Sorry if this is obvious but have you tried this using just the HOST=hostname to make sure it is working?

Thanks, I did that and all works well with HOST=hostname. The one thing I couldn't get working is CLASS=classname. Using the CLASS=classname entry makes more sense for file monitoring as the same file in different platforms vary in permissions and location. If I can't make it work with CLASS I'll stick with what works by maintaining multiple HOST entries.

The configs once again are

hobbit-clients.cfg:

CLASS=hpux11iv1 FILE /etc/sudoers mtime>600

client-local.cfg:

[hpux11iv1] file:/etc/sudoers

bb-hosts

0.0.0.0 hpux_host # CLASS:hpux11iv1

-denver