OS/2 Shareware BBS: 11 Util/11-Util.zip/monitr01.zip/readme.txt

Text File | 1999-02-22 | 14KB | 315 lines

                  MonitorDaemon v0.1
                  by Nenad Milenkovic


What is this?

   This is simple and effective resource monitoring add-on for
   excelent monitoring utility called Pipe Monitor (part of
   SysBar/2 package). It uses practicaly no CPU power (it sits
   idle most of the time) and uses as much of RAM as it's needed
   to open CMD.EXE shell to start the script (about 500k in
   total, but most of it is idle and swaped away as soon as other
   application requires RAM).

   It's implemented as a backgound process (daemon) written in
   Rexx that works as a supplement to monitoring utility from
   SysBar/2 package. It uses Rexx interfaces provided by IBM's
   Theseus/2 memory analysis program and Stefan Milcke's StHWMon
   motherboard monitoring application.

   It can be used as a template for adding more Rexx based
   real-time reporting to SysBar/2's Pipe monitor.


What is SysBar/2?

   SysBar/2 is a great set of small but powerfill utilites made
   by Dmitry I. Platonoff with some help and cooperation from
   others. Aside from "nothing but the look" digital clock and
   nifty (and soon to be very powerfull) CD player it contains
   two really usefull components: "Task Switcher" and "Pipe
   Monitor".

   The first one alows you one-click task switching, minimizing
   and restoring windows and closing applications, but also
   filtering of task-list and it's own content. It allows you to
   directly access "system" menus of every application from it's
   icon and it's very customizable in it's look and behaviour.

   The second one (Pipe Monitor) is the one you need for Monitor
   Daemon to work. It started as pipe listener (it would listen
   for OS/2 named pipes, used for inter-process communication,
   and displaying that traffic), but during the time author(s)
   added more and more functionality, tranforming it into very
   usefull monitoring application. It now has "integrated" CPU
   load meter, free RAM monitor, IP traffic measures, etc. It can
   also show free space on HDs, number and size of specified
   files, battery status, number of new mails (POP3), system
   uptime, number of processes, threads, etc.

   However, one of it's most interesting features remains named
   pipe listener. Writing to named pipe under OS/2 is very easy,
   doing it from your own application or even command shell (OS/2
   treats pipes like files in \PIPE direcectory). Authors of
   web/ftp server could easily add monitoring and status
   reporting with simple writing to pre-defined pipes in
   SysBar/2's Pipe Monitor. By providing Rexx interfaces to their
   programs they'll allow others to do the same.

   That is exactly what Monitor Daemon does.


Do I need Monitor Daemon?

   No. It's main purpose is to show you how easily you can bring
   monitoring capabilities to your OS/2 Desktop for those
   functions SysBar/2 has no native support and/or are not
   supported (exposed) by OS/2 by default.

   However, if you need excatly what it does, you can use it
   "out-of-the-zip". It will (with the help of DLLs from other
   programs) show current temperature of CPU (provided you have
   supported motherboard) and _actual_ usage of swap file (how
   much of prealocated swap space is _actually_ used). It can
   help you prevent "burning" of your CPU or motherboard because
   of fan mailfunction or OS/2 dying because of overflowed swap
   space. It can also help you determine the optimal prealocated
   swap size, the one that will be mostly used and rarely grow.

   I use it in it's current form and works OK for me, but you can
   add more functions to it, simmilar ones or something
   completely different. It's good idea to add functions to it
   rather than implementing your own monitoring services in order
   to avoid overhead of starting multiple processes.


What do I need to run Monitor Daemon?

    You will need one of two programs (or both of them) it uses
    to see any benefit from Monitor Daemon. Those are:

    Theseus/2 from IBM

         Theseus/2 is OS/2 memory analisys program from IBM. It's
         not supported ("for internal use unly"), but it
         reportedly works OK and it's widely used (mostly by
         programmers and system administrators) to determine
         memory usage, memory leaks, RAM requirements for
         system's typical usage patterns, etc. In order to access
         low-level informations about other running processes it
         requires support device driver to be installed (OS/2
         protects it's processes one from each other). Once that
         device driver (THESEUS2.SYS, which runs in privileged
         mode) is active, you can use it's GUI to access all it's
         functions. However, it has rather clumsy and
         non-intiutive user interface, which is not sutable for
         real-time monitoring of limited number of interesting
         data. Good thing is that Theseus/2 (named after Greek
         mythology hero who killed Minotaur and found his way out
         of Labyrinth) is flexible and "open" - you can access
         it's features from your own programs. In addition to
         programmers library intended for compiled languages, it
         offers Rexx interface, which I used from Monitor Daemon
         in order to get information about how much swap space is
         _really_ used in alocated swap file.

         Theseus/2 v2.01m is available from Hobbes at the moment
         of this writing, and should work with both Warp 3 and
         Warp 4. I expect that IBM will provide simmilar utility
         for upcoming Warp 5 (Aurora), but from what I heard,
         this version doesn't work with it (Aurora has some
         serious changes in kernel). Maybe it will work with GA
         version.

         Please reffer to instructions included with Theseus/2
         for full installation, but note that you will only need
         THESEUS2.SYS installed and THESEUS0.DLL available
         somewhere in the LIBPATH in order to use Monitor Daemon.

    StHWMon from Stefan Milcke

         StHWMon is a monitoring utility that gathers data from
         on-board chips that provide information about hardware
         "health" and status. Most modern motherboards include
         that functionality, and most of them include only
         Windows versions of monitoring tools.

