ZXTM Usage Tracking information

In ZXTM 5.1r1 and later, ZXTM reports system and platform information on a periodic basis to Zeus. This information is used by the Zeus engineering team to help prioritize future development and to understand which platforms and features are most widely used.

What information is collected?

The information collected can be split into the following categories:

1. 'uname' output: This provides Zeus with the platform (e.g. Linux), architecture, and the full version of the kernel (this allows Zeus to ensure that product testing covers all the systems in use by customers)

2. System information: including the number of CPUs, amount of memory, and whether the system is running in a virtual environment (this helps Zeus prioritize support for various virtualization platforms, and optimizations for multi-core and large-memory systems)

3. Software Information: the version of the software, software uptime and any reports of internal faults such as process crashes (this helps Zeus detect software faults)

4. Number of configuration objects: such as the number of Virtual Servers, Pools, Rules etc (this informs Zeus as to the size of customer configurations and which features are most commonly used)

5. License key serial and digest: to track usage of development, evaluation and production license keys.

The collected data is signed to ensure its integrity, before being sent using an HTTP POST to Zeus.

How often is the information sent?

ZXTM will send information back to Zeus approximately once per day. If the HTTP POST fails, ZXTM will carry on as normal.

Can I see the information being sent?

The usage information is also included in the Technical Support report that is generated from the Diagnose -> Technical Support UI page.

To view the information: generate a Technical Support report, open it and browse to the support folder. The usagetracking.txt file in that folder contains the information submitted to Zeus on a periodic basis. If the usage tracking feature is disabled, this will be indicated in the file.

Can I disable ZXTM usage tracking?

The usage tracking feature can be disabled by manually appending the following to the ZEUSHOME/zxtm/conf/settings.cfg configuration file:

usagetracking!enabled No

If the ZXTM is in a cluster you should replicate the configuration across the cluster from the Diagnose page after you have set the configuration key. Disabling the usage tracking feature, either through the configuration key, or if a firewall blocks the request, will have no effect on the operation of ZXTM.

Crispin Flowerday [Zeus Dev Team] 16 April 2009