September 2006 - Xymon - Xymon mailman web

[hobbit] Is there a way to "quietly" disable hosts that have NOTICE set?
by PNIXON＠ci.somerville.ma.us 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

Have your script disable it every five minutes or so until the backup is done? -----Original Message----- From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 1:03 PM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] Is there a way to "quietly" disable hosts that have NOTICE set? Yep...I tried doing a disable for -1 (until OK), but if you do that while the service is still green, it immediately recovers. Ralph Mitchell wrote: > On 9/25/06, Charles Jones <jonescr at cisco.com> wrote: >> >> The DOWNTIME option in bb-hosts has the ability to set the status of >> services blue without sending NOTICE alerts. I would like this same >> ability on an interactive basis (via a message to hobbit using the bb >> command). >> > > So, essentially you need DOWNTIME to have something like the "until > green again" option that was added to the enable/disable page in 4.2, > right?? > > Unless I've completely missed your point, for which I apologise in > advance...:) > > Ralph Mitchell > > 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

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[hobbit] Is there a way to "quietly" disable hosts that have NOTICE set?
by fduranti＠q8.it 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

Directly from the man bb command :D disable HOSTNAME.TESTNAME DURATION <additional text> Disables a specific test for DURATION minutes. This will cause the status of this test to be listed as "blue" on the BBDISPLAY server, and no alerts for this host/test will be generated. If DURATION is given as a number followed by s/m/h/d, it is interpreted as being in seconds/minutes/hours/days respectively. To disable all tests for a host, use an asterisk "*" for TESTNAME. enable HOSTNAME.TESTNAME Re-enables a test that had been disabled. So you can execute bb hobbitserver "disable dbservername.* 2h Backup time" before shutting down the database and bb hobbitserver "enable dbserver.*" just at the end. Francesco > -----Original Message----- > From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] > Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 7:56 AM > To: hobbit at hswn.dk > Subject: [hobbit] Is there a way to "quietly" disable hosts > that have NOTICE set? > > I have the NOTICE flag set for all of my production hosts - I > want pages to go out if someone disables or enables any of them. > > However, when backups are done, the oracle databases are > brought down, which triggers an alert. If they are manually > disabled, the NOTICE message goes out which also wakes people > up for no reason. > > If I use DOWNTIME in bb-hosts, then I have to specify a > window which is guaranteed to be longer than the possible > time it could take to backup the databases (which is a > dynamic thing which will surely be wrong from time to time). > So what ends up happening is for example, I would specify an > hour of DOWNTIME, but the backups sometimes only take 30 minutes. > That means there is a 30 minute window where a real alert > would be masked, which is unacceptable in a production environment. > > I guess what I'm looking for, is a way that I can send a > commands to Hobbit via a shellscript (called from the db > backup script), that would put a host/services in maint mode > (disabled - blue dot), and NOT send a NOTICE page. > > -Charles > > To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to > hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk > > >

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[hobbit] Hobbitd settings in hobbitserver.cfg
by fduranti＠q8.it 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

You did it right but you also have to change the shared memory parameters for your system. The location of those parameters change by OS type. You can find a solution in this I think : http://www.hswn.dk/hobbiton/2005/08/msg00183.html Francesco > -----Original Message----- > From: Michael Dunne [mailto:dunne at accuweather.com] > Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 6:44 PM > To: hobbit at hswn.dk > Subject: [hobbit] Hobbitd settings in hobbitserver.cfg > > Greetings, > > Earlier today we added a system to our main hobbit server. > Upon adding the system we received a hobbitd msg of: > > Oversize status msg fro xxx. xxxxx:ports truncated (n=294359, > limit=262144) > > When I looked in the hobbitserver.cfg file to increase the > maxmsg_status setting I did not see a listing for > maxmsg_status. Thinking that I was being smart, I added a > ling to hobbitserver.cfg for maxmsg_client. The line added > was as followed: > > MAXMSG_STATUS="768" > > I restarted hobbit after adding the line and saw the > following message in the hobbitlaunch.log: > > 2006-09-25 11:48:12 Loading hostnames > 2006-09-25 11:48:12 Loading saved state > 2006-09-25 11:48:12 Setting up network listener on 0.0.0.0:1984 > 2006-09-25 11:48:12 Setting up signal handlers > 2006-09-25 11:48:12 Setting up hobbitd channels > 2006-09-25 11:48:12 Could not get shm of size 786432: Cannot > allocate memory > 2006-09-25 11:48:12 Cannot setup client channel > 2006-09-25 11:48:12 Task hobbitd terminated, status 1 > > > I removed the line and restarted hobbit, but hobbitd kept > failing. I tried rebooting the system, but hobbitd was still failing. > > Ultimately I stopped hobbit, deleted the hobbitd.pid file and > restarted hobbit. All has been well since, excepting the > original oversized status messages. > > My question is, what did I do wrong? Where exactly should I > add the maxmsg_status line (or the maxmsg_client, > maxmsg_data, maxmsg_stachg for that matter)? > > I am running 4.2.0. > > Thanks in advance for any assistance. > > Mike > > Michael Dunne > Network Support Specialist > AccuWeather, Inc. > > ~HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly > unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, > and soldiers mostly fools. > > (Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary")~ > > > > To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to > hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk > > >

