JP3185040B2 - Computer monitoring method and system using electronic mail - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a computer monitoring method and a computer monitoring method using electronic mail suitable for monitoring the status of a host computer via an electronic mail terminal.
Related to visual systems .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when monitoring the operation state of a host computer from a remote place, generally, a TSS (Time Sharing) is generally used.
System). In this case, the display of the system status and the like must be performed using a command of the connected host computer. On the other hand, in recent years, personal computers such as personal computers and word processors have become widespread, and so-called e-mail systems have been developed in which these computers are organically connected to communicate with each other. It has become possible for a user who is not at home to request the host computer to execute a business job. As a job consignment method of requesting a host computer to execute a business job via an electronic mail system, for example, a method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 64-67672 is known.

[0003]

By the way, in the job consignment system disclosed in the above publication, the user
In addition to simply requesting the execution of a job and obtaining the results, when a job is requested, fine-grained information such as the execution waiting state of the requested job and whether the execution of the requested job is progressing smoothly It is expected that a request for providing system operation information will be made. However, the above prior art is
No particular consideration is given to the monitoring method of such a system. When the above-mentioned information is required, it is necessary to use a command of the host computer as described above. Since these persons are not experts in the host computer system, it is necessary that such information also take the form of a report by e-mail. The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to solve the above-described problems in the conventional technology and to electronically change the state of the system when requesting a host computer to execute a business job. It is an object of the present invention to provide a computer monitoring method and system using an electronic mail, which can be monitored by a mail terminal.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The above object of the present invention, feed
Operating information of the target computer based on the received e-mail
Information and obtain the required operating information by e-mail.
Calculation in the e-mail processing unit sent to the requesting computer
The e-mail processing unit includes a user I
D including the type information and the operation information transmission trigger information
One e-mail and receive the first e-mail
The included user ID and user authority information stored in advance
Whether to acquire the operation information of the target computer based on the
The first electronic device received based on the determination result.
Depending on the type information included in the email,
The operating information is obtained from the computer that is the elephant, and the obtained computer
Creates a second email based on the operation information of the second
Of the operation information included in the first e-mail
Sending to the requesting computer according to the trigger information
A computer monitoring method using electronic mail, and
Operation of the target computer based on the sent e-mail
Information, and the obtained operation information is sent by e-mail.
Is a computer monitoring system that sends to the requesting computer
In addition, the computer monitoring system uses the user ID and
The first electronic mail including the separate information and the operation information transmission trigger information
Before the email is received and included in the first email received
Based on the user ID and user authority information stored in advance.
To determine whether to obtain the operation information of the target computer.
The first email received based on the decision
Target of operation information acquisition according to the type information included in
Operating information from the computer to be
Create a second email based on the operation information,
Send the e-mail to the operation information contained in the first e-mail
An e-mail to be sent to the requesting computer in accordance with the trigger information
Using e-mail, characterized by having an email processing unit
Achieved by a computer monitoring system .

[0005]

In the monitoring system using electronic mail according to the present invention, a mail terminal connected to the electronic mail system configured on the first computer system is provided with a system status notification request bibliography, and the second computer system The host computer comprises an electronic mail system monitoring control processing means for interpreting the contents of the bibliography from the electronic mail terminal and performing job input, system status monitoring, transmission of status information, and the like. The e-mail terminal user describes items necessary for acquiring system information in the bibliography of the system status notification request, and transmits it to the host computer. The e-mail system monitoring control processing means of the host computer, when the system status notification request bibliography is transmitted from the e-mail terminal, analyzes the contents thereof, monitors the execution of the system and sends the monitoring information notification bibliography to the e-mail terminal. Send. As a result, even a user who does not have knowledge of the host computer can know the state of the system in an easy-to-understand format from the electronic mail terminal.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an electronic mail-linked computer system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure,
1 is a host computer system, 2 is an e-mail system,
3 is an operation management terminal, 4 is a public line network, 5 is a personal computer for transmitting e-mail (hereinafter, referred to as "PC"), and 6 is a word processor for transmitting e-mail (hereinafter, referred to as "personal computer").
Reference numeral 7 denotes a file for storing the authority of a user who needs the system operation status information, and reference numeral 8 denotes a mailbox storage file of the electronic mail system 2. Here, in the first preferred embodiment of the present invention, mail exchange is performed between the computer system 1 and the electronic mail system 2 without using the operation management terminal 3. On the other hand, in the second preferred embodiment of the present invention, the above-mentioned operation management terminal 3 includes the computer system 1 and the e-mail system 2
The operation management terminal 3 once relays a mail message during mail exchange. Hereinafter, operations of the first embodiment and the second embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. Hereinafter, an outline of the operation of the electronic mail-linked computer system according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
The detailed operation will be described below.

