Avaya Setting Up Access#

Setting up the access to the different Avaya systems is one of the bigger tasks that is necessary to allow the probes access to pull the data. It is always preferable to have a dedicated account setup on each of the systems that is being monitored: for isolation and future troubleshooting.

  1. CM - The Communication manager has some special aspects that affect how we pull data.

    1. The SAT term will need to be set up to be entered from the terminal without a second password prompt.

    2. Since there is a limit in the number of SAT terms available, we set up a probe (Avaya CM SATv7 family of probes) that remains active and attached and runs through a set of SAT commands. This list is cycled over in a loop and controlled by the probe assignment in the asset configuration screen.

  2. CM SSH limitations:

    1. As of CM 7.1 there is a bug on the CM that causes SSH sessions to become a zombie or ghost session. This occurs when the remote connection goes down and the CM keeps it active indefinitely. We work around this by monitoring the process on the CM via a probe that connects with SSH.

    2. The second issue with this is that there is a new security setting limiting the simultaneous SSH connections per user. This can be changed by modifying the PAM settings. One way to do this is via the /etc/security/limits.conf file.

      Add the following line if it is not there to increase the limit:

      layerx hard maxlogins 5

      Or via the GUI, Security > Login Limits

  3. Session manager and System manager are more difficult to get a user created so some users have gone with one of the built-in accounts as our access.

    1. The system manager needs access to the SMGR web UI, not the terminal.

  4. The CMS needs the user account setup with KSH instead of the menu interface that is the default. This is set via modifying the passwd file in /etc/passwd.

    USERNAME:x:0:0:USERNAME:/home/USERNAME:/bin/cms
USERNAME:x:0:0:USERNAME:/home/USERNAME:/bin/ksh

  5. AAM - The AAM also uses the web GUI and needs both a web user account and an SSH account set up for the probes.