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[hobbit] Is there a way to "quietly" disable hosts that have NOTICE set?
by fduranti＠q8.it 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

At this moment it's not possible to do anything like that I think ... The only 3 alternatives I see at this moment are: 1) writing a script that will change the DOWNTIME inside the bb-hosts file at the start and at the end of the backup, hobbit should read it for the next test and not send alert or notice 2) You can enable the NOTICE alert only during the non backup time so for example if you do backup between 02:00-05:00 you can enable NOTICE only from 0-2 and from 5-24 and sending a disable via bb command at the start of the backup. With this you'll not know if someone will disable the text during the backup hour but at least you get the alert if the host is down (better then having hobbit not alert on a fault probably). 3) At least for the "oracle" test if it's local to the oracle database you can also change it to check for example for the existance of a file named something like /oracle/backup_now and if that file exist change the script to not do any checks and send a clear state to hobbit. For the procs to do the same I think you've to modify the hobbit client too and I don't know how simple it can be. Francesco ________________________________ From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 6:28 PM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] Is there a way to "quietly" disable hosts that have NOTICE set? Okay, let me explain this again :) If I ignore pages for a specific time interval, say 2 hours while backups are being done, then every minute that the backups complete before that interval is over, is a minute that the database is essentially not monitored, which is not acceptable. Example: via DOWNTIME in bb-hosts, or via TIME specifications in hobbit-alerts.cfg as you mention, [----------window where no pages are sent for red status of "oracle" or "procs"------------] [-----------------database backups--------------][------ something can break here -------] My problem is that something can break during that post-backup interval, and nobody will be notified. Making the interval shorter is not an option because due to the nature of backups, the amount of time it takes to do the backup fluctuates on a daily basis. It could take 30 minutes monday night, an hour tuesday night, 10 minutes wednesday night, 73 minutes thurs.. Using the bb disable command from a script is not a good solution because that makes NOTICE alerts get sent out, which wakes people up for no reason. The DOWNTIME option in bb-hosts has the ability to set the status of services blue without sending NOTICE alerts. I would like this same ability on an interactive basis (via a message to hobbit using the bb command). -Charles Scheblein, Adam wrote: we have put in the following because every night we have batch jobs that run that use almost all the processor power in our server: SERVICE=cpu MAIL [e-mail address] COLOR=red DURATION=15 TIME=*:0900:1700 HOST=[hostname] by changing the TIME field to suit you, you will not get paiged, you just have to put an EXHOST=[hostname] in your normal alert rules. Adam ________________________________________ From: Charles Jones Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 7:12 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] Is there a way to "quietly" disable hosts that have NOTICE set? That sends out NOTICE alerts though. If you are on call, do you want to get paged at 3am every night when those services are put into MAINT mode? Thats why I asked if there was a way to do a "silent" disable. I basically need something that works exactly like the DOWNTIME option in bb-hosts, except interactively. -Charles Francesco Duranti wrote: Directly from the man bb command :D disable HOSTNAME.TESTNAME DURATION <additional text> Disables a specific test for DURATION minutes. This will cause the status of this test to be listed as "blue" on the BBDISPLAY server, and no alerts for this host/test will be generated. If DURATION is given as a number followed by s/m/h/d, it is interpreted as being in seconds/minutes/hours/days respectively. To disable all tests for a host, use an asterisk "*" for TESTNAME. enable HOSTNAME.TESTNAME Re-enables a test that had been disabled. So you can execute bb hobbitserver "disable dbservername.* 2h Backup time" before shutting down the database and bb hobbitserver "enable dbserver.*" just at the end. Francesco -----Original Message----- From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 7:56 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: [hobbit] Is there a way to "quietly" disable hosts that have NOTICE set? I have the NOTICE flag set for all of my production hosts - I want pages to go out if someone disables or enables any of them. However, when backups are done, the oracle databases are brought down, which triggers an alert. If they are manually disabled, the NOTICE message goes out which also wakes people up for no reason. If I use DOWNTIME in bb-hosts, then I have to specify a window which is guaranteed to be longer than the possible time it could take to backup the databases (which is a dynamic thing which will surely be wrong from time to time). So what ends up happening is for example, I would specify an hour of DOWNTIME, but the backups sometimes only take 30 minutes. That means there is a 30 minute window where a real alert would be masked, which is unacceptable in a production environment. I guess what I'm looking for, is a way that I can send a commands to Hobbit via a shellscript (called from the db backup script), that would put a host/services in maint mode (disabled - blue dot), and NOT send a NOTICE page. -Charles 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 To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk

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[dbcheck] feature request: regexp-based config
by gn1＠sanger.ac.uk 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

(even though this is related to dbcheck and not to hobbit per-se I send this email here, as I guess it may be of interest for other agent-writers-to-be) Hi, I have an important number of mysql server to monitor using dbcheck. On some of them, I have created a monitoring account, on others I use an already existing account. Interestingly enough, servers with a similar configuration have a similar name, so I would be interested in using regexp-based configuration but as far as I know, dbcheck.ini must have an entry for each database to monitor. Francesco, would it be feasible? Cheers, Gildas

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Somewhat off-topic - the GPL v2/v3 debate, and Hobbit
by henrik＠hswn.dk 23 Sep '06

23 Sep '06

As You may have heard, there is currently a rather intense debate going on about the proposed new version 3 of the GNU General Public License (the GPL). Hobbit uses the GPL license - and specifically, it uses the current version 2. A change to version 3 of the GPL therefore cannot happen automatically - it has to be a deliberate decision by me (and anyone else who has contributed code to Hobbit) to do so. The proposed GPL v3 adds some rather troubling restrictions to the license, especially when it comes to using GPL-licensed code in systems that include various DRM (Digital Rights Management) mechanisms. It also poses some legal challenges to companies that obtain patents on their work, which could very well mean that they would not be able to use GPLv3 licensed software at all. I fundamentally believe that DRM and patents - especially patents on computer software - is evil, and I would never buy anything that comes with such restrictions on what I can use it for. However, the GPL v3 proposal is too much of a "fight fire with fire" agenda for me. Whether our society should permit patents is a political discussion, not a software-development issue. So it should be handled politically, not in a software license. DRM restrictions can be dealt with simply through normal market mechanisms - if you dislike them, dont buy products that have them. Or make something that is better and release it in an Open Source way. I am not a lawyer, so I may have misunderstood quite what the proposed changes mean - but if I have, then several other software developers whose judgment I respect have also misunderstood them. Most notably, a large collection of the Linux kernel developers - including Linus Torvalds - strongly oppose the GPL v3 changes and have recently published a discussion document detailing why they believe these changes are wrong. http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/448894 When the second draft of GPLv3 was published, Linus also participated in a lengthy discussion explaining his views on the Groklaw blog. If you're interested, see the (long) "DRM misunderstood" thread starting at http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060727140038810 and especially http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20060727140038810&title… All that just to explain my position: As far as I am concerned there will not be a change of license for Hobbit, at least not with the current wording of the GPLv3. Just in case anyone cared. Regards, Henrik

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Feature request: rss support in pageset
by fduranti＠q8.it 23 Sep '06

23 Sep '06

Hi Henrik, I think I've already asked for it ... Checking the source of bbgen.c it seems that the rss is disabled when creating pageset by default so it will not create rss file. It's possible (if it will not broke other thing) to change the line 569 of bbgen.c to change this? if (pageset || embedded || snapshot) enable_wmlgen = wantrss = 0; It will change nothing special because if someone don't want rss file they can leave out the rss options but I could use rss files in pageset (mostly the bb2.rss) but they'll not get created :D I know I can change on my copy but it's just to not have to remember to patch it every time and I think it could be useful to others too.. Francesco

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[hobbit] Informal survey about commercial support for Hobbit
by Johann.Eggers＠teleatlas.com 23 Sep '06