First, an outline of the operation in the first embodiment will be described. In the computer system 1, a job 10 executed under an operating system (OS) 9 and a mail processing program 11 for realizing the present invention operate. In the e-mail system 2, an e-mail engine 12 for realizing an e-mail function, a system operation status information notification request mail acceptance notification processing program 13, and a file transfer processing program 14 for transferring a mail text, a system operation state information list, and the like are operated. . Here, the computer system 1 and the e-mail system 2
It may be connected by a dedicated line 21 or a line 22
May be connected via the public line network 4 and via the line 23. Similarly, as an e-mail terminal, the personal computer 5 and the word processor 6 are connected to the line 24 and the line 2 respectively.
5, the connection may be made by a dedicated line. The user can use the personal computer 5 or word processor 6
A mail requesting notification of the operating state information of the computer system 1 is applied to the electronic mail system 2. The reception notification program 13 of the e-mail system 2 temporarily stores the contents of the application in the mailbox 8 and then uses the file transfer processing program 14 to send an operation status information notification request e-mail message to the line 21 or 23, 22 and transferred to the computer system 1.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the above-mentioned system operation state information notification request mail message. The system operation status information notification request e-mail message includes the user ID 29 of the e-mail system.
a, information type flag 29b and information transmission type flag 2
9c. The information type flag 29b represents information requested by the user, and has the following types. (1) Operation schedule (2) Start time (3) Scheduled stop time (4) Information when a failure occurs, such as stop time in case of abnormal stop (5) Usage rate of central processing unit (6) Use of input / output device Rate (7) Number of jobs waiting to be executed and number of jobs being executed for each job type (8) Important job information (9) Other information related to operation status The status transmission flag 29c indicates information about the trigger of transmission of the operation status. And the following types: (1) Only once when sending e-mail (2) Every fixed time (3) Every time operation status changes

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a format of a status notification mail message from the computer system 1. In FIG.
This mail text is composed of a user ID 30a, an information type flag 30b, and status information 30c, as in FIG. The information type flag 30b is the same as the information type flag 29b in FIG. The status information 30c includes the information type flag 3
State information of the information type indicated by 0b is stored.
FIG. 5 shows a configuration example in the mailbox file 8 of the electronic mail system 2. Mailbox 8
It consists of a mail index section (MINDEX) 31 and a mail sentence storage section 32. Mail index section 31
Is the e-mail system user ID field 31
a, notification field 31 indicating presence / absence of notification to the user
b, BFL indicating whether the user is currently active or not
It is composed of a G field 31c, a telephone number 31d of the user, and management information 31e of a storage location of the mail text.
The mail message storage unit 32 stores a plurality of mail messages 32.
a, 32b and 32c can be stored. FIG. 4 shows the configuration in the user authority management file 7 of the computer system 1. The user authority management file 7 includes user authority information 33. The user authority information 33 includes a user ID field 33a of the computer system and information acquisition authority for each user ID.

Returning to FIG. 1, the description will be continued. When the mail processing program 11 in the computer system 1 receives the mail text as shown in FIG. 2, it interprets the contents, and first,
Based on the user authority information 33 as shown in FIG. 4, it is checked whether or not the user can acquire the operation information in the computer system 1. If the result is “OK”,
A command for acquiring necessary information is issued to the OS 9. A response to the command is returned to the mail processing program 11 to acquire necessary information. Based on this information, the mail processing program 11 creates a mail text as shown in FIG. Next, the mail message as shown in FIG. 3 is returned to the electronic mail system 2. Upon receiving the mail message as shown in FIG. 3, the electronic mail system 2 temporarily stores the mail message in the mailbox 8 of FIG. This communication is performed via the dedicated line 21 or the lines 22 and 23 to the public line network 4. next,
Attempt to notify e-mail users. If the user is active (BFLG in FIG. 5 is “1”), send the mail,
If the user is not active (BFLG in FIG. 5 is "0"), the telephone number TEL31 in MINdex 31 in FIG.
With d, a notification that the mail has arrived is made. The above is the outline of the operation in the first preferred embodiment of the present invention.

