Special characters in services.cfg file - Solved

[Chris Dos]

Chris Dos wrote:
> Patrick Morris wrote:
>> On Wed, 23 Apr 2008, Chris Dos wrote:
>>
>>> I'm having problem getting a command to run in services.cfg file when it works fine from the command line.
>>>
>>> >From the command line:
>>> /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_http -H 10.20.40.41 -w 2 -c 5 -t 10 -u
>>> http://cleopatra/userservice/signup/getstates.flx -T 'text/xml' -P '<request foruser="1" forgroup="1"
>>> fordomain="1" basedomain="1" cultureinfo="en-US" coreproductid="1" products="" systemtypeid="1"
>>> timezoneinfo="1|Mountain Standard Time (US & Canada & Mexico)|MST|Mountain Daylight
>>> Time|-7|0|1|0|3|0|1|2|0|11|0|0|2|0"> <getStates countryid="1" /> </request>' -s 'Colorado'
>>>
>>> results in:
>>> HTTP OK HTTP/1.1 200 OK - 0.004 second response time
>>>
>>> Putting in services.cfg:
>>> define service{
>>>         use                             generic-service         ; Name of service template to use
>>>         host_name                       Cleopatra
>>>         service_description             HTTP_Post_States
>>>         is_volatile                     0
>>>         check_period                    24x7
>>>         max_check_attempts              3
>>>         normal_check_interval           1
>>>         retry_check_interval            1
>>>         contact_groups                  Admins_E-mails,Admins_Pagers
>>>         notification_interval           30
>>>         notification_period             24x7
>>>         notification_options            w,u,c,r
>>>         check_command                   check_http!-w 2 -c 5 -t 10 -u
>>> http://cleopatra/userservice/signup/getstates.flx -T 'text/xml' -P '<request foruser="1" forgroup="1"
>>> fordomain="1" basedomain="1" cultureinfo="en-US" coreproductid="1" products="" systemtypeid="1"
>>> timezoneinfo="1|Mountain Standard Time (US & Canada & Mexico)|MST|Mountain Daylight
>>> Time|-7|0|1|0|3|0|1|2|0|11|0|0|2|0"> <getStates countryid="1" /> </request>'
>>>         }
>> Wow. That may be the ugliest check command I've ever seen. :)
>>
>> What's your definition for the check_http check command look like?
>>
>> I'd normally suggest you set up a specialized check command for this
>> rather than to try to pass all those parameters in the service
>> definition, but that's up to you.
> 
> Yea, it's the most awful check I've been ask to set up.
> 
> I've been taking out characters to try and find the culprit.  It seems that it does not like a semicolon.  Is
> there any way to escape this character?

I've figured out a solution to my problem.  XML needs a ampersand and since it's a special character it needs
to encode it as &.  Since Nagios interprets everything after the semicolon as a comment, and this is a
http post, I was able to URL encode it.  So this "&" translates into "%26amp%3B".  Though it would be nice
if Nagios includes some way of escape a semicolon for other problems.

	Chris

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