OT - plugin for responding to site surveillance service problem reports.

Jamie Baddeley jamie.baddeley at vpc.co.nz
Thu Nov 13 10:30:47 CET 2003
Previous message: OT - plugin for responding to site surveillance service problem reports.
Next message: simple Apan/plugins question
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Superb Stanley.

All I need to do now is work out how to effectively calm the customer to
whom I've just explained that their IIS server has always run this
badly.


:-)

cheers


jamie

(all blacks:45 australia:22) (if you're that way inclined)

On Thu, 2003-11-13 at 15:03, Stanley Hopcroft wrote:
> Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
> 
> <Off Topic>
> 
> This largely Off topic letter contains comments about an obvious and
> perhaps useful roll your own plugin.
> 
> Some business employ site surveillance services such as AC Nielsen's 
> Dmeasure.COM to periodically download the customer specified web pages 
> and provide a range of services from 
> 
> . alerts about pages that don't respond
> 
> . reports of the pages availability over the reporting period.
> 
> Such services may be used because
> 
> . management wants an independent view of the business performance (spin 
> it anyway you like)
> 
> . the business has no credible Management System (likewise. Often 
> credibility is that perceived as an absence of endorsement by an 
> organisation like Gartner).
> 
> . the business has no means of checking their public presence (because 
> for example they have only a single ISP)
> 
> Part of the service may be to test the web pages from a number of
> locations country wide. Often this alone demonstrates that such services
> can have a serious capability.
> 
> On the down side, the checking is basic: that the page downloads in no
> more than a customer specified interval. The page content may not even
> be compared with what it should be (and of course this is useless for
> the many friendly products that dump their backtraces in HTML with an
> HTTP 200 return code).
> 
> Given a business with a highly effective management system such as
> Nagios (TM) that hires such a site checking system, then a useful Nagios
> plugin is one that
> 
> 1 Logs on to the service checking web page.
> 
> These service invariably display their results in real time web pages
> that tabulate their test results
> 
> 2 Analyses the summary for signs of a fault and return OK if there is 
> none.
> 
> 3 Analyse the hourly test record for test failures this hour, extracting 
> whatever info is useful and return CRITICAL.
> 
> Such a plugin is reasonably easy to construct given software such as
> 
> . WWW::Automate or Nagios::WebTransact to grab the HTML
> 
> After logging on to the service, going back for the detailed record if
> required (tools such as lynx would have to be Expect driven to fill in
> the username and password form then press the "GO" button").
> 
> . HTML::Parser and or it's many friends to extract often the tabular 
> results
> 
> Unfortunately, while such a plugin is useful since it allows Nagios to
> log/alert/report on both the external and internal view (of the
> backends: the J2EE environment, Database etc) of the business's
> services, it is highly dependent on the HTML and the protocol of the
> site checking services web pages.
> 
> Here's an example of one at work.
> 
> tsitc> ./check_dmeasure.pl -h
> check_dmeasure (netsaint-plugins 1.2.9-4) 1.7
> The netsaint plugins come with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. You may 
> redistribute
> copies of the plugins under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
> For more information about these matters, see the file named COPYING.
> Copyright (c) 2003 Karl DeBisschop/S Hopcroft
> 
> Check AC Nielsen dmeasure status page for monitored site errors.
> 
> check_dmeasure
> check_dmeasure [-H | --host]
