On Wednesday 01 July 2009 07:01:07 T.J. Yang wrote:
To: hobbit at hswn.dk From: david.peters at dpi.nsw.gov.au Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 10:18:56 +1000 Subject: [hobbit] Xymon hosts database.
I think I have posted this quite a while ago but it is still on my mind.
Not only in my mind. I got to deliver it in next few months.
We currently configure the hosts, pages etc using a windows database and windows front end that I wrote quite some time ago. I keep getting the urge to convert it to a linux database and a web frontend. However I would not do this if there is no interest in using it.
My interest about Xymon and relational DB is mainly from asset inventory perspective. Xymon doing a decent jobs collecting system information(io/cpu/memory/disk). But what about a system's asset information ? where is rack position of this machine ? what is the serial number, owner, function ? and is it a owned orleased machnine ? Asset information like this are most likely kept in Excel files. Won't it be nature to tight these information together ? Xymon should be able to do both system and inventory monitoring.(ie, you got a red yellow alert if a machine's lease is expiring in 1 month).
To achieve this goal, I plan to introduce a relational DB into my Xymon server system.
Please see the details here, http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/System_Monitoring_with_Xymon/Developer_Guide#U sing_relational_DBs_with_Xymon_Server
The point is that you never touch the bb-hosts file and all configuration of hosts and layouts is done via a user interface.
Is there any interest in this?
Yes.
Is there anyone willing to help?
Count me in. I am decent at perl programming and currently learning php/extjs/qWikiOffice.
IMHO you shouldn't be choosing solutions before you have requirements ....
While qwikioffice looks snazzy, one of my requirements is that a view must be customised (possibly per-user), and a user *must* be able to get their correct view without any interaction (no mouse clicking etc.), so that this display can be used e.g. on a video wall, where no one is able to click the mouse. Any cycling of views etc. should be automated.
I have done some simple frame+js pages to do this with current hobbit (e.g. to cycle one frame between weathermap view and main view).
If so I was going to convert to mysql and either php or perl cgi. Any comments on this?
perl cgi script works but it is really not eye-catching. I like to stay with perl but php community is so strong. Catalyst is perl's MVC solution but it is weak on "View" part. As long as your requirement doesn't need EXTJS then Catalyst a very good solution.
There are a number of AJAX libraries that people use with Catalyst, e.g. Prototype, Dojo, with some plugins allowing perl-ish calls in templates that result in the correct javascript. In conjunction with View::JSON, everything required is available ...
Maybe it's time to start collecting requirements and prototyping some stuff. I think the first thing we need is a Model::Xymon .
Regards, Buchan