<!--
- contents.inc
- Created by pjm2 14/10/2000
- Last edited 16/01/2001
+ $Author$
+ $Id$
-->
<table border="0" width="500">
<td>
<font size="2" face="arial,sans-serif">
- <center><h3>Current Status</h3></center>
+ <center><h3>Project News</h3></center>
<p align="justify">
- <a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-reports-raptor-load15.gif" width="100" height="107" align="left"></a>
- All i-scream components now function to initial
- design parameters and our system is regarded to be complete.
- <b><a href="documentation/">Documentation</a></b> is available to assist third party programmers
- in producing Hosts for use with the i-scream server.
- Our progress during the project can be found in the meeting minutes.
- Code is viewable via <a href="cvs.shtml">CVS</a>.
+ <b>Wednesday 7 May 2003</b><br><br>
+ We've <a href="http://www.freshmeat.net/projects/libstatgrab">
+ released</a> libstatgrab 0.4 as an individual product. You can
+ download it <a href="http://snapshots.i-scream.org/libstatgrab">
+ here</a>. This release is functionally complete, but lacks
+ documentation. We hope to rectify this in the next release.
+ </p>
+
+ <p align="justify">
+ <b>Tuesday 4 February 2003</b><br><br>
+ Over the coming week we will be making snapshot builds of the
+ i-scream central monitoring system from the CVS repository.
+ These builds will have quite a few changes from the downloads
+ currently available (a document detailing them will be
+ released later on), so please give them a whirl. We would be
+ grateful if you <a href="mailto:dev@i-scream.org">contacted</a>
+ us with any questions or bugs.<br><br>
+ The downloads will be available on our snapshot server :-<br>
+ <a href="http://snapshots.i-scream.org/">
+ http://snapshots.i-scream.org/</a>.
</p>
<p align="justify">
- <a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-winhost-main.gif" width="100" height="62" align="right"></a>
-
- The i-scream Distributed Central Monitoring System Reports
- are now visible on the web. If you are <b>not</b> a local user, then you may
- view some of the output in the <b><a href="screenshots/">screen shots</a></b> section or you may view some
- static example content on the <a href="reports/"><b>Reports Demo</b></a> pages.
- You may view the latest information about each machine, historical 24-hour
- reports and alerts for each machine. Our own i-scream server is running constantly,
- along with several hosts to enable plenty of data harvesting. If you would
- like your i-scream web reports to be linked from this site, then please email us
- at <a href="mailto:dev@i-scream.org.uk">dev@i-scream.org.uk</a>
+ <b>Saturday 1 June 2002</b><br><br>
+ Work has now been finished on a new ihost written in C. This has
+ been in the pipeline for a long time, and we're glad to finally
+ see an efficient native host! Credit goes to our new developer
+ <a href="/who.shtml">Pete</a>. Until we update the downloads
+ pages you can download the new ihost
+ <a href="http://snapshots.i-scream.org/ihost/">
+ here</a>.
</p>
<p align="justify">
- <a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-conient-main.gif" width="100" height="107" align="left"></a>
- Our current host development allows us to pass machine statistics
- to our distributed filter arrangement, which then processes the
- data and stores it for later use. An example of such use is the
- historical report generator which produces graphs of machine
- usage over periods of time. A real-time
- client is also available (Conient) and alert information can be
- displayed to the public via dynamic web pages.
+ <b>Tuesday 21 May 2002</b><br><br>
+ We've finally put the finishing touches to the new
+ <a href="http://rrdtool.eu.org">RRDtool</a> based graphing system.
+ It's working well, and has done away with the MySQL database
+ backend which took up far too many resources. This new system
+ generates the graphs in a more realtime nature, allowing more
+ flexible graphs to be generated. This is currently only available
+ through <a href="http://cvs.i-scream.org/cms/source/reports/rrdgraphing/">
+ CVS</a>.
+ </p>
+
+ <p align="justify">
+ <b>Saturday 18 May 2002</b><br><br>
+ The i-scream central monitoring system is now <a href="/license.shtml">
+ licensed</a> under the GNU Public License. We are currently working
+ to make full downloads, including source, available on this site.
