Generating category tree failed! on secmon reporting

[darin.marais]

This morning I wanted to create a new report in the security monitor of our vms 2.2 server.

I selected reports and the definitions> create > ids alarms report and then proceeded to the try select some specific signatures from the ids signature dropdown menu below. In the part where the signature categories are meant to appear, there is an error message.

“Generating category tree failed!”

If I point at the error with the mouse

“Error while building the SETI category tree”

I have attached a jpeg file that shows the error message.

Is this a bug and if so, how can we fix it?

[darin.marais]

Once again, I guess I should search the bug database before opening new conversations. Many apologies for that…

I found the bug in the bug database at Cisco. The bug is entitled

“SecMon: cannot create report based on signature ID” (CSCsc31745)

According to the bug:

The report section tries to grab the latest signatures to include in the "IDS Signature" section, it does this based on the latest signature level then the latest service pack number. If there is say, 4.1(5)S197 AND 5.0(4)S197 installed on the VMS server, the report will try to use 4.1(5)S197 because its SP number is later. This fails and the "Generating Category Tree Failed" error is displayed. (auto signature download is responsible for that!!)

The Workaround is to replacement a Java file that resolves this issue which can be obtained by opening a TAC case and referencing this bug ID.