(tm) Action Request System(r)
# Note: Value must be on same line as keyword
REMSPI_ITO_USER remspi_server
REMSPI_ITO_PASSWD C338D5F21219E076C2000C45AA0475925A1
REMSPI_ITO_ADMIN_PASSWD C338D5F21219F076C2000C4VAA0475925A1

Rules File: /etc/opt/OV/share/conf/remspi/rules

Sample Rules file: This is an example from my test environment

SYNTAX_VERSION 2.4
SPI_RULES "SPI Rules - ProblemReport"
DESCRIPTION "Example rules for the Problem Report System"

TARGET "Probsys"

  SCHEMA      "Problem Report"
  USER        "ovouser"
  SERVER      "REMEDY_PRODSERVER"
  BACKUPUP_SERVER   "REMEDY_BACKUPSERVER"
  PASSWORD "KMIDDKLFN9R43093LNSVNDIFDFLN49RRLADMC1233NDS"
                   FIRST FIELD           2   "$ITO_SUBMITTER$"
                         FIELD           7   "New"
                   FIRST FIELD           8   "$MSG_TEXT$"
  UPDATE OVERWRITE FIRST FIELD  8000000078   "$MSG_TEXT$"
                   FIRST FIELD  8000000079   "\\n$MSG_ANNO$\\n"
  UPDATE OVERWRITE FIRST FIELD  8000000080   "$MSG_SEVERITY$"
                   FIRST FIELD  8000000081   "$MANAGEMENT_SERVERS$"
                   FIRST FIELD  8000000082   "$NODE_NAME$"
                   FIRST FIELD  8000000083   "$NODE_APPL$"
                   FIRST FIELD  8000000084   "$MSG_GRP$"
                   FIRST FIELD  8000000085   "$MSG_OBJ$"
                   FIRST FIELD  8000000086   "$MSG_ID$"
                   FIRST FIELD  8000000087   "$Instructions$"
  UPDATE OVERWRITE ALL   FIELD  8000000088   "$ACK_USER$"
                   FIRST FIELD  8000000089   "$EXTERNAL Severity$"

  ON_SUBMIT
    OWN                  #OVO message is owned after creation
    MSGTXT_PREFIX   "ARS-ID=$ARS_ID$:  "


  ITO_UPDATE
    ANNOTATE      7 "Closed" "Action request closed by $5$ on $6$"
    FORCE OWN     7 "Assigned"
    OWN           7 "Fixed"
    DISOWN        7 "Rejected"
    ACKNOWLEDGE   7 "Closed"
    UNACKNOWLEDGE 7 "Reopened"
    OP_ACTION       "operator-action"
    ESCALATE        "escalate"
    ANNOTATE        "Action request modified"
        Latest work log entry: $8000000079$

  MSGCONDITIONS
    DESCRIPTION   "Catch All"
    CONDITION
    SET TARGET "Probsys"
       FIELD 8000000083   "$NODE_APPL$"
 SUPPRESSCONDITIONS
    DESCRIPTION   "Condition Suppress"
    CONDITION
       MSGGRP "Printers"
       Severity "Warning"
    

A little bit of explanation of the rules file
8000000080 all these numbers relate to the field id in the REMEDY ARS form that gets called when remspi gets invoked. Here the form is called "PROBLEM REPORT"
MSG_SEVERITY --> 8000000080  is the Severity of the alert that comes in OM
EXTERNAL severity --> 8000000089 is the severity chosen by the operator (DC-ops uses semi-automation to create tickets)
8000000079   "\\n$MSG_ANNO$\\n"--> this goes into the work log of the ticket

MSGCONDITIONS are the conditions that have to satisfy for a ticket to be created.
SUPPRESSCONDITIONS are the conditions which have to be true for a message to be filtered out.

Sometimes you might have issues when the RemedySPI process doesn't start with ovstart. This behavior seems to be normal. The remspisrv is integrated into ovstop/ovstart through the remspisrv.lrf file. ovstop / ovstart is the official way to stop and start. ovstop stops RemedySPI, but ovstart starts the OVO processes but ovspmd doesn't know the status of the previous RemedySPI and doesn't start it again. You would have to perform “ovstart RemedySPI” to start it.

Another issue that I have faced with remspi is that remspiconfig and remspifilter produce the following errors.
Can't lock DBM database files '/var/opt/OV/share/tmp/remspi/Probys'
for target 'Probsys'. Permision Denied (SPI215-45)
&
Can't lock DBM database files '/var/opt/OV/share/tmp/remspi/_Remspi'
for target '_Remspi'. Permision Denied (SPI215-45)

Well, the technical document (Doc ID emr_na-c00917549-1) says :
These error messages occur when the Remedy SPI process is running due to the fact that the process locks these files.
Run "ovstop -c RemedySPI", then run remspiconfig

This also pertains to the remspifilter command.

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