[hobbit] Hobbit 4.1.2 released

[Lee J. Imber]

Henrik,

Once again, great work!

Thanks,

Lee

On Oct 11, 2005, at 8:37 AM, Henrik Stoerner wrote:

> I'm pleased to finally announce the availability of Hobbit version  
> 4.1.2.
>
> Sources and binaries (in .rpm and .deb format) are available from
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php? 
> group_id=128058&package_id=140220&release_id=362670
>
> This release fixes a number of bugs in the client- and server-
> code, but also includes some minor improvements.
>
> If you are upgrading, please note:
> - If you are upgrading from 4.1.1, you MUST change the
>   ~hobbit/server/etc/hobbit-clients.cfg file and add a
>   line with the text "DEFAULT" before the default settings
>   in the file.
> - The 4.1.x pre-built Debian packages for the Hobbit client
>   were built without flagging the local client configuration
>   files as such. So upgrading a client with the .deb packages
>   may overwrite any modifications you have made to the local
>   client configuration (e.g. if you have added extensions
>   to the client).
>
>
> Regards,
> Henrik
>
>
> Changes from 4.1.1 -> 4.1.2 (11 Oct 2005)
> -----------------------------------------
>
> Post-RC1 fixes:
> * Linux client now runs ps with "-w" to get more of the
>   commandline.
> * Disk status reports from clients are now processed with
>   sed to make sure each mounted filesystem appears on a
>   single line.
> * A missing "req." text in the "procs" status report was
>   fixed.
> * Web checks now recognize status "100" as OK.
> * All of the build scripts using "head -1" now use the
>   POSIX'ly correct "head -n 1" instead.
> * Documentation update: We do have a client now; the
>   hobbit-clients.cfg man-page was added.
>
> Bugfixes:
> * The hobbit module handling client reports had several bugs
>   in the way it interpreted the hobbit-clients.cfg file. These
>   were fixed, but this necessitated that the default settings
>   are explicitly flagged with a "DEFAULT" line.
> * When multiple recipients of an alert had different minimum
>   duration and/or repeat-settings, they would mostly use only
>   the settings for the first recipient.
> * The alert module could continue sending alerts even though
>   the rules in hobbit-alerts.cfg that triggered the alert had
>   been modified.
> * The hobbitd daemon would leak memory when responding to a
>   "query" request. In extreme circumstances, it could also
>   crash.
> * The hobbitd_alert module could leak tiny amounts of memory.
> * The default timeouts on the server- and client-side have
>   been increased to allow some more time to send in status
>   messages. Because of Hobbit's more agressive use of "combo"
>   messages and larger amounts of data, it could timeout
>   prematurely on busy servers.
> * Hosts flagged with "nobb2" no longer appear in the acknowledge
>   log on the BB2 page.
> * The size of the shared-memory buffers used to pass data between
>   the core hobbit daemon and the hobbitd_* modules has been
>   increased, allowing for larger messages. These are now also
>   configurable, so you can change them without having to
>   recompile Hobbit (see the MAXMSG_* settings in hobbitserver.cfg(5)).
> * bbproxy: When sending to multiple servers and the connection to
>   one server fails, continue feeding a message to the other servers
>   instead of dropping it completely.
> * bbproxy: Rotating the logs will now also rotate the logfile for
>   any debugging output.
> * The RSS files now escape special characters, to make sure
>   the file has a valid RSS XML syntax.
> * The "cpu" status from a Hobbit client with a critical load
>   would include texts showing both that the load was "high"
>   and "critical". Changed to include only the most severe
>   condition.
> * The "ncv" (name-colon-value) data handler could easily
>   read past end of input, and mis-interpret the input data.
>   Fixed by Matti Klock.
>
> Build fixes:
> * An "autoconf" type of script is now used to check for some
>   of the more common build problems. This should make the client
>   build without problems on more platforms.
> * The "configure" script will now recognize the "hobbit" user
>   on systems using NIS or NIS+.
> * "make install" would fail to set the proper permissions for the
>   Hobbit client directories.
> * The pre-built Debian- and RPM-packages failed to flag the
>   client configuration files as such, so they would be overwritten
>   by an upgrade. Note that this fix only takes effect AFTER you
>   have installed the new .deb or .rpm files.
> * The pre-built Debian- and RPM-packages failed to set permissions
>   on the client logs/ and tmp/ directories.
> * A separate "hobbit-client" package is now generated in both
>   .rpm and .deb format.
> * A bug in the "merge-sects" installation utility has been fixed. This
>   could cause the installation to abort prematurely.
>
> Server improvements:
> * The acknowledge log on the BB 2 page now has a configurable
>   max number and max time of the entries listed, via the
>   --max-ackcount and --max-acktime options for bbgen.
> * The eventlog script now lets you filter out events based on
>   the hostname, testname, color, and start/stop times. Thanks
>   to Eric Schwimmer for contributing this.
> * The "netstat" statistics module has been upgraded to collect
>   byte-counter statistics for HP-UX, AIX, OSF/1 and *BSD.
>   This might only work with the Hobbit client, not the BB/LARRD
>   bf-netstat module.
> * A "group-except" definition is now supported in the bb-hosts
>   file, to show all tests EXCEPT certain ones for a group of
>   hosts.
> * A "noclear" tag has been added. This is the equivalent of
>   defining all network test with the '~' - "always report true
>   status" - flag.
> * RPC tests now only run if the ping check of the server did
>   not fail.
> * The default size of the RRD graphs can be defined via the
>   RRDHEIGHT and RRDWIDTH settings in hobbitserver.cfg.
> * The hobbitgraph CGI can now generate comparison graphs
>   with e.g. the load graphs from multiple hosts. However, a
>   front-end tool for requsting these has not yet been created.
> * Stale RRD files (.rrd files that haven't been updated for
>   more than 1 day) are no longer included when generating the
>   graphs on the status pages. They still show up if you view
>   the graphs on the "trends" status column.
> * The hobbit-confreport CGI is now installed correctly,
>   including an item in the "Reports" menu.
> * The "info" column now include the "uname" data from the
>   Hobbit client, allowing you to see what operating system
>   is running on the host.
>
> Client improvements:
> * The "runclient.sh" script now accepts two commandline options:
>   "--hostname=CLIENT.HOST.NAME" lets you override the default
>   hostname that the client uses when it reports data to Hobbit;
>   "--os=OSNAME" lets you override the operating system name for
>   certain Linux systems. See the README.CLIENT file.
> * The client is now re-locatable. I.e. you can pack up the
>   "client" directory and move it to another box or another
>   location for easier deployment of the client on multiple
>   boxes running the same operating system.
> * Client installations on NIS-based systems should now work.
> * AIX is now supported - has been tested with 4.3.3 and 5.x.
> * OSF/1 is now supported (4.x and 5.x)
> * HP-UX support should work
> * Darwin / Mac OS X is now supported.
> * {Free,Net,Open}BSD-based systems failed to build the meminfo
>   tool, so memory reporting was broken.
> * Solaris clients now reports all types of filesystems
>   (notably "vxfs" filesystems were omitted before).
> * The client configuration now lets you check for filesystems
>   that MUST be mounted.
> * The clients now switch locale to use the POSIX locale -
>   previously the system locale was used, which could result
>   in status messages in languages that the backend did
>   not expect.
>
> Other:
> * A new utility "demotool" can be used to simulate a number of
>   servers to Hobbit. This may be useful when demonstrating
>   Hobbit to new users. Note: This is not included in the
>   default build - to build it, run "make demo-build".
>
>
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>
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