In the second preferred embodiment of the present invention, an operation management terminal 3 is logically interposed between the electronic mail system 2 and the computer system 1 shown in FIG. That is, from the e-mail system 2, the e-mail
3, sent to the operation management terminal 3 via the line 26, and temporarily stored in the operation management terminal 3. Next, the mail message is processed by the mail processing program 11 of the computer system 1 from the operation management terminal 3 via the line 27.
The method for acquiring system operating state information is the first method of the present invention described above.
Is the same as the processing in the preferred embodiment. When the acquisition of the system operation state information in the computer system 1 ends,
The computer system 1 notifies the operation management terminal 3 of the information acquisition end notification. When receiving the notification from the computer system 1, the operation management terminal 3 creates a mail message as shown in FIG. 3 and sends the mail to the electronic mail system 2. After that, the same operation as in the first preferred embodiment of the present invention is performed. As described above, even when the computer system 1 is intentionally stopped in operation such as a holiday, the operation management terminal 3 allows the user of the e-mail system to transmit the system operation state information. You can check at any time.

Hereinafter, the operation of the electronic mail linked computer system of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIG. FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram of the above-described mail processing program 11, FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a processing flow of the mail control processing unit 35 in the mail processing program 11, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a processing flow of the first embodiment. As shown in FIG. 6, control passes to the mail processing program 11 at the time of reception and at the time of information acquisition. The mail control processing program 35 calls the operation status acquisition authority check 36, and then executes an operation status acquisition program 40 for executing an operation status acquisition command inputting process 37 and an operation status delivery process 38 as a mail control processing program. Starts asynchronously. In the processing flow shown in FIG. 7, the user authority check processing is called in processing step 35a. This may use processing provided by the OS, or may have processing in the mail control program. In the processing step 35b, the result of the check performed in the processing step 35a is determined, and if the user has the authority, the operation information acquisition program start processing is performed in the processing step 40,
If the user does not have the authority, a mail indicating that the user does not have the authority is transmitted to the user in the processing step 35c.

FIG. 8 is a processing flow of the operation information acquisition program 40. First, in processing step 37, a command for acquiring operation information indicated by the information type flag 29b is input to the OS 9. Next, processing step 40a
Then, it waits for a response from the OS to the above command. When the response arrives, in the processing step 40b, the information identification flag 29
Check whether all the operation information indicated by b has been acquired,
In the case of, the process returns to the processing step 37 and the process is repeated. If the check result is "OK", the processing step 40c
Then, it is checked whether the information transmission type flag 29c is "every state change". If the check result is "No", the process proceeds to processing step 38, where the acquired operating status is created in the format shown in FIG. 3, and the mail is delivered. Next, in processing step 40h, it is checked whether or not the information transmission type flag 29c is at predetermined time intervals. If "OK", the process waits for a predetermined time in processing step 40g, returns to processing step 37, and repeats the processing.
If the result of the processing step 40h is "No", it is checked in the processing step 40i whether the information transmission type flag 29c changes every state, and if the result is "No", the processing is ended.
If the result is “OK”, the process returns to the processing step 37 to repeat the processing. If the result of the processing step 40c is “OK”,
In processing step 40d, it is checked whether or not the information is acquired for the first time.
The process jumps to step f, the information is saved, and the processing steps from step 38 are processed in the same manner.

If the result of the processing step 40d is "No", it is checked in a processing step 40e whether or not there is a change from the previous information. If the result is "No", the processing returns to the processing step 37. repeat. When the processing step 40e is “OK”, the processing steps 40f and thereafter are processed in the same manner. According to the above embodiment, the user of the e-mail system can know the operation state of the computer system from his / her own e-mail terminal. You don't need to put it. In addition, even if the user is in a place where the TSS line is not connected, the operating state of the computer system can be known, and the use of the computer system can be made more familiar. It should be noted that the above embodiment is an example of the present invention, and it is needless to say that the present invention is not limited to this.

[0015]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, when an operation job is requested to the host computer, the status of the system can be monitored by the electronic mail terminal. Computer monitoring method and monitoring
It has a remarkable effect that the system can be realized.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an email-linked computer system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing one format of a system operation state information notification request mail message.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing one format of a status notification e-mail sentence from a computer system.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a storage format of user authority management information.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a mailbox in the electronic mail system.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a configuration of a mail processing program in the computer system.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a processing flow of a mail control processing program.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a processing flow of an operation information acquisition program.

