This topic describes the features and usage of configuration lists.
Configuration lists provide an easy method to manage the inventory of the required resources. After you configure the required resources and list types to be collected, you can obtain the latest inventory and overview of the specified resources. Configuration lists allow you to collect the details of Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances and the information of properties that belong to ECS instances. These properties include files, applications, services, and networks.
After a configuration list is configured, you can view various dashboards based on the collected data. For example, you can check the number of Windows instances or Linux instances, and the ratio of Windows instances to Linux instances. You can also check on which instances the version of an application is installed and whether the latest update is installed on an instance. For more information about the supported configuration list types and property types, see Metadata types that are supported by a configuration list.
Limits
To use an inventory to collect information, you must install a Cloud Assistant client of the latest version on the ECS instances from which you want to collect information. In most cases, a Cloud Assistant client of the latest version is installed on official images by default. For more information about how to check the version of the Cloud Assistant client that runs on an instance, see Install Cloud Assistant Agent.
You must use an Alibaba Cloud account that is granted the required permissions on CloudOps Orchestration Service (OOS). If you use an account with administrator permissions, ignore the preceding note. If you use an account that is not granted the required permissions on OOS, you must grant the required permissions to the account. For more information, see Access control.
Create a configuration list
Log on to the OOS console.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Inventory Management.
On the Inventory Management page, click the Inventory Details tab. On the Inventory Details tab, click Create Inventory.
On the Create Inventory page, configure the required instances, the data collection plan, and the inventory information.
Select instances. Multiple selection methods are supported. In this example, Select All is selected.
Configure the data collection plan. The Execution Frequency parameter specifies the interval at which a client collects data. In this example, this parameter is set to 1 hour.
Configure the required list information. You can select one or more list types in the following list. In this example, Applications is selected.
Click Create.
After the preceding settings are configured, you can view the details on the Inventory Overview tab.
After the configuration list takes effect, the client collects the data of the specified list types on the destination resources at the specified interval. Note: Only property information rather than content information is collected regardless of which list types are specified.
Click the Inventory Overview tab. On the Inventory Overview tab, you can view the statistics of collected data. The supported list types include the applications that are installed, the distribution of versions for applications, the types of operating systems, and the versions and release types of operating systems.
At the bottom of the Inventory Overview tab, you can view the instances for which configuration lists are created and the states of clients whose data is collected.
If you have finer-grained requirements, you can configure the attribute value on the Inventory Overview tab. You must specify a comparison operator for each filter condition. Valid comparison operators include equal to, not equal to, begin with, less than, and greater than. This topic provides an example of how to query instances on which the wget application is installed.
Find the Property Name field.
Select a property name from the drop-down list. In this example, ACS:Application / Name is selected.
Enter the attribute value that you want to filter. In this example, wget is entered. The statistics of the installed wget application is displayed in the section below.
The preceding steps describe how to create a configuration list and how the collected data can be viewed. You may need to change the specified scope of destination resource or list types, or delete some configuration lists that are no longer required. In this case, perform the following steps to update or delete a configuration list.
Update a configuration list
On the Inventory Details tab, find the configuration list that you want to update and click Edit in the Actions column. On the Edit Configuration page, update the configuration list based on your business requirements.
Delete a configuration list
On the Inventory Details tab, find the configuration list that you want to delete and click Delete in the Actions column. Note: After a configuration list is deleted, the collection plan for the related destination resources is canceled. Another configuration list that is used may contain all the data or a part of data from the same destination resources. In this case, you can still view the information of these resources on the List Details tab. To address the preceding issue, a topic that provides more details will be released in the future.
Summary
This topic provides the required information about how to view the statistics of collected data and manage the information of properties on the required resources. These properties include private networks, applications, and files. You can familiarize yourself with how to use configuration lists to collect data through this topic. More and more methods that can be used to efficiently create configuration lists will be provided. These methods include how to select destination resources. For example, you can manually select resources, select resources by resource group or tag, and select all resources. If you group resources by tag, this allows you to manage your resources in a more convenient and better manner. In addition, support for more list types and methods to view resource information with ease will be provided at the earliest opportunity.