Release Notes

Spotlight on Unix is a diagnostic tool for Unix operating systems. Its unique user interface provides you with an intuitive, visual representation of the activity on your OS. Graphical flows illustrate the rate at which data is moving between OS components. Icons display the value of key statistics and metrics.

New in This Release

Resolved Issues and Enhancements

The following is a list of issues addressed and enhancements implemented in this release of Spotlight on Unix.

Feature	Resolved Issue / Enhancement	Change Request (if applicable)
Spotlight home page	Display errors in the Spotlight home page. Spotlight on Unix displays performance statistics for many kinds of Unix systems, but the metrics that provide those statistics may differ between systems. We have resolved a number of issues that previously affected the Spotlight home page, including: Network card name and rate errors in NIC bandwidth component for HP‑UX. Incorrect "Swapping" dataflows between Memory and Swap Files panels for AIX. Incorrect number of CPUs reported on home page for AIX 5.2. Incorrect values for disk reads and disk writes on home page for AIX and HP‑UX. Discrepancy in CPU data between Spotlight on Unix home page and Spotlight on Oracle. Incorrect "System CPU" and "Waiting" data for partitioned AIX servers. Improved calculation of "Total RAM" in Memory panel for HP‑UX.	CR043481 CR140905 CR154899 CR181238 CR188123 CR205315 CR230482
Spotlight alarms	Duplicated alarms for Most Active Disk. We have resolved a problem when single alarms on this component in the Disk Activity panel were reported multiple times.	CR144969
Spotlight alarms	"Ghost" alarms for CPU, Paging, Swapping, and Disk I/O. We have resolved a problem where spurious high-severity alarms were being raised for metrics that were not in an alarm state.	CR151155
Processes and Services drilldown	Service names parsed incorrectly. We have resolved a problem in the Services page where service names were being parsed incorrectly in some implementations of the Linux 2.6 kernel.	CR035372
Processes and Services drilldown	Error on right-click in Processes page. We have resolved a problem in the Processes page where right-clicking outside the Processes grid triggered an out-of-bounds error.	CR144727
Filesystems drilldown	Error handling multi-line data for filesystems and logical disks. We have resolved an error where Spotlight was not handling data in records spanning more than one line.	CR146565
Filesystems drilldown	NFS mounted disks displayed for AIX only. Details of NFS disks can now be displayed in the Filesystems drilldown for all Unix systems. You can use a right-click menu option to hide or show NFS data. Note: The Least Space metric on the Spotlight on Unix home page continues to display least space data for local filesystems only, not NFS mounts.	CR162598
Memory and Swap Files	Improved data collection and thresholds for AIX. We have reviewed and improved the collection and handling of memory and swap file data for AIX 5.1 and 5.2 servers.	CR148750
CPU Utilization errors	CPU Utilization incorrect for Linux 2.6 kernels. For Linux 2.6 kernels, Spotlight incorrectly identified the CPU time spent waiting for I/O as busy time, and as a result often reported 100% CPU utilization when that was not the case. The CPU time spent waiting for I/O is now defined as idle time.	CR181423
CPU Utilization errors	CPU Utilization chart not populated for Solaris servers. We have resolved this problem in the Activity page of the Activity Summary drilldown. The problem was caused by the incorrect processing of CPU data collected for Solaris servers.	CR224036
Activity Summary drilldown	Discrepancy in Paging chart between Spotlight on Unix and Spotlight on Oracle. Paging charts in both Spotlights are now the same.	CR200647
Activity Summary drilldown	CPU Usage by Processor chart not supported on AIX and HP-UX. This chart in the Activity Summary page of the Activity Summary drilldown now is supported in the specified platforms.	CR193075
Spotlight on Oracle (Xpert edition)	Spotlight on Unix authorized for licensed users of Spotlight on Oracle (Xpert edition). Spotlight on Unix is included in the installation package for Spotlight on Oracle (Xpert edition), and can be launched when Spotlight on Oracle connects to a database. Note: Spotlight on Unix connections created via Spotlight on Oracle do NOT raise alarms. This prevents the raising of duplicate O/S-related alarms when both Spotlight on Oracle and Spotlight on Unix are running.	CR230816
Documentation	What's This? help. Context-sensitive "What's This?" help is now available for the Percentage Busy alarm in the in the Disk Activity panel. Context-sensitive "What's This?" help is now available for the Disk page of the Activity Summary drilldown when its contents are displayed in grid form.	CR145278 CR145759
Documentation	Spotlight on Unix Getting Started Guide. The Getting Started Guide is now included with the Spotlight on Unix installer, and can be opened from the Spotlight Help menu.	CR048947

Known Issues

The following is a list of issues known to exist at the time of Spotlight on Unix release.

