[hobbit] Xymon client design (was Xymon is practically dead)

[Stef Coene]

On Friday 02 July 2010, TJ Yang wrote:
> Hi, Tom
> 
> Hope you don't mind I changed the subject and cc to
> hobbitmon-developer on this topic.
> 
> On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 9:44 AM, Tom Georgoulias
> 
> <tomg at mcclatchyinteractive.com> wrote:
> > On 07/02/2010 05:47 AM, Neil Franken wrote:
> >> Xymon is just one part of the equation for me. I see a lot of
> >> potential for Xymon in the Windows world but the BBWin client is well
> >> a very quiet project as well. I am not sure yet if we would maybe
> >> fork the code or create a new client. At this point I would suggest
> >> that maybe we look at a Java based client for xymon so we can run on
> >> a huge variety of platforms with one client. Anyway the whole client
> >> is a whole different ball game.
> > 
> > I would not be in favor of a java based client, the current design is
> > much better on unix systems.  It's one of the reasons xymon works well.
Indeed.  I vote against a java based client.
Xymon is fast and light.  Java is bloaded and slow.  (I know people will say 
java can be small and fast, but I never found a fast and small java 
application).
Me, as a sysadmin will not allow a java environment installed just for running 
a basic monitoring client if that client is now a simple shell script and a 
simple C program.

I can understand the need for a java client for the more uncommon OS'es, but 
don't make it the only available client for linux / unix / windows.

> I do have concerns about hobbitclient-OS??.sh shell script's programming
> style. There is no check return status of system command it call and there
> is no error handling when system command faild.
> I got many purple alert when one of the system command failed or
> didn't finish in time.
That's easy to solve.  Just update the scripts and add some error trapping.  I 
can do that if needed.  But I never had the need because I never had a purple 
alert because some system command gave an error.


Stef