Looking for plugins.

[Stanley Hopcroft]

Dear Gentlemen,

I have probably said more than I need to about this matter in the past
but by way of summary,

On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 09:58:22PM -0600, Marc Powell wrote:
> 
> As far as verifying services are working, most of all of the plugins you
> mention support some type of expect string functionality to one degree
> or another. I can personally vouch that check_http with either the -e or
> the -s flag works great. I don't see why the others wouldn't work as
> well. It even appears that the check_pop3.pl script in the contrib
> directory even verifies that you can log in and doesn't just look for
> the pop3 banner.
>

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris McGee [mailto:chris at xecu.net] 
> Subject: [Nagios-users] Looking for plugins.
>
 
> ...  I prefer to have something that actually verifies that the
> services are working.
>

that this is the way I like to have Nagios work also: rather than detect
obvious signs of service malfunction, to exercise or simulate the
clients use of the service to make sure that the service is responding
as a human user of it would expect.

This approach is more suitable for those monitoring enterprises or
business rather than service providers.

Service checking in this manner needs custom plugins. Some tools to get
you started are :-

1 From CPAN

1.1 WWW::Mechanize
1.2 WWW::Automate

I haven't used either but 'Mechanize has a particularly obvious
API: a click method of a form button etc

2 From SourceForge

HTTP::MonkeyWrench

This has a companion module that you can stick on the web server and
have it capture the traversal of a web site and create a 'MonkeyWrench
data structure describing that traversal  (suitable for playback in your
service check).

3 Nagios::Web_Trx and 
  Nagios::Web_Trx_Timed

hopefully on CPAN 'real soon now'.

These are the only ones I can vouchsafe the operation of. They accept a
data structure containing a sequence of URLs, the HTTP method to be
used, the input data to be posted or inlined and what to expect for
success and failure.

The snag of course is you have to _manually_ work out what the browser
does when it searches the data base via the web form and so on
(tcpdump/ethereal are your friends).

Crude but effective, although like all screen scrapers, vulnerable to
change in form features.

Yours sincerely. 

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stanley Hopcroft
------------------------------------------------------------------------

'...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a
manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee...'

from Meditation 17, J Donne.


-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Etnus, makers of TotalView, The debugger 
for complex code. Debugging C/C++ programs can leave you feeling lost and 
disoriented. TotalView can help you find your way. Available on major UNIX 
and Linux platforms. Try it free. www.etnus.com
_______________________________________________
Nagios-users mailing list
Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue. 
::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null