January 2008 - Xymon - Xymon mailman web

urlplus.pl http/https monitoring extension script
by gumby3203＠gmail.com 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

We are in the process of replacing several sitescope monitors with Hobbit, and I have found some of the built-in Hobbit http checks inadequate. As a result, I have been working on an extension script which at its core is essentially a wrapper for curl. However, it provides for more robust user-customization than is easily possible with Hobbit's built-in tests. It is still a work-in-progress, but I believe it has matured enough to be worth posting on The Shire. I wrote it using perl, but I have a feeling that some point in the future it may need to be converted to C (mostly for the speed). However, it seems to work pretty good for me now. The main feature I required from this script was the addition of a per-host customizable timeout period. Some of the hosts I'm testing take up to a minute to return back any data, and this is considered normal. However, I didn't want to bump up the timeout for _all_ hosts. Admittedly, this script uses an additional configuration file and doesn't completely integrate with the bb-hosts file, but it works for me and helps keep the bb-hosts file clean. I'd be interested in what other people think of this script, which is the main reason I'm contributing it now. I have attached it to this post (I haven't yet subscribed to theshire-developers, so I'm not able to upload it myself yet).

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[hobbit] hosts wildcards in clients-local.cfg
by szymon＠bakowski.net 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

>On Thu, Jan 10, 2008 at 12:34:12PM +0000, Szymon.Bakowski (at) ladbrokes.co.uk wrote: >> Just wanted to ask a quick question (went through the archive, but haven't >> found an answer for my question): >> >> Is it possible to use host wildcards in clients-local.cfg file ? They do >> work for me for example in hobbit-clients.cfg but it seems that I can not >> make it work in clients-local.cfg. In hobbit-clients.cfg I am using for >> example as follows: >> >> HOST=%www..\.foo\.com >> >> but it doesn't work in clients-local.cfg. > >No, you cannot. > >The way around this is to use host "classes". The default class for a >host is the name of the operating system - that's why the "[linux]" and >"[hpux]" etc. sections work. You can change the class of a host either >by configuring it with the CLASS:classname setting in bb-hosts, or by >specifying the class on the client when you start the Hobbit client. > >It is a bit annoying that you cannot use regexp's in client-local.cfg. >Might be something I change. > > >Regards, >Henrik Thank you Henrik for your reply. Classes did help indeed. Can I use them in other config files like for example in hobbit-clients.cfg ? Regards Szymon

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ext scripts & the Hobbit methodology for implementation.
by s_aiello＠comcast.net 03 Feb '08

03 Feb '08

Within the last few months I have successfully migrated from BigBrother to Hobbit. The process was long and auderous since we had a large number of customizations in BigBrother. But now that we are on Hobbit, I really want to make use of the power of Hobbit and move away from the BB legacy method for ext scripts. What I mean by BB legacy ext scripts, are client based ext scripts that send reports in via the bb status command. The Hobbit method is more server centric. In that clients report raw data to the server and the server processes that data, applying thresholds, formating reports, and possibly trending. Now to send raw data from the client there are two choices, data or client. Now in the past, I believe I saw a thread where Henrik mentioned that data was the preferred method for ext scripts & that client was more for the internal use between hobbit clients & server. But the lure of the client command is to great to ignore. Especially with the ability to access that raw data via the clientlog command. So that brings me to my first problem when sending data via the client command the data needs to be structure in a very particular format. Where OSTYPE has to match a predefined Hobbit OSTYPE and a minimum set of SECTIONNAME need to be filled for the Hobbit server to accept the data. If they are missing the data just ends up in /dev/null. So I was curious if in the upcoming 4.3 (or newer version), that the client command could be opened up for more general usage ? Now secondly after the data is actually accepted by the Server, the ability to do something with it is needed. Now that shouldn't be a problem with being able to attatch a script to a Hobbit channel or by scheduling a command to run clientlog every X minutes and process the data. But how does the script apply thresholds ? Now I am working under the assumption that for my custom data I would be able to add custom definitions to the hobbit-clients.cfg file. But how does my script access those thresholds ? Since Hobbit already has all the internals to acess this file, I would think that a Hobbit utility would fit the need. Maybe even a new BB command ? i.e. "bin/bb 1.2.3.4 "threshold server", where there could be an optional parameter "stats=" which could be CPU, PROCS, DISK, etc. By storing the custom ext thresholds in the hobbit-clients.cfg file, this allows the cgi hobbit-confreport.sh to report on the custom thresholds along with the built-in client thresholds. A sample of a custom client report: bin/bb 1.2.3.4 "client BlahJVM01.websphere was60 [date] Thu Jan 24 09:03...... [jvm] java version: JDK 1.4.2_12 .... [memory] free: 88565 used: 43209 gc-calls: 39 gc-time: 4 [threadpool] current: 0 highwater: 10 active: 0 " Sample hobbit-clients.cfg WASTHRD 10 20 WASMEMFREE 15000 5000 Sorry for the long winded email, I am just trying to move my ext scripts to the Hobbit methodology. It just makes more sense.. and offers many more options & power. And this was just my take on it. Thoughts ? ~Steve

