[hobbit] A combo message of questions

[Charles Jones]

Henrik Storner wrote:

>>1. Is there any way to define the amount of space put between displayed 
>>groups? When I use several group-compress sections in bb-hosts, hobbit 
>>renders the page with a rather large amount (seems like 6+ lines) of 
>>blank space between them.  I have lots of hosts and want to get as many 
>>of them on the page as I can.
>>    
>>
>
>Each group goes into a HTML "table", and there is currently two
>"<br>" tags between each table. This is not configurable, the layout
>of the page is deeply embedded in the bbdisplay/pagegen.c code.
>
>(Which is annoying, because it ought to be easy to modify the layout
>of the webpages. But that's another story).
>
>Two "<br>" tags might be a bit much. I've dropped one of them in the
>next version, let me know if you think that's better.
>  
>
Great, I look forward to trying it out....any rough ETA on the next version?

>>2. It would be nice to be able to use regular expressions in the 
>>"expect" option of bb-services. For instance I want to check the status 
>>of several IRC servers, and they all have different output in response 
>>to telnetting to them, but they all have the word "NOTICE", I would like 
>>to be able to do something like: expect ".*NOTICE.*", so that I could 
>>use one check for multiple servers.
>>    
>>
>
>OK, not terribly difficult to do, and it would make sense to use 
>regex'es throughout (you can do it with the http content checks).
>  
>
That would be great, and I agree it would make sense to use regex's 
everywhere possible.

>>3. Whenever I use the "apache" keyword in bb-hosts, it crashes hobbit, 
>>and subsequently everything turns purple.  I made sure the host I had 
>>specified had the server-status option configured and enabled. I would 
>>happily provide dumps and do any troubleshooting you need, as I would 
>>really like to have the apache performance graphs.
>>    
>>
>
>I'd like to know exactly which program is crashing. I suppose it's the
>bbtest-net tool which is the one that performs the "apache" test - if
>it crashes, then all of your network tests should go purple. Does it
>work any better if instead of the "apache" keyword you define an http
>content check like this:
>
>   1.2.3.4 www.foo.com # cont=apache;http://1.2.3.4/server-status?auto;.
>
>This should give the same result.
>  
>
Yes it was bbtest-net that was crashing. I tried your method above and 
it seems to be working, perhaps I was specifying wrong options before 
when I used the apache directive, I simply added "apache" keyword, was I 
supposed to give the full URL as well like above? From the man page it 
seemed like all you needed was "apache". I can use your workaround for 
now. Can you tell me how to enable the other apache graphs (apache1, 
apache2, apache3) to show on that page as well?

>>4. Is there any way to put a header OVER a displayed group-compress? Any 
>>text you specify next to group-compress gets put in the column over the 
>>hostnames, Is it possible to have an option to have that text go 
>>centered over the entire group (over the column headers)?
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, like this:
>
>title All of my Web servers
>group-compress Extranet servers
>...
>group-compress Intranet servers
>...
>
>See the description of the "title" tag in the bb-hosts(5) manpage.
>  
>
That worked...thanks :-)

>>5. What rules does hobbit follow for looking up hostnames?
>>    
>>
>
>1) If there's a "testip" tag on the host entry in bb-hosts, it uses
>   the IP-address from the bb-hosts file.
>2) Hostname lookup (either /etc/hosts or DNS)
>3) If lookup fails, use IP-address from bb-hosts
>
>See the description of the bbtest-net "--dns" option. This is slightly
>different from Big Brother, which uses the bb-hosts IP for ping-tests,
>but hostnames for TCP tests.
>  
>
I added the "testip" tag and that did the trick...thanks!

>>6. bb-services has an option to give a service multiple names. It would 
>>be nice to be able to define multiple ports as well, or even better by 
>>specifying them in bb-hosts.
>>    
>>
>
>You can. If you want to check ssh on port 8022, put "ssh:8022" in the
>bb-hosts file. bb-services just defines the default port.
>  
>
Ah cool...I thought you could only do that with /etc/services services, 
I didnt know you could override the port of a bb-services service.  Nice :-)

>>For example if I want to check an IRC server, it is easy to create an
>>irc service in bb-services, but if I want to check multiple ports of
>>the same service on the same hosts, I would have to make multiple
>>service definitions. How about being able to define a service, and
>>have some keyword for port that indicates the port(s) are passed from
>>bb-hosts, and then in bb-hosts you would specify the port,
>>ie. "1.2.3.4 irc.bar.com # conn irc:6667 irc:6668 irc:6669"
>>    
>>
>
>OK, this is a bit more complicated because it would require bbtest-net
>to merge the results of those three tests into one status-message.
>That is not being done for simple TCP tests, only for http tests
>currently. Right now, You'll have to set these up as individual
>columns.
>  
>
What will happen if I do irc:6667 irc:6668?  I assume it will only 
display the output of the last one, but will it still check them all? As 
long as it checks them all and sends alerts I could deal with it not 
displaying the banner output of every port.

>>7. Do you accept donations via PayPal? I would like to send you a 
>>donation for all your hard work. :-)
>>    
>>
>
>No, but I do have a wishlist at amazon.co.uk - just search for my
>name "Henrik Stoerner" on their wishlist page.
>  
>
Cool...I will hook you up!  Thanks for answering my questions so quickly.

-Charles
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