HP Systems Insight Manager 5.3 Technical Reference Guide

Related topics
• Command line tools
• Managing custom tools
Custom tools reference
Tool types
• SSA tools These are executed on a target system and are only aware of the target system environment.
Therefore, when executing an SSA tool, the DTF sends the tool information to each HP SIM agent to
execute the tool. An example of an SSA tool is a tool that wraps a common UNIX command, such as
ls, cat, or cp.
• MSA tools These are executed on a CMS, and can handle a list of target systems. An example of an
MSA tool is a tool that wraps the functionality of Ignite-UX on HP-UX systems.
• WLA tools These are generally executed in a browser and are specified by a URL.
• Automation tools These are executed on the CMS and perform some action, such as discovery, on
target systems. These are internal HP tools and are not for general use.
• Message driven bean tools These are executed on the CMS and perform some action, such as
discovery, on taraget systems. These are internal HP tools and are not for general use.
• Application launch tools These are executed on the CMS. One instance of the tool is started for each
target system.
Parameterized strings
To create tools, the tool developer must understand how URLs and command lines are formed. Using
parameterized strings, tool developers can greatly enhance the options available in creating tool definition
files (TDEFs).
Parameterized strings contain replacement fields, similar to the format strings used in the popular printf()
function in the standard C library. These fields can be replaced by values entered by the user at runtime (as
defined by the tool parameters attribute), by some standard task properties supplied by the Task Controller,
values related to the selected target systems or system groups, or by property values retrieved from a global
tool properties file. This allows you to generate a very specific URL or command line.
Parameterized strings substitution table
The following parameters provide substitution of global attribute values:
DescriptionParameter
Task ID for the task being executed%t
Name of the user running this tool%u
Name of the user executing this to%e
Management server host name of the core CMS running the tool%s
(where # is a positive integer) Substitute the value input by the
user for the parameter referenced by the number (#) provided, as
a list index position (one-based... %1, %2, %3, and so on)
%#
SOAP logon token, for use with SOAP single sign-on web
applications
%y
The following parameters provide substitution of the selected target:
DescriptionParameter
The name of the target system (or system group, if the %x toggle
was in the string).
%f
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