May 2006 - Xymon - Xymon mailman web

Downsecs wrong?
by patrick_a_vaughan＠hotmail.com 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

I've just noticed that the $DOWNSECS variable seems to be wrong. I've seen lots of times that it's 0. I found one time today where the history page says the duration was 1:49:57, but $DOWNSECS in the recovery message was set to 48. I don't know when this started, but I've got odd recovery times going back a couple of weeks.

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Feature request: Sort hosts
by Quinton.Jansen＠ec.gc.ca 31 May '06

31 May '06

Maybe I missed this option in, but can bbgen automatically sort hosts alphabetically? This would be real useful with alternate page sets. -- Quinton Jansen

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moving hobbit from Ubuntu to Debian
by dan.simoes＠gmail.com 31 May '06

31 May '06

I got an account on a new virtual host (debian 3.1 on virtuozzo), and dropped in a tar of my hobbit dir. I figured I could just edit bb-hosts and be up and running in minutes. Hours later, I'm still not up. OK, so I was missing fping, and rrdtool. Hobbit did not like the older rrdtool 1.X under debian stable, so I switch to testing, upgraded, and recompiled and reinstalled hobbit. It's still not working, even with a simplified bb-hosts. hobbit runs, but the webpage output is devoid of any host data. I can't figure out what else could be wrong, this should have been a very simple port. Logs show: bb--display: 2006-05-31 17:30:22 Whoops ! bb failed to send message - timeout 2006-05-31 17:30:22 hobbitd status-board not available 2006-05-31 17:30:22 WARNING: Runtime 92 longer than BBSLEEP (60) 2006-05-31 17:31:09 Whoops ! bb failed to send message - timeout bb-network: 2006-05-31 17:30:27 Whoops ! bb failed to send message - timeout 2006-05-31 17:30:27 WARNING: Runtime 140 longer than time limit (120) 2006-05-31 17:31:14 Whoops ! bb failed to send message - timeout hobbitclient.log: 2006-05-31 17:32:47 Whoops ! bb failed to send message - timeout error parsing /proc/net/snmp: Success 2006-05-31 17:34:47 Whoops ! bb failed to send message - timeout error parsing /proc/net/snmp: Success

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URL monitoring
by dan.simoes＠gmail.com 31 May '06

31 May '06

I know that hobbit can monitor URLs, of course. I have a need to monitor a constantly changing list of URLs, which could number in the hundreds or thousands. Will hobbit scale to this level, or should I instead write something custom using wget, which can take a file containing a list of URLs as input? Thanks for your suggestions, and thanks for hobbit. | Dan |

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Display until ok
by Craig_Whilding＠mentor.com 31 May '06

31 May '06

Display until ok is an excellent improvement to Hobbit and I have begun to use it. One thing I've noticed is that (on mine at least) the tests disabled this was don't show up under info or on the currently disabled tests page and that there is no ok message when they are disabled. I would like to see them with the other disabled tests so I know what has been taken down although the enable feature wouldn't really be needed for these. Thanks, Craig Whilding

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SV: [hobbit] BBWin 0.7 available
by jt＠su.dk 31 May '06

31 May '06

Hello Etienne I have installed the new Hobbitclient on a 2003 server, but I can't get it to run - the service stops by it self. I can see, that the operating system doesn't include Win2003, but...? Regards, Jan -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- Fra: Etienne Grignon [mailto:etienne.grignon at gmail.com] Sendt: 31. maj 2006 08:33 Til: hobbit at hswn.dk Emne: Re: [hobbit] BBWin 0.7 available Hi Franck, 2006/5/30, Frank M. Ramaekers <FRamaekers at ailife.com>: > ...and in the configuration file (to override either/both)? > Of course. Configuration file will be able to override the registry setting and will handle environments variables. Regards, Etienne. To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk

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[hobbit] BBWin 0.7 available
by FRamaekers＠ailife.com 31 May '06

31 May '06

Did you read the README? You need to put the hostname (as hobbit knows it) into the registry. Frank -----Original Message----- From: Jan Telling [mailto:jt at su.dk] Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 11:38 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: SV: [hobbit] BBWin 0.7 available Hello Etienne I have installed the new Hobbitclient on a 2003 server, but I can't get it to run - the service stops by it self. I can see, that the operating system doesn't include Win2003, but...? Regards, Jan -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- Fra: Etienne Grignon [mailto:etienne.grignon at gmail.com] Sendt: 31. maj 2006 08:33 Til: hobbit at hswn.dk Emne: Re: [hobbit] BBWin 0.7 available Hi Franck, 2006/5/30, Frank M. Ramaekers <FRamaekers at ailife.com>: > ...and in the configuration file (to override either/both)? > Of course. Configuration file will be able to override the registry setting and will handle environments variables. Regards, Etienne. To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk ---------------------------------------- This message contains information which is privileged and confidential and is solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any review, disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this in error, please destroy it immediately and notify us at PrivacyAct at ailife.com.

