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<TITLE>RE: Highlights of the 4.3.0 version</TITLE>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Henrik,</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">The new features sound good! But are they now documented? I checked the snapshot and none of man pages or the Changes page seem to have been updated since the 4.2.0 release. It makes it quite difficult to test and use the new features (which presumably is a requirement before releasing the new version)! ;-)</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Or am I missing something less obvious than using the source (TM)?</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">I think it would be useful if the Changes page (</FONT><A HREF="http://www.hswn.dk/beta/snapshot/Changes"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial">http://www.hswn.dk/beta/snapshot/Changes</FONT></U></A><FONT FACE="Arial">) was kept more or less up-to-date for the snapshot releases. Knowing what has changed in hobbit-server betas seems pretty difficult without downloading frequent snapshots and doing diffs. Is there any chance of the source being put into a public subversion / CVS repository or something? I see there is already a public CVS repository for hobbit on SourceForge, but it only includes the hobbit-client code… A public repository may encourage more contributed patches.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">I also see that last year you mentioned that you are "</FONT><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">using RCS which is a predecessor to CVS</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">". I don't know if this is still the case, but if so, it appears pretty simple to migrate to CVS using</FONT> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">rcs2cvs</FONT> <FONT FACE="Arial">as documented here:</FONT></P>
<P><A HREF="http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/CVS-RCS-HOWTO-3.html"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial">http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/CVS-RCS-HOWTO-3.html</FONT></U></A>
<BR><FONT FACE="Arial">Or as the OP did in </FONT><A HREF="http://www.nabble.com/RCS-to-svn-t792119.html"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial">http://www.nabble.com/RCS-to-svn-t792119.html</FONT></U></A><FONT FACE="Arial"> - he migrated RCS to SVN via CVS.</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Many thanks,</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Sebastian </FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">henrik (at) hswn.dk (Henrik Stoerner)</FONT> <FONT FACE="Arial">wrote on</FONT> <FONT FACE="Arial">Sun, 22 Jul 2007 00:08:12 +0200</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>In another thread, someone asked about what new features are planned for</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>version 4.3.0. I've summarized them below; they have all been</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>implemented by now. Some of them have been contributed by others over</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>the past year - I'm pleased to have finally gotten their patches merged.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>There are some open bug-reports, and the plan now is to try and get</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>those fixed. Once that is done I'll ask you all to start testing the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>beta-versions, and then a new release is hopefully available soon.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>This doesn't mean that I won't consider adding new stuff before the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>4.3.0 release, but right now the plan is to get 4.3.0 shipped with</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>the current set of features. But if I've missed someone's favourite</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>patch or feature request, do let me know.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>Major new features</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>------------------</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* PAGE setting for alert- and client-configuration handles hosts on</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> multiple pages, so any pagename can be used.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Flap detection of statuses that change color rapidly. The status</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> is kept at the most critical level until it stops flapping.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Holiday support for alerts, including variable holidays (Easter etc)</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Split NCV support - graph data from NCV can be split into multiple</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> RRD databases allowing for varying number of datasets.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* RRD database parameters are now configurable (i.e. number of </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> datapoints stored, whether to store min/max values etc). Note that</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> this only applies to newly created RRD files, not existing ones.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Distributed worker modules allow sharing the load across multiple</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> Hobbit servers</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* RRD updates are now cached for up to 30 minutes before being written</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> to disk. This makes the I/O load on large installations much lighter.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Detection of statuses that are reported by multiple hosts</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Client backend-support for the z/OS and z/VSE clients by Rich Smirna</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>Display things</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>--------------</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Graph zooming now limits the lower/upper bounds of a graph (requires</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> rrdtool 1.2.x)</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* The trends page default data-period can be configured to something</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> other than the default 48-hour view, and the user can select a</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> different period on-the-fly.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Hosts can be sorted automatically on the overview webpage with a</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> "group-sorted" group definition.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* NOCOLUMNS setting in bb-hosts let you suppress certain columns on</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> a per-host basis</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Host-comments are displayed as tool-tips, to save screen space.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>Checks and graphs</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>-----------------</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Network tests can use a specific source IP instead of the default</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* The validity-period of network tests is configurable, instead of</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> being fixed at the default 30-minute setting</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Client file checks can check for a symlink</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* "trends" report for RRD handling allows generating custom-made</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> RRD files</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Hobbit host- and status-counts are tracked in an RRD file</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>Miscellaneous</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>-------------</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* NCV reports can handle color-icons before the name:value data</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* hobbitlaunch tasks can be configured to run on certain hosts only</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Time-warp detection and warning</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Local unix-socket interface to Hobbit daemon</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* hobbitd_capture can collect several statuses and hand off such a</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> batch to an external command</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>* Support for SHA-224/256/384/512 digests</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>Regards,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">>Henrik</FONT>
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