Monitor log file for inactivity?

[Mark Young]

On Jul 21, 2008, at 1:58 PM, Sean Carolan wrote:

> How would you use nagios to monitor a log file for inactivity?  I was
> looking at the check_file_age plugin and thought it might work for
> this purpose.

It all depends on how the application writes to a log file.  Simply  
checking the log file for age or size might not determine if the  
application is running accurately.  If you are sure you want to check  
the log file for age you will first have to figure out if the log file  
is stored on the local monitoring machine or a remote machine.  If it  
is the local machine you can simply create a new command with the  
check_file_age plugin and define a service for the local machine to  
use.  Otherwise if it is a remote machine you are going to need to run  
the plugins using NRPE ( http://www.nagios.org/download/addons/ ) or  
by SSH ( via plugin check_by_ssh ); for those you are going to need to  
nagios plugins compiled on the remote machine.

For a local check you could use something like the following in your  
commands.cfg and then add it as a service to your local box:

# 'check_file_age' command definition
define command{
         command_name    check_file_age
         command_line    $USER1$/check_file_age -w $ARG1$ -c $ARG2$ -f  
$ARG3$  		# $ARG3$ is the full path to the log file.
         }



Or you might want to look on nagiosexchange.com to see if there is a  
plugin created specifically for the program you are trying to check.   
I would start by testing the plugins from the command line.

eg.
/path/to/check_file_age -h  (for help)
/path/to/check_file_age -w 100 -c 1000 -f /path/to/logfile


I hope this helps!


Mark Young
___
Nagios Enterprises, LLC
Web:    www.nagios.com

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