Polaris allows to suspend monitoring tasks via policies. Policies define which tasks will be suspended and when they will be suspended. Tasks are suspended on a per agent basis by subscribing agents to policies.

Tasks can be suspended by:

• name (regular expression)
• plugin
• all tasks

The interval over which the policies are enforced can be:

• recurring
• one-off
• on demand

Enforcement Intervals

Recurring Enforcement Intervals

These are defined in terms of:

• start time in 24-hour format, e.g., "12:00"
• end time in 24-hour format, e.g., "05:00"
• days of week, optional comma separated list of days of the week or ranges of days of week in cron-like format. Defaults to all days of the week. e.g.
  • mon - only mondays
  • mon-fri - mondays to fridays
  • mon, wed - mondays and wednesdays
  • mon-wed, fri - mondays to wednesdays and fridays
• days of month, optional comma separated list of days of the month or ranges of days of month in cron-like format. defaults to all days of the month. e.g.
  • 1-5, days 1 through 5
  • 1-5, 19, days 1 through 5 and 19th
• time zone, optional time zone, defaults to local timezone. This can be an IANA Time Zone Database time zone, e.g. America/New_York or an abbreviated time zone, e.g. MST, where not ambiguous

One-Off Enforcement Intervals

These are enforced once and are defined in terms of:

• start time in 24-hour format, e.g., "12:00"
• end time in 24-hour format, e.g., "05:00"
• time zone, optional time zone, defaults to local timezone. This can be an IANA Time Zone Database time zone, e.g. America/New_York or an abbreviated time zone, e.g. MST, where not ambiguous

On-Demand Enforcement

These policies enforce suspensions immediately and can be activated and deactivated on demand. Activations can have an optional duration over which the policy is enforced, once this duration elapses the policy is deactivated automatically.

Target Tasks

By Task Name

These are regular expressions that specify which tasks will be suspended by name. For example SOME_DB_NAME will suspend all tasks that their name contains SOME_DB_NAME

By Plugin Name

These specify tasks using specific plugins by a plugin name regular expression. For example specifying sys-mon will suspend all tasks using plugin names that match sys-mon.

Defining Policies and Agent Subscriptions

Policies and their agent subscriptions are defined in a yaml file which is then submitted to polaris for enforcement. You can add, remove or update policies by exporting the current policies from polaris into a yaml file, modifying this file and re-submitting it to polaris.

The yaml structure is a list of policy names with their properties according to enforcement interval and target tasks type:

• name the unique name of the policy
• description describes the policy
• frequency_type enforcement interval, one of RECURRING, ONCE, ON-DEMAND
• suspend_type target tasks, one of EVERYTHING, PLUGINS, TASK_NAMES
• plugins_re list of plugin name regular expressions for suspend_type "PLUGINS"
• task_names_re list of tasks name regular expression for suspend_type "TASK_NAMES"
• enforce_recurring recurring period interval for "RECURRING" frequency_type
  • start_time start time in 24-hour format, e.g., 12:00
  • end_time end time in 24-hour format, e.g., 18:00
  • days_of_week optional comma separated list of days of the week or ranges of days of week in cron-like format. Defaults to all days of the week
  • days_of_month optional comma separated list of days of the month or ranges of days of month in cron-like format. defaults to all days of the month
  • time_zone optional time zone, defaults to local timezone. This can be an IANA Time Zone Database or an abbreviated time zone where not ambiguous
• enforce_once one off period interval for "ONCE" frequency_type
  • start_time start time in 24-hour format, e.g., 12:00
  • end_time end time in 24-hour format, e.g., 18:00
  • time_zone optional time zone, defaults to local timezone. This can be an IANA Time Zone Database or an abbreviated time zone where not ambiguous
• agents list of agents to subscribe to this policy

Examples:

• Recurring Enforcement Interval by Plugin Names

  - name: Example Recurring Plugins Policy
    description: some description
    frequency_type: RECURRING
    suspend_type: PLUGINS
    plugins_re:
      - pl1
      - pl2
    enforce_recurring:
      start_time: "12:00:00"
      end_time: "18:01:00"
      days_of_week: mon-wed
      days_of_month: ""
      time_zone: "MST"
    agents:
      - one.host.com
      - another.host.com
  

• Recurring Enforcement Interval by Task Names

  - name: Example Recurring Tasks Policy
    description: some description
    frequency_type: RECURRING
    suspend_type: TASK_NAMES
    task_names_re:
      - Task Name regexp
      - Other Task Name regexp
    enforce_recurring:
      start_time: "12:00:00"
      end_time: "18:01:00"
      days_of_week: mon-wed
      days_of_month: ""
      time_zone: "MST"
    agents:
      - one.host.com
      - another.host.com
  

  • Recurring Enforcement Interval for All Tasks

  - name: Example Recurring Everything Policy
    description: some description
    frequency_type: RECURRING
    suspend_type: EVERYTHING
    enforce_recurring:
      start_time: "12:00:00"
      end_time: "18:01:00"
      days_of_week: mon-wed
      days_of_month: ""
      time_zone: "MST"
    agents:
      - one.host.com
      - another.host.com
  

