[JDEV] help, using jabber to transmit custom xml
Mike Snitzer
msnitzer at plogic.com
Thu Oct 11 16:58:54 CDT 2001
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Preface =)
This email is long; but asks many questions that I'm sure others may
have. I want to use jabber to transmit my custom xml to other jabber
clients that will decide what to do with the custom xml, I need to know if
I'm trying to make a square peg fit in a circular hole. If you have a
keen understanding of how to extend/customize jabber for sending and
receiving any type of xml please read this message and provide your
incite.
I would like to extend jabber to have the ability to transport messages,
over the jabber xml framework, that describe the state of any number of
nodes (computers) within a given computing cluster. And have the clients
that get these messages act according to their designed task, i.e. display
the data in a gui; or trigger an alarm (page someone) based on the
supplied cluster data.
First and foremost, I need to know the _right_ way to implement this type
of extension. I'm thinking I'd use an extension namespace but could be
horribly wrong. Regardless, the following is an attempt at explaining
what I'd like to be able to do:
jabber:x:cluster namespace:
This jabber extension namespace will enable a message to transport
cluster specific xml to any client, the client would then need to
be jabber:x:cluster aware.
Any client should be able to subscribe to these cluster status messages,
whereby they will receive notification (in realtime) of the various states
that each computer within the larger cluster is in. That is, any message
that contains xml from the jabber:x:cluster namespace would describe the
state(s) of a given computer within the cluster. States reported with an
jabber:x:cluster message could include: the current load on the
processors, memory utilization, processor(s) temperature, network traffic,
filesystem usage, uptime, linux kernel version, etc.
The grunt work required to collect these states has already been done;
what I am looking to do is adapt my collection program (written in C) to
become a jabber client that will report cluster states to other
jabber:x:cluster aware jabber clients that have subscribed to receive this
cluster state xml data.
Each message can contain subsets of the full xml state data, that is; one
message can contain info about 3 nodes, each with varying contents
(i.e. 1 node just contains cpu data; while other nodes have cpu, memory,
and network data) while another message can contain cluster data for 10
nodes. I would like to be "push"ing this data to all subscribed clients;
effectively this would be streaming cluster xml in jabber messages.
Similar to a stock ticker but different =). Can the jabber framework
handle such load?
here's a hypothetical message sent by the client that harvests data off
the nodes in the cluster:
<message type="cluster" to="gui at cluster" from="data at cluster">
<subject/>
<body/>
<x xmlns="jabber:x:cluster">
<node name="node1">
<cpu_load one="0.03" five="0.10" fteen="0.32"/>
<net device="eth0" ip="192.168.0.1" rx_kBps="1.0" rx_errs="0" tx_kBps="12.0" tx_errs="0"/>
<version kernel="2.4.11-plogic-01smp">
<lm_sensors>
<cpu num="0" temp="65.0" fan="4753">
<cpu num="1" temp="64.0" fan="4802">
</lm_sensors>
</node>
<node name="node9">
<net device="eth0" ip="192.168.0.9" rx_kBps="12.0" rx_errs="0" tx_kBps="65.0" tx_errs="0"/>
<version kernel="2.4.10-plogic-03smp">
</node>
</x>
</message>
when the gui at cluster client gets this message it will parse the custom
cluster xml and display the data accordingly.
This same message (with the exception of the 'to' attribute) could also be
sent to an alarm client that checks the data to see if certain user
defined thresholds have been exceeded. An example might be that both
processors in node1 have exceeded a user defined threshold of 60 degrees
celsius. The monitor client could then contact an administrator via the
contact methods that user has configured (i.e. pager, email, @jabber, aim,
cell phone)
jabber:x:cluster:alarm namespace:
There also may be a need for the alarm client to send the alarm state
change to another client (i.e. the gui) so that it too may display the
alarm condition.
hypothetical message sent by alarm client to gui:
<message type="alarm" to="gui at cluster" from="alarm at cluster">
<subject>ALARM: lm_sensors</subject>
<body>cpu0, cpu1 has overheated</body>
<x xmlns="jabber:x:cluster:alarm">
<node name="node1">
<lm_sensors>
<cpu num="0" temp="ALARM" fan="4753">
<cpu num="1 temp="ALARM" fan="4802">
</lm_sensors>
</node>
</x>
</message>
the gui would then take some action to display the alarm to the gui user,
i.e. make node1's message box blink red.
