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Problem with rsyslog configuration
by Patrick Marquetecken 22 Jan '15

22 Jan '15

Hi All, I'm having trouble to get the rsyslog working. I have followed the guide http://www.observium.org/wiki/Rsyslog_Syslog_Server but used the %fromhost-ip% . And rebooted rsyslog service. When I do a tail of /var/log/messages (i'm using a centos 6.4) I see the log files from my others server coming in, but none is going to the database. Jan 22 08:31:12 smtp postfix/anvil[6320]: Jan 22 08:27:38 app-05 postfix/postqueue[28297]: Jan 22 08:31:24 db-02 postfix/postqueue[25382]: Jan 22 07:52:56 fw-01 postfix/postqueue[18540]: Jan 22 08:31:36 proxy-01 postfix/postqueue[16781]: Jan 22 08:31:40 app-01 postfix/postqueue[17602]: Jan 22 08:31:39 db-01 postfix/postqueue[17506]: Jan 22 08:28:06 voip-02 postfix/postqueue[29870]: Jan 22 08:27:48 nas-02 postfix/postqueue[30007]: config.php $config['enable_syslog'] = 1; $config['syslog']['fifo'] = FALSE; $config['syslog']['debug'] = TRUE; syslog.php logfile('logs/debug.log', $line); debug.log This file stays empty unless i run syslog.php at hand then I see this: [2015/01/20 17:03:31 +0100] syslog.php(15435): Can someone please advice to get this working. Thanks

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HP TippingPoint IPS 1400N
by Daniel Rolfe 22 Jan '15

22 Jan '15

HI, I know this device isn't on the supported list, we currently use cacti to monitor our IPS devices, there is a cacti module for tippingpoint and it works well but we are wanting to migrate everything to observium if we can Currently this is coming up as a generic snmp device I've got a paid SVN version but the observium connected to the tipping points is still running the latest CE I'm not sure if the cacti module can be used as a cheat sheet for observium support ? http://docs.cacti.net/usertemplate:host:tippingpoint:ips running tipping point OS (TOS) 3.6.4 Regards, Daniel

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Turnkey Linux
by adama＠observium.org 22 Jan '15

22 Jan '15

There are a few things I need to talk to the Turnkey Linux people about... Is anyone here involved with that? adam.

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Orphaned rrd's [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
by Peter.Hine＠familycourt.gov.au 22 Jan '15

22 Jan '15

Hi, Anyone have a good and safe way to find and remove orphaned rrd' s ???? thanks Peter Hine Senior Technical Support Engineer (Servers) FCoA ITS peter.hine(a)familycourt.gov.au PH : +61 2 6243 8668 FAX : +61 2 6243 5611 ********************************************************************** The information contained in this e-mail (including any attachments) is for the exclusive use of the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient please notify the sender immediately and delete this e-mail. It is noted that legal privilege is not waived because you have read this e-mail. **********************************************************************

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Just Hello and question about alerts
by dragonauta 21 Jan '15

21 Jan '15

Hi, my name is Diego, I'm from Argentina. I'm using Observium on my home server. It's a proxmox platform running 12 containers. One of them is running openvpn+observium to monitoring remote servers of my Customers. Observium CE it's just what I was looking, easy, simple. I just miss alerting system (e-mail) when a node is down. I read on wiki that new alerting system is not on CE (yet): will be added sometimes or will be a "premium" feature? For now I made a raw "alerting" system, modifying source code. At includes/polling/functions.inc.php I added a small script into poll_device function, just under status check. It uses php-mail and sends me a message indicating just hostname and status (Up or Down) Obviously it's hardcoded, but it works for me. Thanks for this nice software -- GPG-Key: 2FFBC43B Linux Registered User #436806 www.preguntaslinux.org :: supermoderador bbs.archbang.org :: moderator jinetedeldragon.wordpress.com

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Services monitoring?
by Ryan, Spencer 21 Jan '15

