If you are a SAS administrator managing an environment on UNIX or z/OS, you must use the sas.servers script on a regular basis. As you know, one of its uses is to display the current status of all servers. Is the output accurate? Absolutely. Is it easy to read? Relatively. Is it visually attractive? Not so much.
Human beings are visual creatures. Conventional wisdom says that a picture speaks a thousand words. However, I am not using images to improve the output, but another powerful tool: color. According to this Xerox paper, color captures attention and enhances productivity. It can improve search time, reduce errors, and increase comprehension. As a result, this blog post provides the steps for applying color and an easy-to-read layout to make the sas.servers script look cute and even fun!
Preliminary Steps
Before we begin, it is important to give you some recommendations:
- Stop all SAS services.
- Backup the files: sas.servers, sas.servers.mid and sas.servers.pre
- Apply these changes to a Development or Testing environment.
As a matter of fact, I consider steps 1 and 3 as optional. This script is only used by the SAS platform to start/stop/restart or check the status of the servers. Moreover, if you follow all steps carefully, you can apply these changes safely in a Production environment. In contrast, step 2 is relevant; it is always a good practice to backup essential files before modifying them. In case you need to rollback, you can restore them easily and quickly.
Things to Consider
The About the sas.servers Script section from the SAS 9.4 Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide provides a caution message: "You should not directly update the sas.servers script." In our case, the type of customization we are about to perform requires a manual update. Don't worry, your script is in good hands.
Furthermore, if you ever need to update the sas.servers script because you want to add/remove a server, you have to run the generate_boot_scripts.sh script to regenerate this file. After doing so, you can lose all the changes made in this post. Keep this in mind, so you can backup the current files before attempting this task.
Easy-to-read Layout
Let's jump into the details. First of all, let's define the new layout of the desired output. Grab your favorite text editor. I use Notepad++ at the office, and Sublime Text at home. Go to your /SASCONFIG/Lev1/ directory and run a regular status command as the sas user. Assuming you followed the preliminary steps and depending on the products installed and the number of SASServers deployed, you should get a similar output:
./sas.servers status SAS servers status: SAS Web Infrastructure Data Server is NOT up SAS Metadata Server 1 is NOT up SAS Object Spawner 1 is NOT up SAS DIP Job Runner 1 is NOT up SAS Information Retrieval Studio Server is NOT up SAS JMS Broker is NOT up SAS Cache Locator Service ins_41415 is NOT up SAS Web Server is NOT up SAS Web App Server SASServer1_1 is NOT up SAS Environment Manager is NOT up SAS Environment Manager Agent is NOT up |
Copy that output, except the first line, and paste it into your text editor. Here you can modify the output according to your taste. What I did was to identify the longest line, which is SAS Information Retrieval Studio Server, then I added four spaces to the right and substituted the legend is NOT up for [DOWN]. Likewise, I applied these changes to the rest of the servers, removed the instance number, and kept them all aligned:
SAS Web Infrastructure Data Server [DOWN] SAS Metadata Server [DOWN] SAS Object Spawner [DOWN] SAS DIP Job Runner [DOWN] SAS Information Retrieval Studio Server [DOWN] SAS JMS Broker [DOWN] SAS Cache Locator Service ins_41415 [DOWN] SAS Web Server [DOWN] SAS Web App Server SASServer1_1 [DOWN] SAS Environment Manager [DOWN] SAS Environment Manager Agent [DOWN] |
I chose the pair [ UP ]/[DOWN] to reflect the status because I wanted the look and feel from CentOS 6 boot process. If you are/were a CentOS 6 user, you can remember that the services display the legends: [ OK ] or [FAILED] when booting. You are free to use other alternatives such as ACTIVE/INACTIVE or perhaps RUNNING/STOPPED with or without brackets. Now that the layout is finished, let's move on to the color department.
All You Need Is Color
The fun finally arrived. Let's integrate the layout into our three scripts and add the main ingredient: color!
