LooperNG - Event Routing System.
 Mohit Muthanna [mohit AT muthanna DOT com]

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LooperNG is a utility designed to enhance and simplify the fault management process. It is a modularised, rules-based event routing system that is flexible and easy to use. It is primarily deployed by network / security management groups as a central event gateway or an SNMP trap collection and forwarding station.

LooperNG events can be in the form of SNMP traps, Syslog Alerts, lines in a Log File, Sockets etc. Events can be received and generated such that an event can arrive in one form (e.g., SNMP) and forwarded in another form (e.g., Syslog). LooperNG can also receive events from systems like Nagios, Snort, Mon etc. and forward to other systems like a MySQL database, Netcool/OMNIbus, or just send an e-mail. Modules for new types of events can be easily written.

LooperNG was designed to improve on some of the limitations Looper (muthanna.com/looper). It is built completely from scratch with a cleaner more scalable architecture and is based on the Perl Object Environment.

Improvements Over Looper

  • Better performace, scalibility and stability. Easier to maintain.
  • Ability to use multiple input and output modules simultaneously. This means that only a single LooperNG executable needs to be running for multiple input sources.
  • LooperNG can be completely reconfigured while it's running. Add / remove / start / stop modules, switch / disable rules files, change the whole configuration around on the fly.
  • Rules files easier to build and maintain.
  • Built-in support for socket / file / pipe input and output modules. Not Implemented
  • Command-line administrative interface accessible over a TCP socket (for status information etc.)
  • Cleaner, more managable code. Runs with perl's stict, warn and taint flags set. Based on POE.

Uses / Features
  • SNMP Trap forwarding, exploding and rewriting (enhancing).
  • Event generation for demos, debugging, troubleshooting etc.
  • Event Enrichment and Escalation.
  • Intelligent routing, rerouting and processing of events and alerts.
  • Monitoring logfiles, syslog events, intrusion events etc.
  • Forwarding alert history to databases, logfiles etc.
  • Used as ad-hoc Netcool Probes.
  • Used to replace HP Openview NNM's trap collection features.
  • Centralize alerts in a LooperDB database.

Current Status and Downloads

LooperNG requires Perl 5.8.0 or above and a sane compiler toolset (gcc, make, etc.). Read the LooperNG Tutorial for instructions on getting the required Perl modules.

Stable Version: 1.3 [ Download ] [ Release Notes ]

Previous releases can be downloaded from Sourceforge: [ Files ]

News

19/Mar/07 - Instructions on installing LooperNG from CVS. Courtesy Dustin Marquess.
25/Mar/05 - Edge Solutions finishes LooperNG implementation at a North American Cable company to manage all TL1 based Cable devices.
29/Jun/04 - LooperNG 1.3 released. Added preprocessor for configuration files, 'include' feature in rules files, dynamic log level changes, init script, netcool_out enhancements.
05/Apr/04 - LooperNG 1.2.1 released. Pipe support for syslog_in.
25/Mar/04 - LooperNG 1.2 released. SNMP module allows "enhancement" of raw traps. Updated Netcool libraries.
29/Jan/04 - LooperNG reaches 1.0. Go get it.
15/Sep/03 - New packages available with multiple fixes and support for SNMPv2c trap generation.
13/Sep/03 - LooperNG Tutorial available.
13/Sep/03 - Redhat 9 binary package available.
12/Sep/03 - All looper modules ported to LooperNG. Administrative interface implemented.
09/Sep/03 - LooperNG now provides all Looper features.
03/Sep/03 - syslog_in and logfile_out modules ported to LooperNG.

Documentation

New! (2007/Mar) Dustin Marquess was nice enough to document instructions on installing from CVS. This is what you need to do if you want the latest and greatest.

The LooperNG Tutorial is the definitive documentation and user's guide.

To subscribe to the LooperNG development mailing list, go here. The list archives are here.

Project Page and CVS

The LooperNG project page is hosted by SourceForge and can be accessed at sourceforge.net/projects/looper.

This project's SourceForge CVS repository can be checked out through anonymous (pserver) CVS with the following instruction set. When prompted for a password for anonymous, simply press the Enter key.

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@looper.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/looper login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@looper.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/looper co -P looperng

Disclaimer

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to:

Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.