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[hobbit] Latest snapshot has ports clear
by FRamaekers＠ailife.com 31 May '06

31 May '06

No that's fine, but I cannot find where to configure it (yes, I'm a n00b!) -----Original Message----- From: Henrik Stoerner [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk] Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 11:35 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] Latest snapshot has ports clear On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 11:25:39AM -0500, Frank M. Ramaekers wrote: > The latest snapshot (well, yesterday's) shows clear on the ports (for > the hobbit server). I didn't have this on the latest alfa (alpha). It's deliberate, actually. What color should the status be when you haven't defined any checks? Green (OK) ? or clear (nothing to report) ? Right now it's "clear", but I can be made to change my mind. Same goes for the "files" check. Regards, Henrik To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk ---------------------------------------- This message contains information which is privileged and confidential and is solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any review, disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this in error, please destroy it immediately and notify us at PrivacyAct at ailife.com.

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[hobbit] Latest snapshot has ports clear
by greg.hubbard＠eds.com 31 May '06

31 May '06

Sounds like a new config option to me! Since very opinionated people can make a passionate case for either approach! GLH -----Original Message----- From: Henrik Stoerner [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk] Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 11:35 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] Latest snapshot has ports clear On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 11:25:39AM -0500, Frank M. Ramaekers wrote: > The latest snapshot (well, yesterday's) shows clear on the ports (for > the hobbit server). I didn't have this on the latest alfa (alpha). It's deliberate, actually. What color should the status be when you haven't defined any checks? Green (OK) ? or clear (nothing to report) ? Right now it's "clear", but I can be made to change my mind. Same goes for the "files" check. Regards, Henrik To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk

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[hobbit] Some configuration questions
by greg.hubbard＠eds.com 31 May '06

31 May '06

Regarding topology -- The fully-fleshed out route statement almost mirrors a "traceroute" function. The topology is really a multiway tree, rooted in the Hobbit server itself (or rooted in each network test server, anyway). To me, multi-way means more than two branches from a node. I believe multiway trees can be described as a list of parent-child relationships. The challenges are many, especially if there are gaps in the path. This has always been part of the network management tool challenge. And purists, of course, will say that just because things are wired in a certain path doesn't mean that traffic goes that way... So I guess it depends on how much work you want to do in the software versus in bb-hosts. My hierarchy is pretty simple, so I can go through and make the changes by hand to provide the explicit end-to-end path from the Hobbit server to each host. But down the road, it would be cool if the Hobbit server could process the bb-hosts file and either a) automatically discover the path to each host with traceroute, and use this to build the dependency tree, or b) let the admin specify the parent for each host, and build up the levels internally. Each approach has warts and programming challenges. But thanks for the clarification, and all the hard work. It is hard for one programmer to keep hundreds of people happy -- but you are doing a great job! GLH -----Original Message----- From: Henrik Stoerner [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk] Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 11:34 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] Some configuration questions On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 11:16:59AM -0500, Hubbard, Greg L wrote: > Hobbits: > > Some general questions, based on 4.1... > > A) Do you know if the keywords in bb-hosts are case sensitive? I > noticed that the documentation is very careful to match case in > examples as well as the definitions -- but some keywords are in ALL > CAPS and others are lower case. One wonders why this is so...unless > they are case-insensitive, and it is just a curiosity in Hobbit-lore... It's mostly historical, based on the Big Brother ancestry. I don't have the full picture in my head, but in most cases it is not case-sensitive. The "bbgen" and "bbtest-net" are slightly more picky, for historical reasons - they still do some parsing of the bb-hosts file by themselves. Specifically, I know the "depends" and "route" tags are case-sensitive. > B) Regarding the "route" keyword? Can these be chained, or does the > whole path have to be specified for each item in the file? > > Example: hobbit server -- firewall -- router a -- router b -- host -- > app > > Can it be coded this way? > > Firewall no route statement > Router A route:firewall > Router B route:router A > Host route:router B > > Or do I have to say this: > > Router B route:firewall,router A > Host route:firewall,router A,router B The latter one will definitely work. I am not sure if the first one will; a quick glance at the code appears not to support these tree-like dependencies. It would be nice to feed a map of your network topology into Hobbit so when some router breaks, it will automatically know what tests will go red as a result. It's just a little difficult to implement, I think. Especially how you would describe your network topology. > C) I have some custom tests that are run by the client on "Host" -- > these messages (which go purple) don't seem to get suppressed if a > node is unreachable because of something else. Is there some way to > code this to take advantage of the downstream suppression? If you have a "conn" test for that host, they shouldn't go purple. <checking the code> wait, that only works if the "conn" test is red,yellow or blue - not clear, which is what the dependency checks make it. Will fix. > BTW -- Henrik -- I have seen the downstream suppression stuff work -- > awesome! It is a lot more difficult to achieve this in my commercial > tools. Thanks, Henrik To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk

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