I have recently downloaded xymon version 4.3.11 to experiment with as a replacement for the last publicly available version of Big Brother. It is running on Solaris 10 x86.
The http test on the Display server, for itself, has a flapping status for http with DNS errors.
I've experimented with the following, restarting the xymon server application each time
server/etc/tasks.cfg
CMD xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --concurrency=64 CMD xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --no-ares
server/etc/tasks.cfg/hosts.cfg
130.11.50.48 owipm1.er.usgs.gov # bbd http://owipm1.er.usgs.gov =130.11.50.48
I am only monitoring the server itself and one remote host.
xymond.log shows
2013-06-05 00:49:40 Flapping detected for owipm1.er.usgs.gov:cron - 5 changes in 1507 seconds
xymonlaunch.log shows many of these
2013-06-05 10:35:04 Task xymongen terminated by signal 6 2013-06-05 10:36:04 Task xymongen terminated by signal 6 2013-06-05 10:37:06 Task xymongen terminated by signal 6
I've run a script which uses dig on the FQDN for the server once every second, and have never seen even a significant delay, let alone a failure.
-- -- David Boldt <dboldt at usgs.gov>
"Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good." --Samuel Johnson [1709 - 1784], (attributed)