+ </p>
+
+ <p align="justify">
+ <b>Thursday 7 Feb 2002</b><br><br>
+ The alerting section of the i-scream central monitoring system
+ now makes full use of an externally developed IRC bot for it's IRC
+ connectivity. To find out more about this IRC bot, please visit
+ the author's website at <a href="http://www.jibble.org">
+ http://www.jibble.org</a>.
+ </p>
+
+ <p align="justify">
+ <b>Tuesday 8 Jan 2002</b><br><br>
+ Java ACL (Access Control List) code has been added to the util
+ package of the i-scream server. This code will ultimately allow
+ the server to be more secure when exposed to the Internet. More
+ details can be found <a href="http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/tdb/#acl">
+ here</a> on the author's website.
+ </p>
+
+ <p> </p>
+ <center><h3>About i-scream</h3></center>
+
+ <p align="justify">
+ <a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-alerter-email.gif" width="100" height="107" align="left"></a>
+ Details of the i-scream central monitoring system can be found
+ on the <b><a href="features.shtml">features and overview</a></b> page.
+ A variety of <b><a href="screenshots">screen shots</a></b> from the
+ system show some of the key features in use. The <b><a href="reports">reports demo</a></b>
+ page provides a static example of what the i-scream reports (alerts,
+ historical graphs, and live data) could look like on a production system.
</p>
<p align="justify">
- <a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-alerter-email.gif" width="100" height="107" align="right"></a>
- The latest builds of the i-scream Distributed Central Monitoring System
- are now available for <b><a href="/downloads/">download</a></b> from this
- website. To assist in our addition of features to the system, we
- would be extremely grateful to receive feedback from anybody who has
- any comments about the system. You may email the development team
- at <a href="mailto:dev@i-scream.org.uk">dev@i-scream.org.uk</a>
+ <a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-conient-main.gif" width="100" height="107" align="right"></a>
+ The latest source code is available in the <b><a href="cvs.shtml">CVS</a></b>
+ repository, with binary downloads on the downloads page. The
+ <b><a href="documentation">documentation</a></b> page has details of
+ installation, use and maintenance for the end user and developer.
+ We value feedback and comments from you, so please drop us an e-mail
+ to <a href="mailto:dev@i-scream.org">dev@i-scream.org</a>.
+ </p>
+
+ <p> </p>
+ <center><h3>Current Work</h3></center>
+
+ <p align="justify">
+ <b>Extending monitoring facilites</b><br><br>
+ <a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-reports-raptor-load15.gif" width="100" height="107" align="left"></a>
+ Work is continuing, in conjunction with the new ihost, to extend
+ the range of i-scream's monitoring. Currently we are adding new
+ features to more accurately monitoring memory and swap usage,
+ along with more disk statistics. We are also planning to improve
+ the rather basic service monitors which are currently in place.
+ There are also many more subtle changes that need to be made to
+ improve the reliability and usefulness of i-scream's monitoring.
</p>
+ <p align="justify">
+ <b>Server security</b><br><br>
+ Security was something mostly overlooked in the original stage
+ of this project (due to the academic nature of the work). However,
+ once in production use this has become an issue, and is being
+ addressed. Initially the plan is to lock down the external points
+ of access (TCP & UDP) in the server to specific hosts. In the
+ longer term, encryption of data would be nice, but would take a
+ lot more time and work.
+ </p>
+
+ <p align="justify">
+ <b>Testing and Development</b><br><br>
+ <a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-winhost-main.gif" width="100" height="62" align="right"></a>
+ The i-scream system is being tested and developed within the
+ Univeristy of Kent Computer Science department by the Systems
+ Group. This has led to many bug fixes and minor feature
+ enhancements, and will hopefully help to aid the long term
+ development of the system.
+ </p>
+
<p> </p>
- <center><h3>Project Completion</h3></center>
+ <center><h3>Project History</h3></center>
<p align="justify">
<a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-reports-raptor-latest-misc.gif" width="100" height="104" align="left"></a>
The i-scream Distributed Central Monitoring System started off as
- a final year project for a group of <a href="http://www.cs.ukc.ac.uk">Computer Science</a> students at
- the <a href="http://www.ukc.ac.uk">University of Kent at Canterbury</a>, UK.
