[Fwd: Patch to display parent hosts in extinfo.cgi]

[Andreas Ericsson]

matthias eble wrote:
> Hi Andreas, hi Ton,
> 
> so I'll try the proof of concept and re-submit this patch as I think
> this is quite neat (it still applies to latest version).
> 

Neat patch. Thanks :)

> BTW: What you think about introducing a counterpart of the parents
> directive to be able to define child hosts also.

I think that would be a very good thing indeed, and something that
needs to be added to the host-objects in-core at some point, but
unfortunately that would break the eventbroker ABI (since the object
would then change size), and so it will have to wait until we have
decided some way of marking, with version numbers, what module devs
can expect when they upgrade Nagios to a new version. Perhaps this
is as good a place as any to discuss that though.

I'd propose extending the Nagios versions to always use four numbers,
A.B.C.D, where:
* incrementing A means all bets are off. Modules may or may not work
  against this new version. Config syntax and whatnot may change.
* Altering B (it will reset to 0 when A changes) means the the
  event-broker API is changed incompatibly and event-broker modules
  may need to be modified in order to work.
* Altering C means the event-broker ABI is modified. Modules need
  to be re-compiled against new headers in order to continue to
  work.
* D is incremented for pure bugfix releases. Neither API's nor ABI's
  change at all.

> This would make it easily possible to display hosts' children in the
> cgis which is a good thing also IMO.

I'm not so sure about that. Many of our customers have huge switches
with up to a hundred child-host connected to them.

> But on the other hand NDO/Merlin/whatever's data models would also be
> affected, wouldn't they?.
> 

I don't know about NDO, but Merlin wouldn't be. Merlin uses a junction
table for host_parents relationship. Simply swapping the mentality one
can re-use the same table (just think of it as "child_host" instead of
"host_parent"), so all the information is already there to display this
if one would be so inclined. Since Ninja (the primary and currently only
Merlin database user) is widget-based, adding a widget to display child
hosts and, optionally, their status information on the extinfo page
should be quite simple really.

> I know the CGIs will probably not last so long any more, but maybe you
> could give us a peek on your plans for their future. 
> 

My plans for the future include trying to make Ninja a viable option as
the default UI for Nagios. I do believe that a good replacement that is
actually avialable and that the community likes will quickly become the
default UI for Nagios.

> Thanks in advance and good luck in your new roles. 

Thank you, and thanks again for the patch.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson at op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231

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