21 Jan '15

Now that the Services / nagios plugins are deprecated what are people doing for monitoring availability of things like SSH? We are trying to get rid of nagios but mainly need the functionality of checking to make sure services are responding on various ports. Any good ideas? Thanks, *Spencer Ryan* | Senior Systems Administrator | sryan(a)arbor.net *Arbor Networks* +1.734.794.5033 (d) | +1.734.846.2053 (m) www.arbornetworks.com

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Email Formatting for Alert Checks
by Pico Leto 21 Jan '15

21 Jan '15

Hi, Is there a better option for how the html formatting happens with the alert checkers? Examples are attached. I basically create a message with proper spacing, carriage returns etc. But after saving the alert (screenshot2) the formatting is disregarded. Reason for the long message is that my NOC needs step by steps instructions on how to handle something like per company policy. The email formatting also seems to take the Message field and throw it into the subject line. Shouldn't just the Name field in the alert checkers be in the Subject line of the email and then the message be included in the body? Is anyone out there doing custom email notifications or just using the default?

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Log rotation, was Re: Observium on CentOS 7
by Colin Stubbs 21 Jan '15

21 Jan '15

One note though. And this isn't just related to CentOS hence change of subject. You'll need to sort out your own log rotation, e.g. create /etc/logrotate.d/observium with something like the below if you stick with the basic Apache httpd config, /opt/observium/logs/*_log { missingok notifempty compress delaycompress sharedscripts postrotate /bin/systemctl reload httpd.service > /dev/null 2>/dev/null || true endscript } /opt/observium/logs/*.log { missingok notifempty compress delaycompress } There's been a couple of jira tickets related to it (745/872), but no template suggested in jira or added to svn that I could find, and no code to manage observium.log or update-errors.log that grep -i could find. -Colin On 15 January 2015 at 19:30, Florian Miesenberger <florian(a)miesenberger.cc> wrote: > Okay. I will try the standard CentOS/RHEL Guide. > Yeah I know the most minor changes of CentOS 7. > > Thank you Adriaan ;-) > > Greetz from Austria > Florian Miesenberger > > Am 15.01.15 um 10:21 schrieb Adriaan Smuts: > > Standard CentOS installation instruction worked for me. Some minor > changes here and there (systemctl instead of service and MariaDB instead of > MySQL). > > > > *Adriaan Smuts* > > Systems Administrator - Windows > > ------------------------------ > > *Direct Line:* > > +27 21 464 9565 > > *Reception:* > > 086 000 9500 > > *www.webafrica.co.za <http://www.webafrica.co.za/>* > > [image: Web Africa] > > > > > > > > *From:* observium [mailto:observium-bounces@observium.org > <observium-bounces(a)observium.org>] *On Behalf Of *Florian Miesenberger > *Sent:* 15 January 2015 11:18 AM > *To:* Observium Network Observation System > *Subject:* Re: [Observium] Observium on CentOS 7 > > > > Okay, cool. Thank you Guys! :-) > Does somebody has got a working Tutorial or Installationscript for CentOS > 7? > > Greetz from Austria > Florian Miesenberger > > Am 14.01.15 um 18:20 schrieb Ellery Weber: > > I am running on CentOS7 as well, and it has been working quite nicely. > > > > [image: SELCO Community Credit Union] > > [image: > https://selcotools/SignatureGenerator/SignatureGenerator_files/SignatureGen…] > > *Ellery Weber* > *Network Administrator* > SELCO Community Credit Union > Eugene – Downtown Corporate Headquarters > Phone/Fax: 541-686-5349 | Cell: 541-357-9505 | eweber(a)selco.org > *selco.org* <https://www.selco.org/> | facebook > <http://www.facebook.com/SELCOCCU> | twitter <http://twitter.com/selcoccu> > > > > > > *From:* observium [mailto:observium-bounces@observium.org > <observium-bounces(a)observium.org>] *On Behalf Of *Colin Stubbs > *Sent:* Wednesday, January 14, 2015 3:37 AM > *To:* Observium Network Observation System > *Subject:* Re: [Observium] Observium on CentOS 7 > > > > > > I'm running three instances, all on CentOS 7, no dramas. > > MySQL became MariaDB; that's about the biggest change that I can recall. > > > -Colin > > On 14 January 2015 at 21:12, Florian Miesenberger <florian(a)miesenberger.cc> > wrote: > > Hello, > > this is my first posting on a mailing list so excuse me if I do something > wrong ;-) > > My question is: > Does anybody already got Observium work on CentOS 7? > > Greetz from Austria > Florian Miesenberger > > _______________________________________________ > observium mailing list > observium(a)observium.org > http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium > > > > *This message (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of > a specific individual or entity or specific individuals or entities and may > contain information that is non-public, proprietary, privileged, > confidential, and exempt from disclosure under applicable law or may > constitute as attorney work product. If you are not the intended recipient, > you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, or > copying of this communication is strictly prohibited and may represent a > tortious interference with a confidential business relationship(s). If you > have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by > telephone and (i) permanently destroy this message if a facsimile, (ii) > permanently delete this message immediately if this is an electronic > communication, (iii) permanently destroy any electronic or printed copies > of this electronic communication.* > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > observium mailing list > > observium(a)observium.org > > http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium > > > > > _______________________________________________ > observium mailing listobservium@observium.orghttp://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium > > > > _______________________________________________ > observium mailing list > observium(a)observium.org > http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium > >

1 0

recommend power switch
by Simon Smith 20 Jan '15

20 Jan '15

Hi All, this is just an email to ask what people think about networked power supply? whats the best brand in there mind? what ones do you use? but oversally, do they work with Observium? can you monitor the currents and stuff correctly? I’m looking at upgrading our very old APC one as it doesn’t support monitoring by SNMP, and wanted to see what people have or recommend regards Simon

2 1

Integration question about smokeping
by Nate Mellendorf 19 Jan '15

19 Jan '15

While looking at the list of tools that are supported within Observium, I found this neat "patch" for Smokeping: http://jira.observium.org/browse/OBSERVIUM-1075 I'm half tempted to try and implement the proposed solution, as our support staff loves the colored graphs for packet loss. That said, I was curious if this is something you plan to implement into Observium in the near future. I ask, as I'm worried that adding this patch in before it's officially supported could break something for us down the road. Thanks in advance for your opinion on this. It will be well received and is greatly appreciated. Regards, Nate Mellendorf | Network Analyst | Netgain 720 West Saint Germain Street | St. Cloud | MN | 56301 Phone: 320.251.4700 x183 | 877.797.4700 x183 www.NetgainHosting.com<http://www.netgainhosting.com/> [cid:image003.png@01D03046.E119C1F0] ________________________________ The information contained in this email message is for the designated recipient only and may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original. Any dissemination, distribution, copying or other use of this message or any information contained within is strictly prohibited.

3 4

Custom Pages for Specific Graphs
by LCJones 15 Jan '15

15 Jan '15

Folks, We are running the subscription package of Observium. Hope this doesn't seem too lame a question after reading the Doc's/FAQ's. Perhaps and most likely, I have missed something. I understand and have created custom_traffic frontpage graphs which are handy. Is there a way to create custom pages with specifically chosen graphs? -- L.C. Jones Mikrotec Hosting/Data Center 1001 Winchester Road Lexington, KY. 40505 lcjones-(a)-mikro-data.net

1 0

distro script not detect mailcleaner
by Simon Smith 15 Jan '15

15 Jan '15

Hi All, just an update on a BUG I found I use the 2014 Community edition of Mailcleaner - http://www.mailcleaner.org/ <http://www.mailcleaner.org/> but the Disto script doesn’t detect it at all the script seems to be looking for the file - /etc/mailcleaner/etc/mailcleaner/version.def it should be looking for /usr/mailcleaner/etc/mailcleaner/version.def please can you update the SVN distro script :) regards Simon

2 2

Observium on CentOS 7
by Florian Miesenberger 15 Jan '15

15 Jan '15

Hello, this is my first posting on a mailing list so excuse me if I do something wrong ;-) My question is: Does anybody already got Observium work on CentOS 7? Greetz from Austria Florian Miesenberger