Category	Known Issue	Change Request (if applicable)
General Notes
General Notes	REXEC protocol for Unix commands. Spotlight can use the REXEC protocol to submit various Unix commands (for example, netstat, vmstat, iostat, sar) to observe system activity. These commands must be accessible to REXEC sessions for Spotlight to be able to observe Unix activity. If these commands are not located in the search path for REXEC sessions, Spotlight will display an error.
Installation Issues	'iostat' command may not be installed. Spotlight on Unix works with full functionality only when the iostat command is installed on the server under diagnosis. This may NOT be true for all Unix systems. If iostat is NOT installed, Spotlight may display an error message such as 'iostat: command not found'. If you encounter this error, you can: Choose to ignore the error. When you do so, the Spotlight error will no longer appear, but neither will a number of important disk statistics. Install the iostat command on the server. (On Red Hat Linux, this command is included in the sysstat package.)
Installation Issues	*Use Add or Remove Programs* to uninstall Spotlight on Unix 2.0 before upgrading to 2.1. You must uninstall your existing installation of Spotlight on Unix version 2.0 completely before upgrading to Spotlight on Unix version 2.1. To do so, open the Windows Control Panel and use Add or Remove Programs** to remove the old Spotlight installation.
Connection Issues	Logging on as "root". When connecting to a Unix OS, you need to do so from a logon other than "root". Remote login as "root" has been disallowed for security reasons.
	Public-key cryptography available for SSH2 connections only. Spotlight can now use public-key cryptography (via DSA or RSA) to communicate securely with Unix systems, but this functionality is made available only under the SSH2 protocol.
	Password authentication for SSH connections that do NOT use public-key cryptography. To allow Spotlight to make SSH connections to any Unix or Linux hosts that permit SSH connections, you may need to alter the PasswordAuthentication configuration item in the sshd_config file. Set the value of PasswordAuthentication to yes.
	Shell used for Unix connections (excluding Linux). When you configure the operating system (O/S) user for Unix connections, use sh, ksh or bash (version 2.05 or later) as the default shell. Spotlight does NOT support the use of other shells, such as csh, as the default shell on Unix.
	Shell used for Linux connections. When you configure the operating system (O/S) user for Linux connections, use sh or bash (version 2.05 or later) as the default shell. Spotlight does NOT support the use of other shells, such as ash, csh, ksh or zsh, as the default shell on Linux.
AIX Limitations	AIX Limitations: The Procs Swapped button in the Memory panel on the home page is not supported. The Physical Memory metric in the Process Details sub-page of the Processes and Services drilldown is not supported. I/O data unavailable before AIX 5.3. For versions before AIX 5.3, disk I/O flows on the home page are disabled, as are disk read and disk write charts in drilldown pages.
HP‑UX Limitations	HP‑UX Limitations Free RAM values may be incorrect. Spotlight uses the "free" column in vmstat(1) to show the amount of free RAM. This is not strictly correct for HP‑UX servers, but it is the only figure available that is in any way useful. I/O data unavailable. Disk I/O flows on the home page are disabled, as are disk read and disk write charts in drilldown pages.
HP‑UX Limitations	HP‑UX 11.00 Limitations: The Error Rates by Network Card chart in the Network page of the Activity Summary drilldown is not supported. The Collisions by Network Card chart in the Network page of the Activity Summary drilldown is not supported. The Physical Memory metric in the Process Details sub-page of the Processes and Services drilldown is not supported.
Linux Limitations	Linux Limitations: The Procs Swapped button in the Memory panel on the home page is not supported. For versions of Linux based on the 2.4 kernel, Spotlight provides no information in the Waiting data series of the CPU Utilization chart on the Activity page of the Activity Summary drilldown. When running with the latest version of the Linux 2.4 kernel, Disk Activity metrics on the home page return invalid results due to erroneous statistics being returned from iostat in the sysstat package. To overcome this problem, the OS should be updated to a 2.6 kernel. In some Linux versions, Spotlight reports the virtual memory value of multi-threaded processes incorrectly. Each thread is reported as a separate process in the Processes drilldown, and the Virt Mem (MB) column is reported as the sum of the virtual memory values for all threads in the process. With some older versions of Linux based on the 2.4 kernel, the Disk Reads and Disk Writes charts may include negative values. These charts are based on output from iostat, some versions of which do not return the data required by Spotlight. To resolve this issue, upgrade to a more recent version of Linux. The Cache chart in the Memory page of the Activity Summary drilldown is not supported.
Solaris Limitations	Problems with diagnosing Solaris 9 machines. A number of Spotlight home page components will not be populated when Spotlight diagnoses lightly-loaded Solaris 9 machines. This is caused by the output from the vmstat command regularly recording a "State Change" event, which in turn resets values for the vmstat command. In this case, the CPU spinner, User % gauge, System % gauge, Queue Length gauge, Free RAM label, Blocked Processes button, Swapped Processes button, Paging In and Paging Out flows, and Swapping In and Swapping Out flows will appear grayed out.
Solaris Limitations	Other Solaris Limitations: The Collisions by Network Card chart in the Network page of the Activity Summary drilldown is not supported.

Upgrade and Compatibility

Downloading Upgrades from the Internet

From time to time, Quest Software may make upgrades and patches available on the Internet. Upgrades will be made available from the Quest Software Web site at http://www.quest.com. Instructions for downloading and installing upgrades are provided on the Web site.

Issues when Upgrading

See the Installation Issues section under Known Issues for additional information on upgrading between versions of Spotlight on Unix.

