vanished bug numbers in the nagios mantis tracker

[Jochen Bern]

On 08/07/2012 09:56 PM, Andreas Ericsson wrote:
> The calling goes like this:
> nagios -> modules: Modules, create your ancillary data!
[...]
> nagios -> modules: Modules, get your ancillary data!
[...]

(That's assuming that the ancillary data gets created/changed only at
Nagios startup, or at least points in time that Nagios can somehow
predict "close enough", whatever that may mean. Not my main point, but
modules might receive external triggers of some sort, too.)

> At reload (or restart, or shutdown):
> nagios -> modules: Modules, release everything that can't persist!
> modules -> nagios: righto, releasing right away, SIR!

Not quite what I tried to suggest, I'm afraid. Since the *actual*
ancillary data is the modules' business, it's quite clear that it is
also the (authoritative) module's business to *persist* *that*, if
desired. However, this data is *bound to* a specific Nagios object
through the ID provided by *Nagios*, and in order to correctly assign
the ancillary data returning from the module's persistence layer, you
need *either* the same level of persistence for the Nagios-provided ID
numbers, *or* a (likely costly) means to re-identify all objects based
on Lord knows what properties.

(Specific example to clarify: Two hosts "foo" and "bar" in Nagios,
currently with IDs 1 and 2. Module requests the ID numbers and assigns
some sort of persistent ancillary data - say, it lets someone enter the
hardware warranty's end date. Now the Nagios config is updated, a host
"baz" is added, and the module wants to restore the persisted ancillary
data to the *correct* hosts. If the Nagios core does *not* provide that
the original "foo" is *still* ID 1 and "bar" ID 2 afterwards (persistent
IDs), the module would need to go out on a limb *guessing* that an
unchanged hostname (IP, MAC, SNMP engine ID, dynamically IPMI-retrieved
S/N, ... ?) indicates the intent of "that's still the same host". IMHO
only *Nagios itself* is in a position to let the admin *explicitly
state* his intent on the matter, by setting a global "bind_host_ids_to =
host_name" option, if need be.)

Kind regards,
								J. Bern
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