- The project deadline was 4pm on 29th March 2001. Most of the group
- met very early that morning to compile the project into five
- lever arch folders. The project, consisting of source code, user,
- maintenance and other documents, was handed in at 3pm. The CVS
- repository was tagged to signify the project's completion, however,
- the project is still being developed by the <a href="acknowledgements.shtml">core development team</a>
- as we have found the system to be very useful in practice. We would
- love to hear of ideas for extra features that we may include in the
- next builds.
+ a final year project for a group of <a href="http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk">
+ Computer Science</a> students at the <a href="http://www.kent.ac.uk">
+ University of Kent at Canterbury</a>, UK. The project was completed at
+ 4pm on 29 March 2001. It consisted of five lever-arch folders containing
+ mostly source code and documentation. The CVS repository was tagged to
+ signify this even, however, the project is still being developed by the
+ <a href="acknowledgements.shtml">core development team</a>.
</p>
<p align="justify">
was aimed at the UKC Computer Science department, and as such
we believed that a demonstration to the "customer" was important. The
feedback from our demonstation was more positive than we had
- anticipated. We believe that the system may now be of great
- interest to anybody who wishes to monitor a number of machines
- on their network using a central configuration.
+ anticipated. We believe that the system may now be of interest
+ to anybody who wishes to monitor a number of machines on their
+ network using a central configuration. The i-scream central
+ monitoring system is now being used by the UKC Computer Science
+ department, and their feedback is being used to further improve
+ the product.
</p>
- <p> </p>
- <center><h3>Naming History</h3></center>
-
<p align="justify">
<a href="screenshots/"><img border="0" src="screenshots/thumbnail-conient-config.gif" width="100" height="48" align="left"></a>
The name <i>i-scream</i> arose from a meeting whereupon one member
Copyright issues immediately ruled out anything involving Mr Whippy,
so we had to settle for <i>i-scream</i>. And thus, we were left with a cunning
play on words - it still sounded like <i>ice cream</i>, yet also
- served as a functional decription of our system - namely, one which
+ served as a functional description of our system - namely, one which
screams at somebody if something has gone wrong...
</p>
<p align="justify">
<p> </p>
- <center><h3>Searching</h3></center>
+ <center><h3>Searching i-scream</h3></center>
<!-- Search Google -->
<center>
- <FORM method=GET action=http://www.google.com/custom>
- <TABLE bgcolor=#FFFFFF cellspacing=0 border=0>
- <tr valign=top><td>
- <A HREF=http://www.google.com/search>
- <IMG SRC=http://www.google.com/logos/Logo_40wht.gif border=0 ALT=Google align=middle width="128" height="53"></A>
- </td>
- <td>
- <font face=arial,sans-serif size=-1><input type=hidden name=domains value="i-scream.org.uk"><input type=radio name=sitesearch value="i-scream.org.uk" checked> search i-scream <input type=radio name=sitesearch value=""> search google </font><br>
- <INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=35 maxlength=255 value="">
- <INPUT type=submit name=sa VALUE="Search">
- <INPUT type=hidden name=cof VALUE="T:#000066;LW:502;ALC:#3333cc;L:http://www.i-scream.org.uk/i-scream.gif;LC:#0000ff;LH:37;BGC:#ffffff;AH:left;VLC:#3333cc;AWFID:d646a9fd69e7d9cb;">
- </td></tr></TABLE>
- </FORM>
+ <FORM method=GET action=http://www.google.com/custom>
+ <TABLE bgcolor=#FFFFFF cellspacing=0 border=0>
+ <tr>
+ <td valign="middle">
+ <A HREF=http://www.google.com/search>
+ <IMG SRC=http://www.google.com/logos/Logo_40wht.gif border=0 ALT=Google align=middle width="128" height="53"></A>
+ </td>
+ <td valign="middle">
+ <input type=hidden name=domains value="i-scream.org">
+ <input type=hidden name=sitesearch value="i-scream.org">
+ <INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=35 maxlength=255 value="">
+ <INPUT type=submit name=sa VALUE="Search">
+ <INPUT type=hidden name=cof VALUE="T:#000066;LW:502;ALC:#3333cc;L:http://www.i-scream.org/i-scream.gif;LC:#0000ff;LH:37;BGC:#ffffff;AH:left;VLC:#3333cc;AWFID:d646a9fd69e7d9cb;">
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </TABLE>
+ </FORM>
</center>
<!-- Search Google -->