[Explanation of symbols]

1: computer system, 2: electronic mail system, 3: operation management terminal, 4: public line network, 5: personal computer, 6: word processor, 7: user authority management information storage file, 8: mailbox of electronic mail system, 9: Operating system, 10: Job, 11: Mail processing program, 12: E-mail engine, 13: Mail reception processing program, 14: File transfer processing program.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Masahiko Ishimaru 6-81 Onoecho, Naka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Within Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Tadashi Yamagishi 5030 Totsukacho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Hitachi, Ltd. Software Development Division (72) Inventor Fujio Fujita 5030 Totsuka-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Hitachi, Ltd. Software Development Division (72) Inventor Yoshikazu Ichikawa 6, Oue-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa 81 Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Hideki Namba 2-14-6 Uchikanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Inside Hitachi Electronic Services Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Tsutomu Ito 1-280 Higashi-Koikekubo, Kokubunji-shi, Tokyo Address Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd. In-house (72) Inventor Michio Hirano 6-81 Onoe-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Within Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Toshio Hirosawa 1-280, Higashi Koikebo, Kokubunji-shi, Tokyo Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd. (72) Inventor Koji Ueoka 1-280 Higashi Koikekubo, Kokubunji, Tokyo, Japan Inside the Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd. (72) Inventor Motohide Kunisaki 1-280 Higashi Koikekubo, Kokubunji, Tokyo, Japan, Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd. 72) Inventor Shigeru Sasaki 6-81 Onoe-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Inside Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Kaoru 6-81 Onoe-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd. In-company (72) Inventor Noriyuki Nakamura 6-81 Onoe-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Within Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd. (56) References JP 63-311544 (JP, A) JP-A-64-67672 (JP, A) JP-A-3-57004 (JP, A) JP-A-4-247569 (JP, A) JP-A-63-64137 (JP, A) A) JP-A-62-268045 (JP, A) JP-A-4-313130 (JP, A) JP-A-6-214903 (JP, A) JP-A-6-187172 (JP, A) JP-A-6 JP-A-161961 (JP, A) JP-A-6-161924 (JP, A) JP-A-6-149739 (JP, A) JP-A-6-149693 (JP, A) JP-A-3-84648 (JP, A) (58) Fields surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06F 11/28-11/36

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] Claims: 1. An electronic mail system comprising:
And obtains the operating information of the computer.
An e-mail sent to the requesting computer by e-mail
A method of monitoring a computer in a mail processing unit , wherein the electronic mail processing unit includes a user ID, type information,
Received the first e-mail containing the
The user I included in the received first email
D and the user authority information stored in advance,
It is determined whether or not to acquire the operation information of the computer to be executed, and based on the determination result, the received first electronic mail is determined.
In accordance with the type information included in the
Operating information from the computer being an elephant, and a second electronic mail based on the obtained operating information of the computer.
A second email and the second email received
According to the operation information transmission trigger information included in one e-mail
And send it to the requesting computer.
A computer monitoring method using files. 2. The operating information contained in the first electronic mail.
The report transmission trigger information is defined as
Each time, only once at the time of transmission
A computer monitoring method using the electronic mail according to claim 1. 3. The type information contained in the first electronic mail.
The information includes the operation schedule, start time, scheduled stop time,
Time information, CPU usage, I / O usage
Rate, number of waiting jobs for each job type, and running jobs
Either the number, important job information, or operation status information
The electronic mail according to claim 1, wherein
Computer monitoring method. 4. Targeting based on the sent e-mail
And obtains the operating information of the computer.
The computer to send to the requesting computer by e-mail
A monitoring system, The computer monitoring system provides a user ID and type information.
E-mail containing the information and the trigger information
And receive The user I included in the received first e-mail
D and the user stored in advance Based on the authority information
To determine whether to obtain the operation information of the computer to Based on the determination result, the received first email
In accordance with the type information included in the
Obtains operation information from the elephant computer, The second electronic mail based on the obtained operation information of the computer.
Create a second email, the second email received
In response to the operation information transmission trigger information contained in the first email,
Has an e-mail processing unit to send to the requesting computer
Computer monitoring system using e-mail
Stem.