System Requirements

Before installing Spotlight on Unix, ensure your system meets the following minimum hardware and software requirements:

Global Operations

This section contains information about installing and operating this product in non-English configurations, such as those needed by customers outside of North America. This section does not replace the materials about supported platforms and configurations found elsewhere in the product documentation.

This release supports any single-byte or multi-byte character set. In this release, all product components should be configured to use the same or compatible character encodings and should be installed to use the same locale and regional options. This release is targeted to support operations in the following regions: North America, Western Europe and Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Far-East Asia, Japan.

Getting Started

Contents of the Release Package

Installation Instructions

Refer to the Spotlight on Unix Getting Started Guide for installation instructions.

For More Information

Contacting Quest Software:

Contacting Quest Support:

Quest Support is available to customers who have a trial version of a Quest product or who have purchased a commercial version and have a valid maintenance contract.
Quest Support provides around the clock coverage with SupportLink, our web self-service. Visit SupportLink at http://support.quest.com.

View the Global Support Guide for a detailed explanation of support programs, online services, contact information, and policy and procedures.
The guide is available at: http://support.quest.com/pdfs/Global Support Guide.pdf. This guide is available in English only.

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Trademarks

Quest, Quest Software, the Quest Software logo, ActiveRoles, Aelita, AppAssure, Benchmark Factory, Big Brother, DataFactory, DeployDirector, ERDisk, Foglight, Funnel Web, I/Watch, Imceda, InLook, IntelliProfile, InTrust, IT Dad, I/Watch, JClass, Jint, JProbe, LECCO SQL Expert, LECCO Tech, LiteSpeed, LiveReorg, MessageStats, NBSpool, NetBase, PerformaSure, PortalVue, Quest Central, SharePlex, Sitraka, SmartAlarm, Spotlight, SQL LiteSpeed, SQL Navigator, SQL Watch, SQLab, Stat, Stat!, StealthCollect, Tag and Follow, Toad, T.O.A.D., Toad World, Vintela, Virtual DBA, Xaffire, and XRT are trademarks and registered trademarks of Quest Software, Inc in the United States of America and other countries. Other trademarks and registered trademarks used in this guide are property of their respective owners.

Disclaimer

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Platform	A Pentium-based or equivalent PC with: A 1.2 GHz Processor (recommended minimum). A monitor capable of supporting a resolution of 1024x768 or larger. (You should also set the display to use the 64K color palette [65536 colors].) A CD-ROM drive or Internet connection. Spotlight can be downloaded from the Internet or installed from compact disc. The CD-ROM drive should be attached to the PC on which Spotlight is to be installed. A drive mapped to a network device could be used if a local CD-ROM is not available. A printer (optional). Spotlight reports can be printed on a laser or bubble jet printer. You can print graphs in color if your printer provides this capability. A sound card and speakers (optional). Spotlight can use sound to alert you when a threshold is reached. You must have a sound card and speakers installed on your PC for this feature to work. A mouse. To access all the features of Spotlight you should have a mouse installed on your PC.
Memory	256 megabytes of RAM (minimum). 256 megabytes is generally adequate, assuming no other applications are running. Memory consumption will increase for multiple simultaneous connections to Unix servers.
Hard Disk Space	150 megabytes of free disk space. This should exist on a local disk drive rather than a network drive. Extra disk space will be required if you choose to log historical snapshots from within Spotlight.
Operating System	Windows 2000, Windows 2003 Server, Windows XP Professional, or Windows Vista. The following specific requirements exist: Windows 2000: Service Pack 4 (or later) must be installed. Windows XP: Service Pack 1 (or later) must be installed. Windows Vista (without utilizing the new features available under Vista). Spotlight on Unix is a 32-bit application and is NOT supported on Windows 3.1 environments.
Unix Servers	Unix servers and versions. Spotlight on Unix supports the following server operating systems for O/S Server queries: Sun Solaris 8, 9, 10 HP‑UX 11i, 11i v2, 11i v3 IBM AIX 5.2, 5.3, 6.1 Red Hat and SUSE operating systems running Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels
Unix Server Software	Unix programs. The following Unix programs must be accessible to the user logged on to the Unix machine. awk cat date df grep ifconfig iostat netstat ps sar sed tr uname uptime vmstat wc who For HP‑UX, additionally bdf getconf swapinfo /usr/sbin/ioscan For AIX, additionally lsdev lsps prtconf For Solaris, additionally /etc/swap mpstat nawk prtconf
Unix User Permissions and Installation Settings	The Unix user should have no special processing on log-on. In particular there must be no input required from the user, and nor should any special login banners be displayed. Write access to the /tmp directory is required on the Unix host; there must be 64 kb of space available in the directory to execute Spotlight scripts. On AIX, the user must be a member of the "adm" group to be able to run the sar command. On Linux, the sysstat package must be installed to enable the user to get detailed disk I/O information. On Linux the /proc filesystem must be present. For connection using SSH, the sshd daemon must be installed and running.
Unix Client Permission Requirements	You can find client permission requirements for Spotlight on Unix in the Spotlight on Unix Getting Started Guide. These permissions include those required... When installing Spotlight. When running Spotlight. When authenticating a Spotlight license.

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