System and method for providing autosupport for a security system

• US 7,992,055 B1
• Filed: 11/07/2008
• Issued: 08/02/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Agarwal, Gaurav, Iwahashi, Ryan
• Primary Examiner(s): Baderman; Scott T
• Assistant Examiner(s): Patel; Kamini
• Application Number:
  US12/267,357
• Time in Patent Office: 998 Days
• Field of Search: 714/48
• US Class Current: 714/48
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/554 involving event detection and direct action

Abstract

A system and method for providing autosupport functionality to a security system is provided. An event generator generates an event and passes the newly generated event to a system log (syslog) module and marks the event as being associated with an autosupport facility. The syslog module then forwards the new event to an event router, which determines that the new event is associated with the autosupport facility and should be forwarded to an autosupport daemon. The autosupport daemon examines the current state of its queue and determines whether a free slot exists for the newly received event notification. Should no free slot exist, the autosupport daemon logs the event with no further action being performed. However, should a free slot exist, the autosupport daemon initiates a child process to notify a pre-configured set of recipients of the event.

Claims

1. A method for providing autosupport functionality to a security system, the method comprising:

generating, by an event generator, an event indicating an error condition;

passing, by the event generator, the event to an event router executing on the security system identifying that the event is associated with an autosupport facility;

routing, by the event router, the event to an autosupport module executing on the security system, wherein the event is not logged into a system log prior to being routed to the autosupport module;

determining, by the autosupport module, if a free queue of a plurality of queues is available to process the event;

in response to determining that the free queue of the plurality of queues is available to process the event, utilizing the free queue of the plurality of queues to process the event; and

logging the event in response to determining that the event is unable to be processed.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the event comprises transmitting a message to at least one recipient.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the at least one recipient comprises a vendor support system.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising passing the event to a system log module external to the security system.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising passing the event to a system log module executing on the security system.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the event identifies the error condition.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the error condition comprises a misconfiguration of the security system.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein determining that the event is unable to be processed further comprises:

determining that the free queue of the plurality of queues is not available to process the event.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the event comprises sending an alert to an administrator.

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing executable program instructions executed by a processor, comprising:

program instructions that generate an event indicating an error condition associated with a security system;

program instructions that pass the event to an event router executing on the security system identifying that the event is associated with an autosupport facility;

program instructions that route the event to an autosupport module executing on the security system;

program instructions that determine if a free queue of a plurality of queues is available to process the event;

program instructions that process the event utilizing the free queue in response to determining that the free queue of the plurality of queues is available to process the event; and

program instructions that log the event in response to determining that the free queue of the plurality of queues is not available to process the event.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 10 further comprising program instructions that transmit a message to one or more recipients.

12. A system for providing autosupport functionality to a computer, the system comprising:

one or more event generators configured to transmit an event message to a system log module, the system log module configured to pass, without logging the event message in a log file, the event message to an event router configured to detect a type of event message and in response to detecting that the type of event message is an autosupport type, forward the event message to an autosupport daemon, that comprises a plurality of queues, for processing, wherein the event message is logged in the log file if the event message cannot be processed by the autosupport daemon, wherein the autosupport daemon is configure to determine whether a free queue of the plurality of queues exists, and is further configured, in response to determining that the free queue exists, to launch a child process to process the event message.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the child process is configured to send an electronic mail message to one or more predefined recipients.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein the child process is configured to page one or more recipients.

15. The system of claim 12 wherein the one or more event generators are further configured to associate the event message with an autosupport facility of the system log module.

16. The system of claim 12 wherein the system log module comprises the event router.

17. The system of claim 12 wherein the autosupport daemon is configured to log the event in a system log.

18. A method for providing autosupport functionality to a computer, the method comprising:

detecting, by an event generator, an occurrence of an error condition associated with the computer;

generating an event identifying the detected error condition;

passing the event to an event router identifying that the event is associated with an autosupport facility;

in response to determining that the event is associated with the autosupport facility, routing, by the event router, the event to an autosupport module without logging the event in a log file;

determining, by the autosupport module, whether a resource is free for processing the event;

in response to determining that the resource is not free, logging the event; and

in response to determining that the resource is free, processing, using the free resource, the event.