4 5

Map location problems after switching to the Pro version
by Richard Kuhns 14 Jan '15

14 Jan '15

Hello, We had been running the community version of Observium for a few weeks. I set the syslocation for each device, and when using the Google API each device appeared on the map exactly where it should. I used google instead of mapquest because when using mapquest a number of locations were wrong even though I used the exact address mapquest.com showed when I looked it up. We recently went Pro, and it's well worth the money. However, the map is no longer useful. We currently have 62 devices we're monitoring, all within a small geographic area in central Indiana around Lafayette. 61 of the 62 devices show up within a single block around our default latitude & longitude. For example, in the event log I find an entry for mulberry-sw1: 2015-01-14 09:25:00 mulberry-sw1 System Geolocation (GOOGLE) -> [40.420760, -86.890249] United States (Country), Indiana (State), Tippecanoe County (County), Lafayette (City) This is just wrong. The actual location string for this device (which has been untouched since it worked correctly for the community version) shows that it's in Mulberry, Indiana. That's even in a different county. Am I doing something wrong? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! -- Richard Kuhns <rjk(a)wintek.com> Main Number: 765-742-8428 Wintek Corporation Direct: 765-269-8541 427 N 6th Street Internet Support: 765-269-8503 Lafayette, IN 47901-2211 Consulting: 765-269-8504

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Observium RANCID best practices
by Pedrosi, Derek G. 14 Jan '15

14 Jan '15

What is the proper configuration for having Observium and RANCID on separate boxes, and still have versioning with RANCID? Currently we just mount a share from our RANCID box to Observium, this give the current configs, but not the versioning. Regards, derek

3 2

RANCID and Git mode
by krause＠rus.uni-stuttgart.de 14 Jan '15

14 Jan '15

Hi, to get the RANCID mode working on my Debian wheezy I needed to tweak the code a bit. If anyone is interested in the diff, here goes: -(snip)- --- a/html/pages/device/showconfig.inc.php +++ b/html/pages/device/showconfig.inc.php @@ -39,7 +39,9 @@ if ($_SESSION['userlevel'] >= 5) if (!$rev['count'] && is_executable($config['git'])) { $cmd_dir = escapeshellarg(dirname($device_config_file)); - $gitlogs = external_exec($config['git'].' --git-dir='.$cmd_dir.' log --pretty=format:"%h %ci" '.$cmd_file); + $git_file = escapeshellarg(basename($device_config_file)); + $git_dir = escapeshellarg(dirname($device_config_file) . '/.git'); + $gitlogs = external_exec($config['git'].' --git-dir='.$git_dir.' log --pretty=format:"%h %ci" -- '.$git_file); foreach (explode("\n", $gitlogs) as $line) { // b6989b9 2014-11-10 00:16:53 +0100 @@ -109,8 +111,10 @@ if ($_SESSION['userlevel'] >= 5) $prev_name = 'r'.$rev['prev']; break; case 'git': - $cmd_cat = $config['git'].' --git-dir='.$cmd_dir.' show '.$rev['curr'].':'.escapeshellarg(basename($device_config_file)); - $cmd_diff = $config['git'].' --git-dir='.$cmd_dir.' diff '.$rev['prev'].' '.$rev['curr'].' '.$cmd_file; + $git_file = escapeshellarg(basename($device_config_file)); + $git_dir = escapeshellarg(dirname($device_config_file) . '/.git'); + $cmd_cat = $config['git'].' --git-dir='.$git_dir.' show '.$rev['curr'].':'.$git_file; + $cmd_diff = $config['git'].' --git-dir='.$git_dir.' diff '.$rev['prev'].' '.$rev['curr'].' -- '.$git_file; $prev_name = $rev['prev']; } $device_config = external_exec($cmd_cat); -(snip)- If I didn't work around that, I'd just get the last version and no history/diff. Running the relevant git commands, I was receiving both: "fatal: Not a git repository:" and "fatal: ambiguous argument '...': unknown revision or path not in the working tree." ...and since we don't use RANCID itself, but some script that does store our configs with a *.cfg extension, I've also needed to patch: -(snip)- --- a/html/includes/functions.inc.php +++ b/html/includes/functions.inc.php @@ -1308,7 +1308,7 @@ function get_rancid_filename($hostname, { global $config; - $hostnames = array($hostname); + $hostnames = array($hostname . '.cfg'); if ($rdebug) { echo("Hostname: $hostname<br />"); } @@ -1319,6 +1319,8 @@ function get_rancid_filename($hostname, if ($shortname != $hostname) { + // FIXME: as long as RUS nmm does store with .cfg extension + $hostnames[] = $shortname . '.cfg'; $hostnames[] = $shortname; if ($rdebug) { echo("Hostname different from short hostname, looking for both<br />"); } } @@ -1326,6 +1328,8 @@ function get_rancid_filename($hostname, // Addition of a domain suffix for non-FQDN device names. if (isset($config['rancid_suffix']) && $config['rancid_suffix'] !== '') { + // FIXME: as long as RUS nmm does store with .cfg extension + $hostnames[] = $hostname . '.' . trim($config['rancid_suffix'] . '.cfg', ' .'); $hostnames[] = $hostname . '.' . trim($config['rancid_suffix'], ' .'); if ($rdebug) { echo("RANCID suffix configured, also looking for " . $hostname . '.' . trim($config['rancid_suffix'], ' .') . "<br />"); } } -(snip)- The reason is that we have a config with and without ACLs and I'm still pondering whether it'd not be better for our admins to be able to select both variants from the WebUI too. Best regards, Kilian -- Kilian Krause Netze und Kommunikationssysteme (NKS) Informations- und Kommunikationszentrum der Universität Stuttgart (IZUS) Technische Informations- und Kommunikationsdienste (TIK, ehem. RUS) Tel.: +49 (711) 685-64512 Fax.: +49 (711) 685-54512 (PC) Fax.: +49 (711) 68 23 57 Allmandring 30a 70550 Stuttgart DEUTSCHLAND

