Change the default Matching Criteria (Name) in the Client Access Settings Group for Polling and Thresholds so that it persists through domain restarts

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

"Name" is the default Matching Criteria in the CLI Access Group on the Device Access Tab in Smarts IP Polling and Thresholds. 
This article explains how to change this default criteria so that the change persists/holds after the Smarts IP domain is restarted.

The following conditions, events and system behaviors may be observed with this issue:

• The default Matching Criteria (Name) that was removed from the CLI Access Group Settings on the Device Access Tab in Smarts IP Polling and Thresholds is reset back to the default setting after the Smarts IP domain is restarted.
• New element added to replace the default Matching Criteria does not remain after the Smarts IP domain is restarted
• Members in CLI Access Group with newly added elements are lost after the Smarts IP domain is restarted, and "Name" returns as default Matching Criteria.

Environment

Smarts 10.1.X / 2.X

Cause

The default setting for Matching Criteria is configured in the file:

<BASEDIR>/smarts/conf/discovery/npm-settings.conf 

When the Smarts IP domain is restarted, this configuration is loaded and overrides any changes previously made in Polling and Thresholds.

Resolution

To prevent the default Matching Criteria setting from overriding changes made to CLI Access Group Settings, do the following:

• From the <BASEDIR>/smarts/bin directory use sm_edit to open the npm-settings.conf file. This will create a copy of this file in the local folder.

sm_edit ../conf/discovery/npm-settings.conf

• Comment out the *match Name ~* line in the npm-settings.conf file. With the change made, the file should look like the following:

################### NPM Security Settings ####################
security category ICIM_UnitaryComputerSystem Device Access Configurations
match IsManaged TRUE

config CLI Access Group
*match Name ~*
setting CLI_AccessSetting

• Save and close the npm-settings.conf file.
  
  
• With this configuration change, any changes that you make in the in the Matching Criteria for the CLI Access Group under the Device Access Configurations in Polling and Thresholds will persist after restarting the Smarts IP domain.

Additional Information

This will not impact Smarts in any way other than updating the Matching Criteria. You will see an informational log message like the following after the domain restart:

September 6, 2013 1:08:28 PM EDT +102ms] t@1147054400 InCharge Framework
ASL_MSG-*-ASLP-icf/init-settings.asl: Setting 'CLI_AccessSetting' defined outside of configuration.