Introduction

In a Beeks appliance, most administration tasks can be performed on the CLI via the vmxadmin command. This includes starting, stopping, and even updating applications.

Accessing the appliance via SSH

To provide you with access to the appliance for administration and configuration, we provide you with a vmxcustomer user account. Once you’ve set up the SSH keys, you should be able to connect the Beeks Analytics appliance using an ssh client. For example: from a UNIX machine, use the ssh command as follows:

    ssh vmxcustomer@<vmx_appliance>

where <vmx_appliance> is either the hostname or IP address of the appliance. 

You should now see a command prompt on the appliance.

The vmxadmin command runs under the vmxcustomer user account: if required by the task, escalate permissions accordingly.

The vmxadmin functionality is constantly evolving to meet the needs of users. The system is designed so that, in the normal course of running a Beeks Analytics appliance, users should never need to run direct operating system commands.

vmxadmin command syntax

The command line format of vmxadmin is:

    vmxadmin [<type>] [<instance>] <cmd> 

where: 

<type> is the type of process:

vmx for all processes
vmx-analysis for all VMX-Analysis processes (incorporates vmx-server, vmx-webconsole, vmx-prism)
vmx-server for the analysis server only
vmx-pmux for VMX-Capture PMUX processes
vmx-webconsole for the webconsole process (which provides the Grafana data source and REST API)
vmx-p3 for VMX-Capture P3 processes
vmx-prism for VMX-Prism

<instance> is an optional instance identifier that specifies that a particular instance is invoked. If omitted, the instance defaults to STANDALONE for servers. See below for more information regarding multi-instance deployment. 
<cmd> is the command. 

vmxadmin help

To get help on the full set of detailed options (including a comprehensive list of all of the different process types) invoke the vmxadmin command with no arguments.

List versions

To list the installed software versions:

vmxadmin versions

Managing all services

To run a command against all of the Beeks Analytics processes, run the command vmxadmin vmx <cmd> , where <cmd> is:

Managing a specific service

To run a command against a single Beeks Analytics service, run the following command:

vmxadmin vmx-<service> <instance> <cmd>

where <instance> is the name of an instance(optional)

and where <service> is:

and where <cmd> is:

Here is an example of a number of different ways to restart just the VALENTINE_VP PMUX :

Wild cards

When you have many PMUXs and many probes, it can be useful to stop/start/status groups of these.

You can use the wildcard .* for this purpose, as per the following example:

vmxadmin vmx-pmux .*TCP status

This will show status of all vmx-pmux that end in TCP.

Manage proxy and connection pooler setup for QuestDB

To manage proxy setup:

vmxadmin questdb proxy_install

This command sets up the HTTPS reverse proxy and the connection pooler PgBouncer (PgBouncer - lightweight connection pooler for PostgreSQL).

It enables secure transport for PgBouncer to connect with QuestDB, including setup, configuration, and permission handling.

Managing Grafana alerts

vmxadmin can be used to enable/disable alerts and to list all enabled/disabled alerts.

The basic command for this has the following format:

vmxadmin grafana-alerts [enable|disable|list] [group list]

where

[group list] is an optional parameter that can be passed in listing the group of alerts to apply the command to.

enable enables all alerts (or the ones specified in [group list] if it is provided).

disable disables all alerts (or the ones specified in [group list] if it is provided).

list lists all alerts (or the ones specified in [group list] if it is provided) and if they are enabled/disabled.

This enables the alert rules. The user can then configure contact points in Grafana to configure the destination of these alerts. See the Beeks Analytics Operations Guide for more information.

Manage Napatech, MySQL, or InfluxDB

To manage Napatech, MySQL, or InfluxDB:

vmxadmin <application> <cmd>

where <application> is:

and <cmd> is:

Generate diagnostics

To collate diagnostics data and put it in a zip archive:

vmxadmin diagnostics [levels...]

where <levels> are:

Grep logs

To search all data/logs/*.log* files for a string:

vmxadmin grep [std args]

where [std args] are the usual options, pattern, and filename for grep.

Edit scheduled tasks

To view, create, edit, or delete the scheduled tasks:

vmxadmin crontab

Run tcpdump

To run a tcpdump:

vmxadmin tcpdump [std args]

where [std args] are the standard arguments for tcpdump.