• One-Off Enforcement Interval by Task Names

  - name: Example One-Off Tasks Policy
    description: some description
    frequency_type: ONCE
    suspend_type: TASK_NAMES
    task_names_re:
      - Task Name regexp
      - Other Task Name regexp
    enforce_once:
      start_time: "12:00:00"
      end_time: "18:01:00"
      time_zone: "MST"
    agents:
      - one.host.com
      - another.host.com
  

• On-Demand Enforcement by Task Names

  - name: Example On-Demand Tasks Policy
    description: some description
    frequency_type: ON-DEMAND
    suspend_type: TASK_NAMES
    task_names_re:
      - Task Name regexp
      - Other Task Name regexp
    agents:
      - one.host.com
      - another.host.com
  

Manage Policies with the polaris CLI

The myrmex policies command is used to manage monitoring suspension policies

$ myrmex policies --help
NAME:
   myrmex policies - policies managed monitoring suspension policies

USAGE:
   myrmex policies command [command options] [arguments...]

COMMANDS:
   ls                lists suspension policies
   state             exports current state of policies and subscriptions ready for sync
   activate          activates an ON-DEMAND policy
   deactivate        deactivates an ON-DEMAND policy
   sync              syncs suspension policies from yaml file
   sync-yaml-sample  prints a sample sync yaml file
   subs              lists policy subscriptions

OPTIONS:
   --help, -h  show help

List the current policies and subscriptions

$ myrmex policies ls

- id: FVFKYIN4TJCUXDHRP2HG7TWZ5U
  name: PeopleSoft Dev Monthly Refresh - TEST-DB1
  description: peoplesoft dev monthly database refresh
  version: 01JB9NS5BX6HY5N7TGEGFCVY7M
  created: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
  updated: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
  frequency_type: RECURRING
  suspend_type: TASK_NAMES
  task_names_re:
  - TEST-DB1
  enforce_recurring:
    start_time: "05:30:00"
    end_time: "07:30:00"
    days_of_month: "1"
    time_zone: US/Pacific
- id: QEMQQ5BTWFF7TCJ5JONYQOXHDU
  name: PeopleSoft Dev Daily Refresh - TEST-DB2
  description: peoplesoft dev daily database refresh
  version: 01JB9NTRRKWM7PGQ95DH1RZM35
  created: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
  updated: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
  frequency_type: RECURRING
  suspend_type: TASK_NAMES
  task_names_re:
  - TEST-DB2
  enforce_recurring:
    start_time: "04:00:00"
    end_time: "06:00:00"
    time_zone: US/Pacific

List agent subscriptions to policies

$ myrmex policies subs
- agent_uuid: 06bfea52-eb46-40f6-9893-0ffdd3411192
  agent: agent01
  policy_uuid: FVFKYIN4TJCUXDHRP2HG7TWZ5U
  policy: PeopleSoft Dev Monthly Refresh - TEST-DB1
  policy_version: 01JB9NS5BX6HY5N7TGEGFCVY7M
  status: STATUS_ACTIVE
  added: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
  synced: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
- agent_uuid: 06bfea52-eb46-40f6-9893-0ffdd3411192
  agent: agent01
  policy_uuid: QEMQQ5BTWFF7TCJ5JONYQOXHDU
  policy: PeopleSoft Dev Daily Refresh - TEST-DB2
  policy_version: 01JB9NTRRKWM7PGQ95DH1RZM35
  status: STATUS_ACTIVE
  added: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
  synced: "2024-10-28T13:42:45Z"
- agent_uuid: 23ea2304-6b9b-4ba7-8277-8a05a0e7c860
  agent: agent02
  policy_uuid: FVFKYIN4TJCUXDHRP2HG7TWZ5U
  policy: PeopleSoft Dev Monthly Refresh - TEST-DB1
  policy_version: 01JB9NS5BX6HY5N7TGEGFCVY7M
  status: STATUS_ACTIVE
  added: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
  synced: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
- agent_uuid: 23ea2304-6b9b-4ba7-8277-8a05a0e7c860
  agent: agent02
  policy_uuid: QEMQQ5BTWFF7TCJ5JONYQOXHDU
  policy: PeopleSoft Dev Daily Refresh - TEST-DB2
  policy_version: 01JB9NTRRKWM7PGQ95DH1RZM35
  status: STATUS_ACTIVE
  added: "2024-10-28T13:41:53Z"
  synced: "2024-10-28T13:42:45Z"

Create or modify policies and subscriptions

Use the myrmex policies state command to get the current policy state and then modify this state and submit to polaris with myrmex policies sync

# export state 
$ myrmex policies state > policies.yaml

# ... modify policies.yaml

# submit state
$ myrmex policies sync policies.yaml

Activate/Deactivate On-Demand Policies

Activate and deactivate policies by their UUID (as reported by myrmex policies ls). Activations can have an optional duration after which the policy is automatically deactivated.

# activate policy FVFKYIN4TJCUXDHRP2HG7TWZ5U indefinetely
myrmex policies activate FVFKYIN4TJCUXDHRP2HG7TWZ5U

# activate policy FVFKYIN4TJCUXDHRP2HG7TWZ5U for the next 30m
myrmex policies activate FVFKYIN4TJCUXDHRP2HG7TWZ5U 30m

# deactivate policy FVFKYIN4TJCUXDHRP2HG7TWZ5U
myrmex policies deactivate FVFKYIN4TJCUXDHRP2HG7TWZ5U