Host DOWN

Karl DeBisschop karl at debisschop.net
Wed Mar 3 04:21:02 CET 2004


On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 01:24:12 +0000
"Paul L. Allen" <pla at softflare.com> wrote:

> Jag writes: 
> 
> > I've found that when it says 'Info: (No output!)', the plugin is
> > usually outputing something to stderr, and nagios isn't paying
> > attention to that.  Does anyone know why nagios ignores stderr?
> > stderr is a very useful debugging tool.
> 
> I'm in no position to influence these things, but I'd agree with you
> there.  There was a thread here recently of problems with output on
> STDERR confusing the check_by_ssl plugin (I think it was that one -
> it's late here and I have the memory of a goldfish, not only that I
> have the memory of a goldfish).  However, it's not Nagios that ignores
> STDERR but the particular plugin you're using. 

If that is so, it's a bug. Please report it.

When I wrote spopen, one of my primary concerns is that it had to be
easy to trap stderr. And as far as I know, all the plugins do trap
stderr if the invoke a system command.

The problem with stderr and check_by_ssh was that the banner screen for
ssh seems to be run on stderr, even though it is not an error. But the
plugin, since it did trap stderr reported the first line back to noagios
(and probably signaled a warning)

> I would say, from my position of the guy that doesn't have to do
> anything about it, that the plugin guidelines should say that plugins
> should collect output to STDERR and if there is anything they should
> return the unknown state unless that particular test should generate
> known output (that can be checked) on STDERR.  Basically, if you have
> output on STDERR then it's "Houston, we have a problem" unless you
> were expecting that particular output on STDERR as a result of your
> tests. 

They do trap stderr, and they return a warning (except in the case of a
banner in an ssh check now). Been that way for many years.

--
Karl


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