Again, I am assuming at this stage that you already backed up the files: sas.servers, sas.servers.mid, and sas.servers.pre. Next, open the sas.servers file with your vi editor and add this code anywhere at the top, below the block of comments:
#***** # Custom Colors for status command # RED for [DOWN] # GREEN for [ UP ] # NC for No Color #***** RED='\e[31m' GREEN='\e[32m' NC='\e[0m' |
These lines create three variables with three different color codes: a RED variable with code 31, a GREEN variable with code 32, and a NC variable with the default color code. The definition of these variables is optional but recommended, since they help you debug problems or change colors more easily. If you prefer to use different colors or attributes, you can play with the codes as shown in Bash tips: Colors and formatting.
Considering that the sas.servers script does not contain all servers, you have to add the same code to sas.servers.mid and sas.servers.pre files.
First Example
Now that we have defined the three variables in all the necessary files, let's use them. I'll show you how to apply them to a couple of servers, and then you can replicate it to the rest. The first one is the SAS Metadata Server. Open the sas.servers script again and find these lines:
# SAS Metadata Server SASMETA_WONT_START_OTHERS="The remaining SAS servers will NOT be started as a result." SASMETA1_IS_UP="SAS Metadata Server 1 is UP" SASMETA2_IS_UP="SAS Metadata Server 2 is UP" SASMETA3_IS_UP="SAS Metadata Server 3 is UP" SASMETA4_IS_UP="SAS Metadata Server 4 is UP" SASMETA5_IS_UP="SAS Metadata Server 5 is UP" SASMETA1_IS_DOWN="SAS Metadata Server 1 is NOT up" SASMETA2_IS_DOWN="SAS Metadata Server 2 is NOT up" SASMETA3_IS_DOWN="SAS Metadata Server 3 is NOT up" SASMETA4_IS_DOWN="SAS Metadata Server 4 is NOT up" SASMETA5_IS_DOWN="SAS Metadata Server 5 is NOT up" |
Since I have a single Metadata Server instance, the only meaningful variables are SASMETA1_IS_UP and SASMETA1_IS_DOWN. Delete their values, copy the correct string from your text editor, and paste it in both variables. Fix them accordingly:
SASMETA1_IS_UP="SAS Metadata Server [ UP ]" #more instances SASMETA1_IS_DOWN="SAS Metadata Server [DOWN]" #more instances |
The final touch is to give color to our script. Use the GREEN and RED variables for the UP/DOWN statuses. It is important to include the NC variable at the end to remove all attributes:
SASMETA1_IS_UP="SAS Metadata Server [ ${GREEN}UP${NC} ]" #more instances SASMETA1_IS_DOWN="SAS Metadata Server [${RED}DOWN${NC}]" #more instances |
Second Example
The process is the same for all the servers defined in the sas.servers script. For the other two scripts it is a little different, but still quite easy. I am going to use the SAS Web Infrastructure Data Server as the second example. Open the sas.servers.pre script and look for the server_status() function. Pay attention to these lines:
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then # Server is already running echo "SAS Web Infrastructure Data Server is UP" else echo "SAS Web Infrastructure Data Server is NOT up" fi } else echo "SAS Web Infrastructure Data Server is NOT up" |
A subtle difference from the previous example is the echo command. In the sas.servers script, there is a logmsg() function that uses the "echo -e" command behind the scenes. In this case, we have to explicitly add the -e option to enable the interpretation of backslash escapes. Let's also integrate the color and layout:
echo -e "SAS Web Infrastructure Data Server [ ${GREEN}UP${NC} ]" else echo -e "SAS Web Infrastructure Data Server [${RED}DOWN${NC}]" fi } else echo -e "SAS Web Infrastructure Data Server [${RED}DOWN${NC}]" |
At this point, with the above examples, you should have a solid idea about the required changes to accomplish our goal. Now it is your turn to apply them to the rest of the servers.
Finished Product
If you followed this article in detail and performed the steps in all the required servers, your output should resemble mine:
Get the green light by running the start command:
Final Thoughts
I am a visual person with a curious mind. One of the things I like is to customize the tools I use the most, so I decided to make the sas.servers script output a little more attractive to my eyes. I hope you liked the result. If you are still not sure whether to implement this idea or not, let's suppose there are some problems with a couple of servers in your environment and they stop running. Which output would you rather look at? Which one is easier to spot an issue? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, or even better you can share your creative outputs!
Making the sas.servers script look pretty was published on SAS Users.