1 0

Permissions LDAP users
by fcj＠caciis.com 14 Jan '15

14 Jan '15

Hello, I use OpenLDAP to authenticate my users. Or i can grant permissions for my users in group admin but not in my group supervision. It's empty Do you have an idea ? This is my LDAP configuration $config['auth_ldap_version'] = 3; $config['auth_ldap_server'] = "192.168.10.5"; $config['auth_ldap_port'] = 389; $config['auth_ldap_starttls'] = FALSE; $config['auth_ldap_suffix'] = ",dc=exemple,dc=com"; $config['auth_ldap_prefix'] = "uid="; $config['auth_ldap_group'] = array( "cn=admins,ou=groups,dc=exemple,dc=com", "cn=supervision,ou=groups,dc=exemple,dc=com" ); $config['auth_ldap_groupbase'] = "cn=supervision,ou=groups,dc=exemple,dc=com"; $config['auth_ldap_binddn'] = "uid=binduser,dc=exemple,dc=com"; // Initial LDAP bind dn and password, leave empty for bind with user's d $config['auth_ldap_bindpw'] = "bindpasswd"; $config['auth_ldap_objectclass'] = "inetOrgPerson"; $config['auth_ldap_groupmembertype'] = "nodn"; $config['auth_ldap_groupmemberattr'] = "memberUid"; $config['auth_ldap_groups']['admins']['level'] = 10; $config['auth_ldap_groups']['supervision']['level'] = 5; Thank you.

1 0

Weathermap
by Gavin Henry 14 Jan '15

14 Jan '15

Hi all, Found this http://blog.best-practice.se/2014/07/using-php-weathermap-with-observium.ht… Really handy! -- Kind Regards, Gavin Henry.

