Nagios plugin for monitoring files in a directory?

[David Rosenstrauch]

Just wondering if anyone might have some pointers on a monitoring puzzle 
I've run into.

We have a couple of automated processes - one of them an automated FTP 
upload, the other an automated log file gatherer - which wind up causing 
essentially the same result:  new files regularly getting added to a 
disk directory.  I need to set up monitoring on this, since if we're not 
getting new files showing up then something has crashed and our system 
won't be getting updated properly.

Not quite sure how to do this, though - i.e., which nagios plugin would 
help me get the job done.

I've used the check_file_age plugin successfully in a couple of spots. 
E.g., to verify that a backup process has been run successfully I 
perform a unix "touch" on a "last-backup-date" file at the end of the 
backup, and then have the check_file_age plugin check the age of that 
file.  I don't think I can use that plugin & technique here, however, since:

a) Each uploaded file has a different (timestamped) name, which I don't 
know ahead of time.  So I have no way to tell the check_file_age plugin 
which file to monitor.

b) Unlike my backup process, which I wrote and was able to alter to 
touch the last-backup-date file, I don't have control over the external 
processes creating/uploading these files.


I saw there were some rudimentary directory-monitoring plugins over at 
the Monitoring Exchange site, but they seem like they can only do things 
like monitor the number of files in a directory vs. a threshold minimum, 
which is not quite what I want.  (I don't really care about how many 
files there are in the directory.)


Anyone have any suggestions on an existing plugin (either part of the 
standard Nagios release, or available from Monitoring Exchange) that can 
help here?  I'm not afraid to roll my own plugin if needed, but I'd 
obviously prefer to save myself some work and use an existing one if 
possible.

Thanks,

DR

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