An RMS configuration file is a text file that is usually generated by the RMS Wizard Tools. It provides input to the base monitor that consists of definitions of the resources that are to be monitored by RMS, including their interdependencies.
In RMS, the terms parent and child are used to represent dependent relationships between objects and their resource objects. The term leaf object is used to indicate that an object in a system graph has no children. In the configuration file, the leaf object definition is at the beginning of the file. A leaf object cannot have children, while a child can be both a parent and a child.
The figure below helps illustrate the parent/child relationships between objects.
Figure 4.2 Configuration file interdependencies
The figure above shows the following relationships:
Object A requires the resource B to function properly, making A a parent of B and B a child of A.
Object B requires the resources C and D to function properly, making B a parent of C and a parent of D.
Objects C and D are leaf objects because they do not have any children. They are also children of B.
A object type is a collection of similar resources monitored as a group (for example, all object types in a group using the same disk drives). Each object type has certain properties, or attributes, which limit or define what monitoring can occur for that type of resource. The attributes associated with a particular object type define how the base monitor acts and reacts for a resource of that object type during normal operations. Attributes commonly specify a device name or a script, and can be specified in any order in the object definition for that resource.
Some attributes are mandatory; others are optional. An example of a mandatory attribute is a device name for a vdisk object type. Typical optional attributes are scripts which are executed under certain conditions. Most attributes can be used for most object definitions.
Some attributes are valid only for particular object types, while some object types require that specific attributes be included in their object definitions.
A object definition is a statement in the configuration file, beginning with the keyword object, that describes a particular resource in terms that RMS understands. Specifics of an object definition include the following:
After RMS has been installed and verified, the configuration file must be created before RMS can begin monitoring resources. If a resource does not have an object definition in the configuration file, the resource is not recognized by RMS.
