Responsibility for breaking notification output? (was: check_nt_disk - No Additional Info in email notification just drive letter)

[Sascha Runschke]

> For some reason, on the drive letter appears in the Additional Info
> section of the email notifications, not the space left/used, etc...
>
> Here is an example email:
[snipped] 
> C:

Reason for that is the way Nagios pipes the notifications into the 
commands.
Since it uses "/usr/bin/printf" to pipe them and "\" escape sequences for 
the formating,
the string "C:\ "make /usr/bin/printf bail out with an error. Therefor the 
output ends right at
the first occurance of "\ " (note the trailing space).

You can try the result at the commandline:

[root at SRV00032 root]# /usr/bin/printf "%b" "This is a test.\nIt will show 
how a backslash with a trailing space breaks /usr/bin/printf.\nBye Bye C:\ 
    \nYou won't see this!"
This is a test.
It will show how a backslash with a trailing space breaks /usr/bin/printf.
Bye Bye C:/usr/bin/printf: \ : invalid escape
[root at SRV00032 root]#

Everything after C: is actually STDERR and not STDOUT, therefor it doesn't 
get mailed.

The question now is: Who is responsible for this?

Should Nagios filter things like \ before passing them to the 
notify-commands?
Should there be a rule for plugins to not use "\ " in their output?

My opinion:
Nagios uses /usr/bin/printf per default, therefor it should make sure that 
the output passed
to it does not break it.

regards
        sash

IMPORTANT SIDENOTE: "/usr/bin/printf" is NOT the same as typing "printf" 
at the command line as
the latter is a built-in feature of bash! the bash built-in handles 
misquoted "\"s fine.

--------------------------------------------------
Sascha Runschke
Netzwerk Administration
IT-Services

ABIT AG
Robert-Bosch-Str. 1
40668 Meerbusch

Tel.:+49 (0) 2150.9153.226
mailto:SRunschke-VuJELsoxrDI at public.gmane.org

http://www.abit.net
http://www.abit-epos.net
http://www.my-academy.net
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