23 Sep '06

Hi Henrik I have received no reply to my private messages to you sent out on 19.09.2006 (some sort of filter?), so apologies to the list. Therefor I've attached it to this mail and send it through the list. Sorry again for bothering the other... Thanks Johann -----Original Message----- From: Johann Eggers Sent: Dienstag, 19. September 2006 16:25 To: 'henrik at hswn.dk' Subject: RE: [hobbit] Informal survey about commercial support for Hobbit Hi Henrik, It's a couple of days ago that you started the "Informal survey about commercial support for Hobbit". We are currently busy to set up a "Global Monitoring" project in which we are now in the phase to decide which way to go: 1. use Open source tools (Hobbit, bigbrother (not really open source), Nagios 2. Outsourcing the whole monitoring/alarming to an external provider 3. Use Enterprise class systems (Tivoli, MicroMuse, CA, HP Openview...) After our last discussion it's getting clear that we will recommend using an Open source tool, preferably Hobbit, as the 1. option to the management. There are a couple of reasons for that, I guess you should best know it :) One concern from the team members was the lack of commercial support for Hobbit, because the management often prefers solutions providing commercial support. We would most likely be interested an a reasonably priced annual fee for the opportunity to get either custom modifications to hobbit or consultation and assistance in implementing custom tests. I guess this would be best done by direct email support with a fixed response time (to be discussed). What are your thoughts/plans to offer this kind of commercial support? Looking forward to hear from you Best Regards Johann -----Original Message----- From: Henrik Stoerner [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk] Sent: Donnerstag, 24. August 2006 17:19 To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: [hobbit] Informal survey about commercial support for Hobbit I've had a couple of enquiries about providing commercial support for Hobbit. In essence they need a guaranteed response to e-mail support queries, as a supplement to the mailing list where mails do get answered, but not always within a day or two. Making money off Hobbit never was my intention, but being paid for doing what is really a hobby for me does seem attractive. So this is just an informal survey: * Would you be interested in paying for Hobbit support? * What kind of support do you need? E-mail for solving problems, custom feature developments, or ... ? * What response-time requirements do you have? Since I'm in Europe and a lot of the Hobbit users are in the US or Australia, I have a problem with same-day response guarantees. * How much are you willing to spend on it ? Feel free to respond here on the list, or to me directly. Just to avoid raising any panic, let me emphasize that this will NOT in any way stop or detract from the support I offer here on the mailing list. I think the mailing list will always be the primary support channel, and a place for discussing Hobbit developments, beta versions and all the other related issues. It's just that some companies feel more comfortable using software when there is a "normal" support contract. Regards, Henrik To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk

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Desktop Client is now available!
by matthew.epp＠us.army.mil 22 Sep '06

22 Sep '06

Announcing my first public release of the Big Brother Watcher desktop client! I went and created a project page at Sourceforge, and just now finished writing up some initial README files for it. Keep in mind, this is my first time at maintaining any kind of open-source project, so be nice with any criticism. :) There are bound to be bugs, and I'll welcome reports on those. I've never used the bug reporting tool on Sourceforge, but go ahead and use that if you have an account on there. All of the installation instructions (such as they are) are in the README files. Enjoy, and I'll check my email on Monday to see if anyone has had any luck! http://sourceforge.net/projects/bbwatcher/

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hobbitd/bbd server move
by matthew＠familycampground.org 22 Sep '06

22 Sep '06

My hobbit install is fairly simple. One main server, and all clients reporting to that server. Recently I moved the main hobbit server. Thought it was going to be an easy move, and it turned out to be alot easier than I expected. Just a change to the HOBBITSERVERS in /etc/defualt/hobbit-client was all I realy needed to do to clients. But during the process I ran into 2 issues on the serverside. One was my fault.. 1 - In hobbitserver.cfg I changed BBSERVERHOSTNAME to reflect the new host, but forgot about the IP address (BBSERVERIP). The bbd/bbgen/bbtest/hobbitd tests kept showing up under the old host (the host was still active and a client). I was expecting the tests just to disappear or appear under the new system host since the hostname was correct. 2 - trimhistory didn't quite work as expected. I kept getting this error: # ./trimhistory --cutoff=`date +%s --date="1 Sep 2006"` 2006-09-22 17:05:15 Cannot cd to history directory: No such file or directory But running it from bbcmd worked. -- Matthew Davis http://familycampground.org/matthew/

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