2 1

Alert Severity
by lom＠digitelitalia.com 14 Jan '15

14 Jan '15

Hello to everyone, when I create a new alarms I have only Critical on field Severity. How to add new levels? Inside database, inside config file or where? digitel Ing. Lorenzo Mainardi Via della Fortezza 6 - 50129 Firenze <http://www.digitelitalia.com/> www.digitelitalia.com - 800 901 669 Tel +39 055 4624933 Fax +39 055 4624 947 lom(a)digitelitalia.com <mailto:lom@digitelitalia.com>

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Can Observium be set to not bulk get on SNMP
by John Brown 13 Jan '15

13 Jan '15

Is there a way to have Observium for a particular host/device not do a SNMP bulk get ?

6 9

Problem with traffic accounting system.
by Gabriel 13 Jan '15

13 Jan '15

Hello, We turned on a billing mechanism in the config.php: $config['enable_billing'] = 1 and now we can see „Traffic Accounting” in Ports menu, but there is A blank screen and 500 error in the apache log. Any idea what could go wrong?

3 6

Observium Pro SVN Access
by Stephen 12 Jan '15

12 Jan '15

Hello Everyone, Can anyone point me to how to get access to SVN Pro versions. I have now paid however still nothing at all in my mailbox and I am starting to wonder why ? Stephen

1 0

Observium Pro purchase
by Ben Maschke 12 Jan '15

12 Jan '15

Hi guys, how long does it take to get the login details? We ordered it last Thirsty and still waiting for the details. Cheers :) -- Ben Maschke System Engineer Shazam Entertainment Limited 26-28 Hammersmith Grove London W6 7HA shazam.com Get Shazam on iOS <https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/shazam/id284993459?mt=8> & Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shazam.android> <http://facebook.com/shazam> <http://www.twitter.com/shazam> <https://plus.google.com/+shazam/posts> <http://instagram.com/shazam/> <http://www.linkedin.com/company/shazam-entertainment> Please consider the environment before printing this document This e-mail and its contents are strictly private and confidential. It must not be disclosed, distributed or copied without our prior consent. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify Shazam Entertainment immediately on: +44 (0) 20 8742 6820 and then delete it from your system. Please note that the information contained herein shall additionally constitute Confidential Information for the purposes of any NDA between the recipient/s and Shazam Entertainment. Shazam Entertainment Limited is incorporated in England and Wales under company number 3998831 and its registered office is at 26-28 Hammersmith Grove, London W6 7HA.

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Monitoring a Geist Smart PDU....
by cwbshaw . 11 Jan '15

11 Jan '15

Hi.... I have been using Observium for a while now and really like it.... Recently I added a Geist smart PDU to monitor it.....it does seem to recognise it, but all it seems to monitor is various network stats. I had been hoping it might automatically begin monitoring voltage, current, watts etc. for both the PDU as a whole and even if possible its individual outlets. It does recognise it as a Geist PDU and the inventory for the unit does correctly show it as having 24 controlled power outlets. However, there is no 'Health' tab and it doesn't seem to graph or monitor any of the electrical stats for the PDU or its outlets. I was just wondering if maybe I have done something wrong, or it it that currently the Geist PDU is not fully supported and that monitoring a Geist PDU this way is a work in progress? If it is still a work in progress, I'd be willing to have a go at getting (or helping to get) Observium to support monitoring the PDU fully, but I'm a bit lost as to where to begin. I know a reasonable amount about PHP and SNMP, but am no expert. Thanx in advance for any help. Chris Bradshaw.

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Re: [Observium] observium Digest, Vol 54, Issue 37
by Nate Mellendorf 11 Jan '15

