Use > Discovery Modules > Hosts and Resources > Application Signatures > Application Signature Configuration File

Application Signatures Configuration File

The configuration file applicationsSignature.xml is a repository of signatures for application signature discovery. Each signature contains a set of processes associated with the application. An example signature follows:

Signature for PostgreSQL Database Application

<Application-Component name="PostgreSQL" category="Database" vendor="PostgreSQL" 
  supported_versions="7.x, 8.x" installedSoftwareName="PostgreSQL.*">
  <process name="pg_ctl.exe" ports="postgresql,None" cmdline="" description="PostgreSQL Server." />
  <process name="postmaster" ports="postgresql,None" cmdline="" description="PostgreSQL Server." />
</Application-Component>

Configuration File Structure

The element Applications is the root of the configuration file, it contains a list of signatures represented as Application-Component elements. The additional element Default-Application-Type specifies the CIT to use when reporting applications.

Signature for PostgreSQL Database application 

<Applications parserClassName="com.hp.ucmdb.discovery.library.
communication.downloader.cfgfiles.ApplicationSignatureConfigFile">
    
     <Default-Application-Type>running_software</Default-Application-Type>
    
     <Application-Component name= ... >
         <process name= ... />
     </Application-Component>

     ...

     <Application-Component name= ... >
          <process name= ... />
     </Application-Component>

</Applications>

Elements and Attributes

ClosedApplication-Component element

The Application-Component element defines a signature for a specific application, or type of application. It may contain the attributes described in the following table:

Attribute Optional? Description
name No The name of application. This value is reported to the DiscoveredProductName attribute of the application CI.
app_id Yes

The ID of the signature. If this attribute is not set, the value of the attribute name is used for ID.

Note All ID values must be unique within the configuration file.
category Yes

The category of the application. This value is passed to the application's application_category attribute.

Examples: Database, Cluster.
vendor Yes

The application vendor. This value is passed to the application's vendor attribute.

Example: hewlett_packard_co.
supported_versions Yes A list of versions for which the signature applies. This information has no impact on reported topology and is present for informational purposes only.
installedSoftwareName Yes The regex (regular expression) pattern used to report relationships with Installed Software. Whenever the name of Installed Software matches the pattern, corresponding relationships are reported.
ci_type Yes

The CIT name that should be used when the application is reported. If not specified, the default CIT is used: RunningSoftware.

Example: <Application-Component name="Oracle DB" ci_type="oracle"> says that this application should be reported as CIT "oracle".
discover Yes

A boolean attribute which enables (true) or disables (false) the signature.

Default: True.

The Application-Component should contain one or more process elements, which define what processes should be discovered in order for this application to be reported. A process element may contain the attributes described in the following table:

Attribute Optional? Description
name No The name of the process.
ports No

A comma-separated list of ports the process should listen to, or should have open, in order to be matched. Each port may have one of the following values:

  • None. The process matches even if it does not listen to any port.
  • Numeric value or a named port that resolves to numeric value. The process should listen to this port, or should have this port open in order to match. Examples: 1521, mysql. Port names are resolved against the portNumberToPortName.xml configuration file.
  • All. Specifies that all ports listened to should be reported All ports matched through this pattern are reported as IpServiceEndpoint CIs.
cmdline Yes The substring that should be present in the command line of the process for it to match.
description Yes The description of the process. The value of this attribute is passed to the description attribute of processes CIs that match this process element.
startswith Yes A boolean attribute that enables partial matching of the process names. When this attribute is set to true, any process whose name starts with the string specified in the attribute name, matches.
required Yes A  boolean attribute which, if set to true, specifies that the process is required for the application to be reported. If this process element does not match to any process, the application is not reported.
main-process Yes A boolean attribute indicating, if set to true, that this process is the main process of the application. For each main process found on the host, a separate application topology is reported.
ignore-case Yes

A  boolean attribute specifying whether the process name matching is case-sensitive (true) or not (false).

Default: False.

ClosedParse-rule element

A parse-rule element defines a parse rule that is applied to a specific property of a process that is found, in order to extract some values. A parse rule is essentially a regular expression that should match against a process property. If this regex contains capturing groups, it is possible to extract the values of these groups and use them in expressions of attribute updates. This regular expression is written in the text part of the element. A parse-rule element may contain the attributes described in the following table:

Attribute Optional? Description
id No ID of the parse rule; a unique string identifying this parse rule.
name No

Name of process property this rule should be matched against. Supported properties:

  • cmdline

  • ip

  • name

  • owner

  • path

  • port
method Yes

The method to use when matching the pattern, being one of the following:

  • match. The entire property is matched against the pattern. It behaves like the regular expression 'match' operation.
  • search. The pattern is searched for within the string. It behaves like the regular expression 'search' operation.

Default: Match.
ClosedAttribute element

When the element Attribute appears under an Application-Component element, it means that the specified attribute of the reported application CI should be set to the specified value. The value may be a constant, string, or an expression with parse rule references. An attribute element may contain the attributes described in the following table:

Attribute Optional? Description
name No The name of the attribute to set.
value No

An expression that defines the value of the attribute. This expression may contain regular text which will be used without modification, and references to parse rules. Parse rule reference is defined as follows:

  • ${rule_id} - A whole match of the parse rule with ID rule_id is inserted into the resulting string during expression evaluation.
  • ${rule_id(group_numer)} - When parse rule with ID rule_id matches the value of capturing group number group_number is inserted into result string.
required Yes

A boolean attribute specifying whether (true) or not (false) the attribute is required. If the attribute is required, an application is skipped whenever the expression of attribute fails evaluation. If the attribute is not required and expression evaluation fails, the application is reported without this attribute set.

Default: True.
Closedclustered-application element

An Application-Component element may contain the additional element clustered-application which marks the application as clustered. Marking an application as clustered results in reporting the parent Node CI for this particular application as a weak Node by the application IP. Applications not marked as clustered use the parent Node CI restored from CMDB ID.(The default behavior).

Example of usage of clustered-application element

<Application-Component name="MSSQL DB" category="Database" ci_type="sqlserver" vendor="microsoft_corp">

     <clustered-application/>

</Application-Component>
Closedapplication-ip-source element

A process element may contain the additional element application-ip-source. This element marks processes as a source of application IP, and affects how an application IP is chosen for a particular application. When one of the processes is marked as a source of application IP, only IP addresses this process listens to are considered for application IP. When none of the processes are marked, all IPs of all processes are considered for application IP. (The default behavior).

Example of usage of application-ip-source element

<Application-Component name="MSSQL DB" category="Database" ci_type="sqlserver" vendor="microsoft_corp">

     <process name="sqlservr.exe" main-process="true" ports="sql,None" cmdline="" required="true" description="Provides storage, processing and controlled access of data and rapid transaction processing." >

          <application-ip-source />

     </process>

</Application-Component>
Closedservice-endpoint-name element

A process element may contain an additional element: service-endpoint-name. When a process has this additional element, all IpServiceEndpoint CIs of this process are reported with the specified name. If this element is not used, the name of IpServiceEndpoint CIs is resolved using the portNumberToPortName.xml file. (This is the default behavior.)

Example of usage of service-endpoint-name element

<Application-Component app_id="Weblogic on Windows" name="WebLogic AS" category="J2EE Server" ci_type="weblogicas" vendor="bea_systems_ltd">

     <process name="java.exe" main-process="true" 
ports="weblogic,weblogicSSL,None" cmdline="-Dweblogic.Name=" >

               <service-endpoint-name>weblogic</service-endpoint-name>

          </process>

</Application-Component>

Send Help Center feedback