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All this said, I am extremely new to jabber; and know very little about
the underlying protocols, extensibility of jabberd via extension messages,
subscription procedures to get data at cluster to send to both gui at cluster,
alarm at cluster, and any other clients that I will cook up in the future.
So here are some of the questions I have:
- If you were tasked with making jabber perform the tasks that I've
loosely outlined, how would you do it?
- Exactly what needs to be added to jabberd server to handle the addition
of jabber:x:cluster and jabber:x:cluster:alarm?
- It would appear that jabber seems to have an extensibility crisis;
people say that it is possible; the extensibility I need seems to be in
Jabber, but there's A LOT that one needs to wade through in order to
figure out how this might be accomplished.
- Is there a cut and dry method(s) to use for extending jabber to
transmit non-IM specific data. It would appear that jabber needs
to allow for use as a general purpose communications protocol; I
have stumbled onto one such protocol draft:
http://jabberfox.sourceforge.net/jabber.html Is there any work
currently in place that would enable me to easily make use of
jabber for my needs? Granted this could all be very easy with
jabber as is; I probably haven't found the right
resources/explanation(s).
- I intend to transmit anywhere from 12MB to 50MB of data an hour, to
multiple jabber clients, at intervals as quick as every second;
effectively creating a contiguous stream of data, does jabberd v1.4.X
allow for such excessive data transmition? Or will I hit throttling
heuristics that have been put in place in jabberd?
- I want the data at cluster client to essentially "push" the cluster xml to
all subscribed clients that have the required subscription presence (I
think? =) What is the best way to do this? Start a <stream> and close it
only when the jabber client exits?
- Are there any docs available that address the task of extending jabber
for use with transmitting custom xml to other jabber clients?
as Jeremie Miller explained in an XML magazine interview:
http://www.xmlmag.com/upload/free/features/xml/2000/05win00/sg0005/sg0005.asp
Gallagher: How easily can you adapt Jabber as a transport for other
XML-formatted data?
Miller: What we decided to do was simply call this TCP socket an XML
document, so that at the beginning of the relationship, you send a
fragment of XML down-the root tag of the document. You parse that on the
fly on the other side, such as any SAX-based parser can do. On top of
this XML stream, we defined three protocol types: messages, presence, and
InfoQuery (IQ). InfoQuery is a generic wrapper around any other XML-a
Buddy List or a V-Card-a way of saying this is some extraneous data that
is not a message or presence. You can insert your own custom XML inside of
a message, or inside a presence, and you put that in your own name space.
- COULD SOMEONE GO INTO MORE DETAIL ABOUT WHAT JEREMIE IS HINTING AT WITH
REGARD TO EXTENDING JABBER FOR TRANSPORTING CUSTOM XML?
- Is the use of jabber:x:<foo> what I should be doing to send custom
cluster xml to jabber clients? Or should I be using the <iq> portion of
the jabber protocol?
I understand the insertion of my own XML into a message, what about IQ and
presence? He seems to elude to the fact that IQ is a place that
"extraneous data" should go. If that's the case how should I
realistically be using the jabber framework, I want to do this the _right_
way!
I AM LOOKING FOR ANY ONE WHO MIGHT LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS PROJECT,
I could very easily see this project being useful to all system
administrators, not just high performance computing clusters. If you
would like to join the cause, send me email: msnitzer at plogic.com
As you can see, I have A LOT to learn with regard to jabber, please help
=) Any urls, code snippets, communication through the jdev list, or
directly would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Mike
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