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More Granular data than 300 second samples, duh!
by scott＠PacketPushers.com 03 Feb '08

03 Feb '08

One of the most common requests to the trending of data is "How do I make the charts graph data samples which are smaller than 300 seconds?" And the answer has been, you have the source, have fun. The original design decision that Henrik inherited was larrd should only be for capacity planning and NOT real-time performance analysis. Do one thing and do it well. I had a thought the other day, and I think we could possibly get the "best of both worlds." Instead of $ vmstat 300 2 (resulting in one 300 second sample) why not $ vmstat 5 61 (resulting in sixty 5 second samples) The data would still only be transported every five minutes, but contain more granular samples. This could not be done for all metrics, but many. This would also require the RRAs of the all the RRDs be re-made (export, re-create, import). But I've that's been on my mind anyway cause the original RRA structure was based on screen sizes for 800x600, instead of business requirements. Henrik, do you follow my thinking? It's kinda hard for me to believe it's taken me over five years to think of this! My biggest concern is not the technical details of the collectors and RRD/RRA restructuring, but inflicting resource usage on servers measuring themselves. $ vmstat 1 301 would definitely be a bad idea. Scott Walters -PacketPusher

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Admin Scripts download
by josh＠imaginenetworksllc.com 02 Feb '08

02 Feb '08

Does anyone have the tarball of the Admin Scripts that were once found here: http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~henk/hobbit/ I can't seem to find my archive of them =( -- Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. --- Henry Spencer

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contchk.sh (submission)
by jonescr＠cisco.com 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

The past week I've been trying to share any of the hobbit ext scripts that I wrote. Here's another, contchk.sh. I initially created it because Hobbits content check does not follow "302 Redirect" response codes, and I also had a need to check a URL which was expecting a certain referrer. I remembered I was using this script when I saw Gary Baluha's urlplus.pl. Incidentally, I cannot use urlplus, as it makes use of bbhostgrep, which I discovered fails if your bb-host entries are too long. contchk.sh is a fairly short bash script which makes use of curl. You can optionally specify a referrer to spoof. For most folks, Garys script is probably best to use, as it has more enhanced error messages and such. If anything, it's interesting to see different ways multiple people tackle a problem :) Note: besides the script itself (which should reside in $BBHOME/ext), you will need to add this to your $BBHOME/etc/hobbitlaunch.cfg: [contchk] ENVFILE /home/monitor/server/etc/hobbitserver.cfg NEEDS hobbitd CMD $BBHOME/ext/contchk.sh LOGFILE $BBSERVERLOGS/contchk.log INTERVAL 5m -Charles #!/bin/bash # contchk.sh written by Charles Jones (blazer0x at gmail.com) 6/6/2007 # This script is designed to perform a content check on a URL and report the # status to a Hobbit server. # # This script was created because Hobbits built-in content check functionality # does not follow 302 redirects. # # The script parses out a "contchk" tag in the bb-hosts file. The proper # syntax is: contchk;URL;REFERRER;CHECKSTRING # # Note that CHECKSTRING cannot contain spaces so you must use regular # expression metacharacters, so use something like string.with.spaces BBHTAG=contchk # Name of the tag in bb-hosts COLUMN=cont # Column display name in Hobbit CURL=/usr/bin/curl # Location of curl binary CURLOPTS="--connect-timeout 30 -m 30 -s -L -b cookiejar" # Curl options # Note: using grep because bbhostgrep fails on long lines grep $BBHTAG $BBHOME/etc/bb-hosts | while read L do set $L # To get one line of output from bbhostgrep HOSTIP="$1" MACHINEDOTS="$2" MACHINE=`echo $2 | $SED -e's/\./,/g'` CHECKURL=`echo $4 | awk -F";" '{print $2}'` # Parse out the check URL REFERRER=`echo $4 | awk -F";" '{print $3}'` # Parse out the referrer string if [ "" != "$REFERRER" ]; then REFERRER="-e $REFERRER" fi CHECKSTRING=`echo $4 | awk -F";" '{print $4}'` # Parse out the check string $CURL $CURLOPTS $REFERRER $CHECKURL |grep -q "$CHECKSTRING" status=$? # Save greps return status if [ 0 -eq $status ]; then # grep returns 0 if it found something COLOR=green MSG="String <b>\"$CHECKSTRING\"</b> was found in <a href=$CHECKURL>$CHECKURL</a>" $BB $BBDISP "status $MACHINE.$COLUMN $COLOR `date` Content Check OK ${MSG} " else # grep didn't find anything COLOR=red MSG="String <b>\"$CHECKSTRING\"</b> was NOT FOUND in <a href=$CHECKURL>$CHECKURL</a>" $BB $BBDISP "status $MACHINE.$COLUMN $COLOR `date` Content Check FAILED ${MSG} " fi done exit 0