11 Jan '15

@ Colin Stubbs Agreed. We didn't run a full PoC either with Observium. We deployed it and watched to see if anyone found it useful or not. It wasn't long before it was running neck and neck with our production platform, which was quite unexpected for us. We (eventually) have/had no problem paying the $200 USD out of our team budget, as production software far exceeded the extremely low cost of Observium. As you noted earlier, If the demo site included all the features of the paid subscription; I think that would be enough to show free users what they're missing. (If it's configured as a full PoC as well, it should make selling the service to their team / management that much easier.) Side Note: Adam and the team work hard on this project, so the current payment plan is quite understandable and is to be expected. Even if you add on the support element for Observium, it's still far cheaper than most paid subscriptions.(Solarwinds, What's Up Gold) (It's something like $17 USD a month for full device monitoring and statistics on all configured devices. That's crazy awesome!) Nate Mellendorf | NETWORK ANALYST | Netgain 720 West Saint Germain Street | St. Cloud | MN | 56301 Phone: 320.251.4700 x183 | 877.797.4700 x183 www.NetgainHosting.com The information contained in this email message is for the designated recipient only and may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original. Any dissemination, distribution, copying or other use of this message or any information contained within is strictly prohibited. -----Original Message----- From: observium [mailto:observium-bounces@observium.org] On Behalf Of observium-request(a)observium.org Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2015 1:54 AM To: observium(a)observium.org Subject: observium Digest, Vol 54, Issue 37 Send observium mailing list submissions to observium(a)observium.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to observium-request(a)observium.org You can reach the person managing the list at observium-owner(a)observium.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of observium digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: cheap much? re: trial (Jacob Gardiner) 2. Re: cheap much? re: trial (Colin Stubbs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 10:38:34 +1100 From: Jacob Gardiner <jacob(a)jacobgardiner.com> To: Adam Armstrong <adama(a)memetic.org>, Observium Network Observation System <observium(a)observium.org> Subject: Re: [Observium] cheap much? re: trial Message-ID: <etPan.54b1b7fb.2ae8944a.376@JG-MBP> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" There?s more out there than just RedHat.? You?re just being a bit ignorant in that regards.? --? Jacob Gardiner @jacobgardiner On 11 January 2015 at 9:27:23 am, Adam Armstrong (adama(a)memetic.org) wrote: Well, we already proved this stupid "mek ur munies from support herpderp" belief common amongst open source zealots is abject nonsense. We make more money from support as a commercial operation than we ever did as pure open source, because businesses value a commercial product more than a free one, and are more likely to buy support for it. In 7 years of being open source we made maybe $1000 in voluntary donations, more than half from one person (and I'm pretty sure he drunk-donated every time). This is demonstrable fact, and is the primary reason were now commercial. RedHat are the exception that proves the rule. The fact that no one can think of anyone else (no, Oracle don't count) who makes money should be enough to demonstrate that open source doesn't pay, but for some reason people are still convinced it does. I don't know. It's like the software equivalent of trickle-down economics. No amount of evidence can sway ideologues. Adam. Sent with AquaMail for Android http://www.aqua-mail.com On 10 January 2015 13:46:02 Tom Laermans <tom.laermans(a)powersource.cx> wrote: Sorry, that's the GPL-centric view that does not cover world reality at all. Also, they already see the whole thing. That's the part (90%+!) they're supporting by sending money. The bonus they get should not be the reason to support the project to begin with. We offer trial licenses at 150 GBP. As a bonus you can test it for an entire year. Lastly, I'm a bit confused why you think something needs to be GPL to be able to modify the source firstly, and the contribute the changes back second... Tom On 10/01/2015 13:15, Jacob Gardiner wrote: Because they don?t give a shit about how you license it. As long as it works and you?ll fix it if it breaks. If you GPL the full version and provide ongoing SLA & upgrades for the software, it wont make much of a difference. Holding back features between versions actually widens the gap between getting trial users converted to fully paid users, Mainly because the guys that try your software out want to see the whole thing, and not just a subset of features when they trial it.? Besides, how do you think organisations that have development budgets contribute to products if they?re not GPL? More often than not, the requirement for ?open source? software within a company is because they want their developers to be able to add and submit features back to the product. ? ? On 10 January 2015 at 3:50:27 pm, Adam Armstrong (adama(a)memetic.org) wrote: I'm not really terribly cool with commercial organisations benefiting from the costlessness of open source software. Why should someone who'll pay Cisco $50k for a router get my work for free? ? _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium(a)observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium(a)observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium(a)observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium

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