How to setting service to flapping state/mode using external commands?

[John P. Rouillard]

Hello all:

I have a problem where I want a more narrowly defined definition of
flapping.  Moving back and forth between ok, critical, warning and
unknown states doesn't quite provide the level of discrimination I
need. Because plugins can fail in multiple modes (e.g. with ping I may
exceed ping time or have excessive dropped packets), I need to detect
moving back and forth between states with the same/related failure
messages: e.g. I want to identify the sequence:

  ok,
  critical plugin timed out,
  ok,
  critical plugin timed out

as flapping, but the sequence:

  ok,
  critical ping time exceeded threshold,
  ok,
  critical plugin timed out,
  ok
  warning packet loss limit exceeded,
  ok,
  critical timed out

would not trigger flapping.

I know how to detect these patterns using sec and nagios, but I don't
know how to set flapping from an external program. There is no command
that I see in:

  http://www.nagios.org/developerinfo/externalcommands/commandlist.php

that deals with controlling the flapping "state"/mode of a service. I
have flapping commands that can enable/disable flap detection for a
host, service or for the program as a whole. I checked the
PROCESS_SERVICE_CHECK_RESULT but it has no way to set the flapping
state. I think the best I can do is to use:

   ADD_SVC_COMMENT to add a comment that the service is flapping
   DISABLE_SVC_NOTIFICATIONS to stop the notifications for the
	flapping service
 
and set up a passive service called FlappingServices that will
generate the notification that some other service is flapping.

I am hoping I am just missing the commands, but there is no way to get
a service out of flapping mode in the cgi (other than turning off/on
flap detection) so I think I am correct. Am I correct?

Thanks for your help/thoughts/quips/comments or evasions.

				-- rouilj
John Rouillard
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