Hello,

I added what you recommended, but the alarm still exists. Here is the tasks.cfg section: [xymonnet] ENVFILE /usr/lib/xymon/server/etc/xymonserver.cfg NEEDS xymond CMD xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --dns-timeout=5 --timelimit=75 LOGFILE $XYMONSERVERLOGS/xymonnet.log INTERVAL 1m

The xymonnet alarm now says under Error output: Unknown option –timelimit=75 – try –help

Any suggestions?

Foster

From: Xymon [mailto:xymon-bounces at xymon.com] On Behalf Of Japheth Cleaver Sent: Thursday, September 1, 2016 5:39 PM To: xymon at xymon.com Subject: Re: [Xymon] xymonnet alarm

On 9/1/2016 12:34 PM, Foster Patch wrote: Hello,

A change to how our DNS is configured has caused the DNS test on xymonnet to reach around 50 seconds. Combined with the other tests, the total time exceeds the time limit (60). Because of this, xymonnet has been alarming for a very long time. Is there any way I can adjust the time limit to account for this? (Bring it up to 80 instead of 60 for example) Here is our xymonnet section of tasks.cfg:

[xymonnet] ENVFILE /usr/lib/xymon/server/etc/xymonserver.cfg NEEDS xymond CMD xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --dns-timeout=5 LOGFILE $XYMONSERVERLOGS/xymonnet.log INTERVAL 1m

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Foster Patch Server Technician

Hi Foster,

The warning time passed in by xymonnet can be adjusted with the --timelimit= option given in the CMD above. By default, it's equivalent to the INTERVAL runtime (assuming xymonnet is run with one, which it usually is), since it's there to let you know that the testing interval isn't being met. You can also adjust that upwards to match the average time things are taking.

Unfortunately, DNS lookups-as-tests are handled differently from the other tests, and timeouts or network problems can increase xymonnet's runtime linearly with failures. Assuming the ones you're testing are the only ones you need to test (i.e., remove dead hosts), reducing '--dns-timeout' as low as you're comfortable with is the only other real tweak here. Enabling/disabling the test changes whether xymon considers an outage to be an alertable issue, but doesn't prevent xymonnet from checking (and waiting on) that service in the first place.

If you have a large number of these with different SLAs, or a huge number of DNS servers to test, there are advanced ways of setting up xymonnet runtimes to isolate these effects. Basically, you'd set up a separate instance of xymonnet just for doing DNS tests, while excluding them from your normal install.

HTH, -jc

Patch now included.

-jc

On Fri, September 9, 2016 8:11 pm, J.C. Cleaver wrote:

On Thu, September 8, 2016 11:51 am, Foster Patch wrote:

...

Hello,

I added what you recommended, but the alarm still exists. Here is the tasks.cfg section: [xymonnet] ENVFILE /usr/lib/xymon/server/etc/xymonserver.cfg NEEDS xymond CMD xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --dns-timeout=5 --timelimit=75 LOGFILE $XYMONSERVERLOGS/xymonnet.log INTERVAL 1m

The xymonnet alarm now says under Error output: Unknown option –timelimit=75 – try –help

Any suggestions?

Foster

Hi Foster,

Unfortunately, I can confirm that this is a bug in how that option is processed. As a workaround, you can lie to xymonnet about what interval it's been told to run (from xymonlaunch) at with:

...

CMD env TASKSLEEP=75 xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --dns-timeout=5

This should result in what you want.

The following patch should fix it for you, and this will be in the next version.

HTH, -jc

Should I replace this:

CMD xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --timelimit=75 --dns-timeout=5

With this

CMD xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --dns-timeout=5 --timelimit=75

Or should I add an additional line to what you put in?

-----Original Message----- From: J.C. Cleaver [mailto:cleaver at terabithia.org] Sent: Friday, September 9, 2016 11:30 PM To: Foster Patch <Foster.Patch at accuweather.com> Cc: Xymon Mailing List <xymon at xymon.com> Subject: Re: [Xymon] xymonnet alarm (with patch)

Patch now included.

-jc

On Fri, September 9, 2016 8:11 pm, J.C. Cleaver wrote:

On Thu, September 8, 2016 11:51 am, Foster Patch wrote:

...

Hello,

I added what you recommended, but the alarm still exists. Here is the tasks.cfg section: [xymonnet] ENVFILE /usr/lib/xymon/server/etc/xymonserver.cfg NEEDS xymond CMD xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --dns-timeout=5 --timelimit=75 LOGFILE $XYMONSERVERLOGS/xymonnet.log INTERVAL 1m

The xymonnet alarm now says under Error output: Unknown option –timelimit=75 – try –help

Any suggestions?

Foster

Hi Foster,

Unfortunately, I can confirm that this is a bug in how that option is processed. As a workaround, you can lie to xymonnet about what interval it's been told to run (from xymonlaunch) at with:

...

CMD env TASKSLEEP=75 xymonnet --report --ping --checkresponse --dns-timeout=5

This should result in what you want.

The following patch should fix it for you, and this will be in the next version.

HTH, -jc