Creating new plugin -- questions...

[Andreas Ericsson]

Braun Brelin wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> this is my first time posting to this list.  I'm trying to create a
> custom plugin that monitors an applications log file in real time. 
> 
> I'm unclear as to whether or not I can do this explicitly with a plugin
> (the real time aspect). 
> 
> I'm running a Nagios 2.x management console that's getting data from a
> production Linux system running nrpe.  The real time monitoring needs to
> run on the production box.  
> 
> I'm trying to create the plugin (using Perl as my language) thus; 
> 
> 1.  Create a daemon that actually monitors the log file. 
> 2.  On a specific event, the daemon will write status information to a
> data file. 
> 3.  The plugin will read the data file at a specified interval and send
> it back through the nrpe daemon to the nagios console.  
> 
> Is this the right way to go about it?  I don't quite see how to merge
> the steps so that the plugin does all of the functionality in one
> program.  Since the code needs to run in real time, for example, I can't
> output any of the Nagios error codes since the daemon never quits unless
> the entire system goes down. 
> 

You'll need to create a daemon that continuously reads the logfile and 
submits a passive check result to nagios upon the error condition line. 
If you use a plugin called by nrpe you gain absolutely nothing by using 
a daemon.

Make sure you put a sleep() somewhere in the daemon btw, or you'll eat 
CPU like that big pink bunny in the Muppet Show.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson at op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Lead Developer


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