Managing the host list

In the standard object blackout, host values can be suggested in two independent ways, as shown in the screenshot below:

1.       Via the “Host” input box itself, if available (requires permission AllowBookHost)

2.       Via the “hosts” list button.

 

 

Text input box

Values can be suggested from external sources, see External Sources in Data Editor for details.

The Out of the box setting is:

 

This will query the Blackout Management cell on the EVENT class and retrieve mc_host values and provide them to ProactivePack user.

 Only suggestions (autocomplete values) are provided for the field. If the external source is e.g. “cmd” instead of “cmd_free”, the result will still be a list of autocomplete values, not a drop-down list.

If you need to restrict users to only use hostnames from a fixed list, then 1. Disable the AllowBookHost permission and 2. Use the “hosts list button” features to build the list of available hostname values.

Hosts list button

The list of hosts appearing in the pop-up window can be obtained from host files (default) or dynamically using an external source.

Default mechanism

By default, the list of hosts that shows when clicking on the “hosts list” button is obtained from one or more host (up to 3) files hosted on the ProactivePack server:

1.       For everyone

2.       For the currently logged on user group

3.       For the currently logged on user

Those files are located in $PRODUCT_HOME/data/BlackoutMgt/etc/.

All available (existing) files are read and concatenated to build the list of hosts that a given user will be able to see.

Each user can see details on web site, in “Options / Hostnames Management”:

 

Getting host list from external source

In order to get the host list dynamically from another source, an ExternalSource may be configured in the Blackout module configuration.

For example ,this configuration:

[ExternalSources]
HostList="cmd:. /Tools/bin/hostList.sh"

 

Will use the $PRODUCT_HOME /Tools/bin/hostList.sh script to provide the list of hosts. In that case the hosts file are not used.

Source types can be “cmd”, “file”, “dda”, “evt” or “function”. For details on how to use these sources, refer to the External Sources section in Data Editor.

In case the “cmd” source is used, three arguments are passed to the script:

·         First argument : The user name

·         Second argument:The user group name

·         Third argument :CellName

 

Hostname format verification

It is also possible to validate user input using a regular expression. To do so you need to configure a SlotPatternVerification regular expression on the mc_host slot, such as:

 

For more information, see the Regular expression checks in Data Editor.