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Problems with hanging hobbit page
by grusman＠gluerecord.net 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

Hi, I'm currently testing a hobbit installation using 2 hobbit servers (4.3.0-0.20080103) and some bbwin clients (0.10). I'm using the centralized mode, pushing configuration files to the clients from the server(s), which works fine. I have a problem with the hobbit status page though; when the page is re-loaded automatically, it hangs mid-way on diferent places different times. If I press F5 to reload the page, it loads all of the page without problem. I have examined the apache log files and client browser log but could not find a cause. Have anyone here experienced the same issue? Another question; I have set up the client configuration files identically on both servers (under etc/bbwin). How does that work? How do the server / client know which server to get the configuration files from? (it works fine, I'm just curious). Regards, Peter

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FW: [hobbit] Future of Hobbit - Getting added to distro repos
by Colin.Coe＠woodside.com.au 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

Hi all The rrdtool RPMs are in the Fedora 7/8 Everything repos. This means that the _might_ find their way into RHEL6 providing rrdtool (and all its components) are compatible with RedHat. It's unlikely hobbit would go into RHEL until it's been in Fedora and I've had a quick look at the hobbit README and seen that there are four components that are not GPLed, this may or may not be a problem for RedHat's lawyers. This post (http://www.archivum.info/fedora-extras-list at redhat.com/2005-05/msg00099 .html) requested a review of hobbit for inclusion in Fedora but looks like no one took up the challenge. Anyway, I've raised tickets 1801320 and 1801322 with RedHat to have rrdtool and hobbit included in RHEL5. I have some experience creating/maintaining RPMs so I'll put my name forward for consideration in the interim. HTH CC -----Original Message----- From: Charles Jones [mailto:jonescr at cisco.com] Sent: Thursday, 31 January 2008 5:19 AM To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: [hobbit] Future of Hobbit - Getting added to distro repos I am going to attempt to drive getting Hobbit added to the Centos Plus repository, but first we need to figure out a few things: 1. Who will create and maintain the RPMs I'd rather someone with experience creating and maintaining distribution packages do this, but if all else fails I will volunteer. 2. Resolution of common problems when installing Hobbit on RHEL/CentOS Here are problems I have encountered in the past: * SELINUX blocks access to hobbit cgi and web content (and probably the creation of suid hobbitping). So the RPM installer script needs to set the proper security context on the files. * librrdtool is not provided in the RHEL or CentOS/CentOS Plus repository (so even if you had a Hobbit RPM, you would have to go and get 3 rrdtool packages (rrdtool, rrdtool-devel, and perl-rrdtool) from the DAG repository. Possible resolution is to also get rrdtool added to CentOS Plus. 3. Figuring out what would be the most common/preferred/accepted installation dirs for Hobbit. Last week I installed the FC5 rpm, and it installed to /etc/hobbit, whereas the tarball by default installs to a subdirectory of /home. Some people like system tools to be in a "system" directory, while others like being able to install to a user space controlled location. Any other ideas? Am I leaving anything out? I'd really like to see Hobbit be an available package on "RedHat" (RHEL, CentOS), as well as Fedora. -Charles To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk NOTICE: This email and any attachments are confidential. They may contain legally privileged information or copyright material. You must not read, copy, use or disclose them without authorisation. If you are not an intended recipient, please contact us at once by return email and then delete both messages and all attachments.

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Setting up second network tester
by eric.jacobs＠thomastechsolutions.com 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

My Hobbit server does the display, network testing and alerting. Using the default 5 minute interval for network tests. Some have complained that connectivity tests to certain routers should happen more frequently. But, as far as I can see, network testing interval is an all or nothing variable. So I'm thinking of setting up second network tester and using NET variable in bb-hosts to have the particular routers in question tested by second network tester, running its tests more frequently. Preamble done - now, how do I go about setting up second network tester? Configuring another server and disabling all unnecessary tasks in hobbitlaunch.cfg? If so, which will I need for the tester to work properly? Eric Jacobs

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Help Getting Custom Graph Working
by jkwade＠futurefrontiers.com 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

I seem to be having a problem getting a custom graph to work. I've gotten it working in the past, but I'm having problems. I'm sending four values via a test. When I do a rrdump, it shows only three of the values. The fourth value doesn't show up. If I rotate the third with the fourth value, ie..re-order them, the other value shows up. example: Users : 11 Unauth : 4 Attempts : 13 Total : 486 So,Total doesn't show up, but if I rotate total with Attempts, and remove the login.rrd file, then Attempts doesn't show up. Here's what my hobbitserver.cfg file looks like: NCV_login="Users:GAUGE,Unauth:GAUGE,Attempts:GAUGE,Total:GAUGE" Thanks.James

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