NSClient++ (Early ßeta release)

[Andreas Ericsson]

Michael Medin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> 
> I just spent some time adding a project on source forge
> (http://sourceforge.net/projects/nscplus) for a program I wrote about
> a year ago. The program is a simple NSClient clone written in C++ for
> W32 (obviously). It has most of the feature of NSClient (at least I
> think so). Some of the features are untested and to put it plainly I
> haven't used the program nor NSClient for over a year and don't even
> recall exactly the status of things. But I promised I would release
> it as open source a few months back. Unfortunately the process took a
> bit more time than I thought but here it is.
> 
> The main difference between NSClient and NSClient++ is;
> 
> 1, It is modularized and has plug-in support
> 
> 2, It is written in C++ and should (haven't really looked into it
> though) be fairly lightweight. It is also a straight W32 API
> application meaning it does not have any third party dependencies
> (apart from STLPort which is statically linked, and can be removed as
> MS STL works just as fine) like MFC etc.
> 
> 3, It also features (though this is as of yet unsupported, as I
> haven't written any *nix client yet) a Windows EventLog Checker.
> 
> 4, I think it should be compatible with most NT-base (as it uses
> threads, mutexes and such w9x might be off?) versions of Windows.
> (NSClient might have been this but I had a lot of problems with PDH
> library dependences).
> 
> 
> 
> The modularization is in the form of DLLs that are loaded on start-up
> and have a pretty simple and straight forward API. Thus it should
> make it quite simple to write a module that does pretty much anything
> if there is any interest. (Also as modules are external they can be
> provided as third party extensions as well as toggled off to provide
> a minimalist resource footprint)
> 
> 
> 
> Future plans are (if there is an interest):
> 
> Modules for:
> 
> * SSL (need to read up on the subject first).
> 

It's fairly straightforward. I believe there are win32 ports of openssl 
(or the likes). Look at SSL-enabled plugins if you're curious about 
simple SSL functionality, and openssh if you're interested in advanced 
features (PKE and such).

> * Event log (already there but not finished).
> 
> * Scripting support (would be I think simple to allow scripts to be
> written in some language and executed (much like Nagios).
> 

This would be nice. If it could be made compatible with check_nrpe and 
bind both ports if told to support the feature I think it would be made 
really useful.

> * Passive checking (is this really useful, haven't ever used it
> myself)
> 
> 
> 
> But the big question is: is there any need for this?
> 

Perhaps, and perhaps not. I'm a firm believer in touching the monitored 
objects as little as possible. It seems an additional scheduler running 
on the host can never be a good thing.


> A year ago I wrote it because NSClient broke our exchange server. And
> a few weeks ago I refactored parts of it to support modules and wrote
> a module for the event log (because I wanted to check the windows
> event log). But I think that SNMP is much simpler and works better in
> mixed environments. So personally I don't really see much demand for
> a "NSClient:ish" plug-in but I don't really know. Secondly there is
> NC_net (which I personally am not to keen on as I dislike the whole
> .NET concept, but that's a passing issue).

I second that.

> So is there an interest?

Definitely. If I knew anything about windows programming I would help.

> Should I continue to write this (apart from the event log monitoring
> module that I need). I would like to get feedback on this so I know
> what to do about it, but regardless of that issue the program will
> become "production stable" and get an event log as that is what I
> need.
> 
> 
> 
> As for when to expect anything from this project?
> 
> As of now (well my SF skills broke everything) the project should (in
> extreme theory) be a drop in replacement for NSClient barring two
> (IIRC) features (I think it was file age and something more along
> those lines). But proc, service, mem, disk, uptime, version, etc is
> there.
> 
> I will spend the next weekend and some spare time working on this
> (don't want to do to much of this during work hours as we have a
> tight schedule now, with a deploy of a few new servers) so perhaps
> Monday for a "production version" (expect bugs but should be stable).
> This includes the Event log plug-in (with a client).
> 
> Something to test and feel it out will be available tonight (GMT+1).
> 
>> From this point on it all depends on the interest and/or feedback
>> from testers and ideas.
> 

I'll get back to you with those as soon as we've got anything to report. 
The module API sounds very interesting.

> 
> 
> BTW; I just noticed that the zip file on SF was broken (don't really
> know why) so you have to wait a few hours (we are talking something
> along the lines of 18:00-19:00 GMT when I get home) before you can
> try it. I also noticed that the CVS only had directories in it so Ill
> have to check about that too, my 1337 SourceForge skillz are not what
> they should be I suppose but this is pretty much the first time in
> years I post to SF :)
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> 
> Michael Medin
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> E-mail: michael.medin at altcom.se
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> 
> 
> 
> 

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


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