A few very useful ways I recently found to test the regular expressions with xymon are the pcretest and hobbitd_client command.

-bash-3.2$ pcretest PCRE version 6.6 06-Feb-2006

re> /^asd$/ data> asdf No match data> asd 0: asd

[root at zenls01h ~]# su - xymon -bash-3.2$ ./server/bin/bbcmd hobbitd_client --test 2010-02-06 19:39:42 Using default environment file /usr/lib64/xymon/server/etc/hobbitserver.cfg Hostname (.=end, ?=dump, !=reload) []:

From there you can try out the host name that's not matching up as well as the test.

Hope that helps in your troubleshooting; helped me remove some entries in the hobbit-clients and hobbit-alerts that were causing issues.

Good luck, Matt.

Unix System Administrator Computer Science Corporation General Dynamics Land Systems 38500 Mound Rd. Sterling Heights, MI. 48310 Desk: (586) 825-8294 Oracle IM: moldvanm

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From: Kii NODA <kii.noda at gmail.com> To: hobbit at hswn.dk Date: 01/28/2010 04:58 PM Subject: [hobbit] Re: Alerts - HOSTS matching regular expressions.

Hi everyone,

After doing some testing I can say we've elegantly solved the problem caused by "HOST=%^asd$" matching both hosts named "asd" and "asdf" despite the "$" at the end. We've added a "STOP" rule at the end of the "special" rules that only alert CTO & CEO of Junkyard.

The problem still remains, however.

The new, most elegant ruleset thus far, follows:

--- cut here --- HOST=junkyard-starbox-v_trash MAIL=cto at junkyard.tld STOP

HOST=junkyard-starbox-x_dustbin MAIL=ceo at junkyard.tld STOP

HOST=* MAIL=stars at sysadmins.tld REPEAT=60 RECOVERED NOTICE COLOR=purple,yellow MAIL=stars at sysadmins.tld REPEAT=10 RECOVERED NOTICE COLOR=red MAIL=cto at sysadmins.tld DURATION>60 REPEAT=60 RECOVERED NOTICE COLOR=purple,yellow MAIL=cto at sysadmins.tld DURATION>30 REPEAT=60 RECOVERED NOTICE COLOR=red --- and here ---

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 10:45 PM, Kii NODA <kii.noda at gmail.com> wrote: Hi everyone,

As you may have already been aware by now, we're here to stay. :)

Here's one interesting problem (and maybe simple) for you: We've seen that "HOST=%^asd$" matches both hosts named "asd" and "asdf", not respecting the "$" at the end. Can you guys please confirm that regex matching for "HOST=" does not care about the "$" sign?

For those that need some expanded case-study (all others can now stop), here's the story behind: we are managing various servers of ours and our customers. Due to the fact that we do not control DNS entries for all these machines we have come up with a naming scheme like this:

--- cut here --- junkyard-starbox # clientID=junkyard, starbox=actual machine junkyard-starbox-v_trash # v_trash=vserver named trash running on starbox junkyard-starbox-v_trashcan # v_trashcan=vserver named trashcan running on starbox junkyard-starbox-x_dustbin # x_dustbin=xen server running on starbox --- and here ---

We need to send these "special" alerts:

• ONLY cto at junkyard.tld for events on junkyard-starbox-v_trash
• ONLY ceo at junkyard.tld for events on junkyard-starbox-x_dustbin

Also, we need to send these alerts for all other hosts & events:

• stars at sysadmins.tld for purple, yellow & red w/ REPEAT=60
• cto at sysadmins.tld for red w/ DURATION>30 and REPEAT=60
• cto at sysadmins.tld for yellow&purple w/ DURATION>60 and REPEAT=60

Exercising our brain muscles we came up with these: --- cut here --- #alert CTO for v_trash HOST=junkyard-starbox-v_trash MAIL=cto at junkyard.tld

#alert CEO for x_dustbin HOST=junkyard-starbox-x_dustbin MAIL=ceo at junkyard.tld

#stop alerting for the private boxes above HOST=* IGNORE HOST=%^junkyard-starbox-(v_trash|x_dustbin)$

HOST=* COLOR=purple,yellow MAIL=stars at sysadmins.tld REPEAT=60 RECOVERED NOTICE MAIL=cto at sysadmins.tld DURATION>60 REPEAT=60 RECOVERED NOTICE

HOST=* COLOR=red MAIL=stars at sysadmins.tld REPEAT=10 RECOVERED NOTICE MAIL=cto at sysadmins.tld DURATION>30 REPEAT=60 RECOVERED NOTICE --- and here ---

However, even with the "$" at the end of our regex we are no longer receiving any alerts for v_trashcan because the regex wrongly matches on the "IGNORE HOST=" line. We could use 2 lines to match each host on its own line but that's not the point of this exercise.

So, can anyone confirm our finding?

kN

-- kN