ping output error in 1.4a plugins in Fedora Core

Stanley Hopcroft Stanley.Hopcroft at IPAustralia.Gov.AU
Mon Sep 13 03:02:27 CEST 2004


Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for your letter and say,


> Message: 13
> Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 16:32:19 +0200
> From: Andreas Ericsson <ae at op5.se>
> To: nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [Nagios-users] ping output error in 1.4a plugins in Fedora Core
>  2
  .. snip ..
> 
> Why don't you just use check_ping from 1.3.1 if that works for you, or 
> check_icmp if you want perfdata and a plugin that's friendlier to your 
> system load?
>

The _extra_ system load of running check_icmp as a replacement for 
check_ping on this FreeBSD 4.9-RLEASE system is non trivial; I would not 
consider it 'friendlier to your system load' on this system for any 
commonly accepted notion of 'friendlier', despite having experimented 
with the check_icmp tuning options.

To sum up, the Pros and Cons of the reachability plugins from my point 
of view are

Factor       Good              Bad

system load  check_ping        check_icmp (* only tested on
                                           one [1] FreeBSD
                                           system)

elegance     check_icmp        check_ping

portability/ check_icmp        check_ping
maintainability

reliability  check_ping        check_fping(can't comment on check_icmp;
                                           'reliably' means RTA & PLR
                                            similar to 'ping' command)

That said, I have also found problems with check_fping (would not 
reliably detect down hosts: check_fping is a non starter for me), so the 
search for a better check_ping continues.

This may be an exceptional result and _check_icmp_ may indeed be more 
friendly to system load on other systems.

Check_icmp is a well conceived and potentially superior product. Perhaps 
there needs to be added to it, to realise this potential, an autotuning 
utility that generates the command line parameters that will

1 minimise system load

2 minimise differences from the ping program output

Yours sincerely.


-- 
Stanley Hopcroft

Network specialist, IT Infrastructure
IP Australia
Ph: (02) 6283 3189  Fax: (02) 6281 1353
PO Box 200 Woden  ACT 2606
http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au


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