> check_dmeasure [-dh | --debug_http]
> check_dmeasure [-dp | --debug_parse] Dump the text passed to the text 
> event callback.
> check_dmeasure [-dt | --debug_table] Display "test tables" that are 
> analysed for excessive error rates.
> check_dmeasure [-h | --help]
> check_dmeasure [-v | --verbose] Display all the "test tables" that 
> record the hourly error rates until now.
> check_dmeasure [-V | --version]
> 
> Send email to netsaint-users at lists.sourceforge.net if you have questions
> regarding use of this software. To submit patches or suggest 
> improvements,
> send email to netsaintplug-devel at lists.sourceforge.net
> tsitc> 
> 
> tsitc> ./check_dmeasure.pl 
> Ok. Dmeasure.COM - no problems for "Online services login process" => 
> Errors Dload(0,0%) HTTP(0,0%) Tests 159, "Online services login page" => 
> Errors Dload(0,0%) HTTP(0,0%) Tests 153.
> tsitc> 
> 
> after a few minutes (note that the number of tests has increased)
> 
> tsitc> ./check_dmeasure.pl 
> Ok. Dmeasure.COM - no problems for "Online services login process" => 
> Errors Dload(0,0%) HTTP(0,0%) Tests 160, "Online services login page" => 
> Errors Dload(0,0%) HTTP(0,0%) Tests 153.
> tsitc> 
> 
> and in debug mode
> 
> tsitc> ./check_dmeasure.pl -v 
> 
> %url_perf_table.
> 'Online services login page' => HASH(0x83b9920)
>    'Download Errors' => 0
>    'Download Errors %' => '0%'
>    'HTTP Errors' => 0
>    'HTTP Errors %' => '0%'
>    'New Visits' => 53
>    'Seconds' => 6.02
>    'Seconds %' => '35%'
>    'Tests' => 153
> 'Online services login process' => HASH(0x83b9a64)
>    'Download Errors' => 0
>    'Download Errors %' => '0%'
>    'HTTP Errors' => 0
>    'HTTP Errors %' => '0%'
>    'New Visits' => 47
>    'Seconds' => 9.94
>    'Seconds %' => '58%'
>    'Tests' => 159
> 'Pat search login page' => HASH(0x83b9ba8)
>    'Download Errors' => 0
>    'Download Errors %' => '0%'
>    'HTTP Errors' => 0
>    'HTTP Errors %' => '0%'
>    'New Visits' => 42
>    'Seconds' => 0.94
>    'Seconds %' => '5%'
>    'Tests' => 150
> 
> %table for $view_site_test_id 15264.
> '(Local' => HASH(0x8402b48)
>    'Download Errors' => 'Download Errors'
>    'Download Errors %' => 'HTTP Errors'
>    'HTTP Errors' => 'New Visits'
>    'HTTP Errors %' => 'Seconds'
>    'New Visits' => undef
>    'Seconds' => undef
>    'Seconds %' => undef
>    'Tests' => 'Tests'
> 0 => HASH(0x83ec508)
>    'Download Errors' => 0
>    'Download Errors %' => 0
>    'HTTP Errors' => 0
>    'HTTP Errors %' => 0
>    'New Visits' => 6
>    'Seconds' => 9.84
>    'Seconds %' => 7
>    'Tests' => 14
> 1 => HASH(0x83ec64c)
>    'Download Errors' => 0
>    'Download Errors %' => 0
>    'HTTP Errors' => 0
>    'HTTP Errors %' => 0
>    'New Visits' => 3
>    'Seconds' => 13.23
>    'Seconds %' => 10
>    'Tests' => 12
> 
>  ...
> 
> Ok. Dmeasure.COM - no problems for "Online services login process" => 
> Errors Dload(0,0%) HTTP(0,0%) Tests 159, "Online services login page" => 
> Errors Dload(0,0%) HTTP(0,0%) Tests 153.
> tsitc> 
> 
> </Off Topic>
> 
> 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 sponsored by: ApacheCon 2003,
> 16-19 November in Las Vegas. Learn firsthand the latest
> developments in Apache, PHP, Perl, XML, Java, MySQL,
> WebDAV, and more! http://www.apachecon.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
> 




-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email sponsored by: ApacheCon 2003,
16-19 November in Las Vegas. Learn firsthand the latest
developments in Apache, PHP, Perl, XML, Java, MySQL,
WebDAV, and more! http://www.apachecon.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
Previous message: OT - plugin for responding to site surveillance service problem reports.
Next message: simple Apan/plugins question
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
More information about the Users mailing list