         StHWMon is a PM (GUI) program that brings that functions
         to OS/2 Desktop. It displays current temperatures of CPU
         and motherboard, rotating speed of CPU and power supply
         fans, current voltage of CPU (core and external),
         motherboard and devices power supply.

         StHWMon allows configuring of "correction values" for
         all those data, althogh this is really needed only for
         temperature monitors. This is required because StHWMon
         is intended for "generic" use and not for any specific
         motherboard or system. Utilities shipped with those
         equipment usually have presetted those correction
         values, so you must compare data shown by StHWMon (which
         is actual data read from monitoring HW logic) with data
         shown by those supplied utilities or shown by BIOS setup
         utility. When you determine those correction values,
         simply enter them into StHWMon configuration and it will
         provide the for both PM (GUI) version and Rexx interface
         (through INI).

         You can run StHWMon all the time, but I beleive that CPU
         temperature is the only one that really needs constant
         attention. Therefore, I implemented only that in my
         Daemon.


How to install it?

         Simply: unzip and run. However, it will require some
         additional work in order to achieve intended
         functionality.

         0. Prerequisites

         Have SysBar/2, Theseus/2 and StHWMon properly installed.
         Make sure you have rebooted in order for THESEUS2.SYS
         device driver to be loaded.

         1. Making Monitor Daemon work

         The main issue is that Monitro Daemon needs access to
         Rexx "support" DLLs from aforementioned applications in
         order to work. Those DLLs must reside somewhere in
         LIBPATH (settable in CONFIG.SYS). There are few ways of
         doing that, like:

             - adding Theseus and StHWMon directories to LIBPAH
             - coping required DLLs to \MYDLLs directroy, or any
               other place you keep those frequently needed
               libraries (like EMX, VROBJ, etc.)

         Personally, I copied THESEUS0.DLL to c:\MYDLLs, but run
         MonitorD.CMD from the directory where I installed
         StHWMon. This is because STHEALTH.DLL is not the only
         DLL needed for StHWMon's Rexx interface -- that one
         needs and accesses some others for itself. Since StHWMon
         is updated rather frequently, it was bad idea to keep
         those DLLs in two different places, resulting in
         conflicts and problems. Theseus is not so frequently
         updated, and has only one DLL for it's Rexx interface.

         2. Configuring SysBar/2

         You must configure SysBar/2's Pipe Monitor to expect,
         accept and display data it receives from Monitor Daemon.

         Configuring "CPU Temperature" cell:

             - right-click with your mouse on Pipe Monitor and
               select "Properties"
             - go to "Cells" page of "Properties" notebook

             - click on "New" button
             - from "Type" drop-box select "pipe listener"
             - make sure that "Enable cell" check-box is
               activated
             - in the "Name" entry-field enter: "CPU Temperature"
             - select color for this cell from "Color" drop-box
             - in "Prefix" entry-field enter: " t="
             - in "Empty" entry-field enter: "ERROR"
             - select "Expire timeout" check-box and enter 100 in
               "seconds" number field
             - in "Pipe" entry-field enter: "\PIPE\tempmon"

             - go to "Programs" page of cell's "Properties"
               notebook
             - in "On mouse double-click" entry-field enter full
               path of your StHWMon application, for example:
               "D:\util\StHWMon\StHWMon.exe"
             - make sure that "Enable" check-box is activated

             - select "OK" button
             - close "Properties" notebook


         Configuring "Swap file size" cell:

             - right-click with your mouse on Pipe Monitor and
               select "Properties"
             - go to "Cells" page of "Properties" notebook

             - click on "New" button
             - from "Type" drop-box select "pipe listener"
             - make sure that "Enable cell" check-box is
               activated
             - in the "Name" entry-field enter: "Swap file size
               (used)"
             - select color for this cell from "Color" drop-box
             - in "Prefix" entry-field enter: " Swp: "
             - in "Empty" entry-field enter: "ERROR"
             - select "Expire timeout" check-box and enter 100 in
               "seconds" number field
             - in "Pipe" entry-field enter: "\PIPE\swapmon"

             - go to "Programs" page of cell's "Properties"
               notebook
             - in "On mouse double-click" entry-field enter full
               path of your StHWMon application, for example:
               "D:\util\theseus\THESEUS2.exe"
             - make sure that "Enable" check-box is activated

             - select "OK" button
             - close "Properties" notebook

         3. Making sure Monitor Daemon is started on system
            startup

         You can start Monitor Daemon from any startup folder or
         STARTUP.CMD file. I have made "Program Object" for it
         and put that object into XFolder's "Enhanced Startup"
         folder. Once you are sure that Monitor Daemon works OK,
         you can detach it and forget about it's existence.

         4. Stopping Monitor Daemon

         To stop Monitor Daemon just press Ctrl-C in it's window
         or close the window itself. If you use some enhanced
         shoutdown procedure, you can mark Monitor Daemon's task
         as safe to kill without prompting first.


Conclusion

         If this program or any other that it requires ruins your
         computer, house or fammily, it's your own fault. Next
         time don't use non-MS software on non-MS operating
         system, especially not on dead operating systems such as
         OS/2. Don't mess with zombies, daemons or any other
         creature out of this world and practice safe hex.

         But don't forget why are you using OS/2 at the first
         place: because it works the way you want it to work.


Price

         It's free, off course, but if you use it or like it, I
         would appreciate if you let me know and tell me where
         have you downloaded it from. My e-mail address is below.


Contact

         If you have any questions, suggestions, donations or
         marriage offerings you can reach me via e-mail:

         [e-mail].

         Please use "Monitor Daemon" inside your subject line so
         your message can be properly processed by my mail
         filters and redirectors.

         Good luck.


                                              Nenad Milenkovic