[hobbit] Deviding multiple HTTP tests / userdefined services

[s_aiello at comcast.net]

On Monday 07 May 2007 14:20, Frank Gruellich wrote:
> Hi,
>
> we monitore a server farm with several machines each providing multiple
> and different HTTP services, lets say some of them a forum, some others
> static pages and some more dynamic PHP pages.  Sets of machines
> providing each service may overlap.  Each service has a testing URL,
> which is unfortunately way to complicate to easily figure out the
> requested service from it, let say
>
>   http://10.0.0.123/index.php?serviceid=7fd6c689c5832e2e7d2dc1188e2548fb
>   http://10.0.0.123/index.php?serviceid=733fe2d6c68cd9a245be03532a867483
>
> for forum and dynamic content, respectively.  I know, that's bad by
> design, but there is no easy way to change it.
>
> All these URLs are configured with bb-hosts file.  At the moment we
> tried two different approches: first we used all URLs at one line for
> this machine.  This way the URL list in HTTP details is very long and
> unclear.  A single failed test leads to a failure for all HTTP stuff
> which results in bad availability reports.  Second we used some pseudo
> hostnames like forum-machine1 which leads again to some confusions
> because physical there is no such machine.
>
> Last week I was very happy to find cont=COLUMN.  As I think it is a bit
> misplaced in content checking area I probably use the wrong option for
> my things.  And in addition I need several URLs to check the
> availability of a service, eg. for forum:
>
> 10.0.0.123 machine123 #
> cont=forum;http://10.0.0.123/index.php?serviceid=7fd6c689c5832e2e7d2dc1188e
>2548fb;
> cont=forum;http://10.0.0.123/index.php?serviceid=898e0df11f6400ce8c47a73b38
>f83e80;
>
> Now I have a forum column in status pages, but AFAICS from details of
> this new column only the first URL is checked.  If any of the later
> fails it does not result in an error for this service (but HTTP column
> shows a failed test).
>
> I thought about having a lot of external scripts to test all URLs and
> report them to hobbit server, but this would be a hell to maintain.  In
> addition this lacks the performance analysis hobbit does with HTTP
> tests.  So, is there a way to generate and "stack" user defined tests in
> the same way as with HTTP tests?
>
> Thanks in advance and kind regards,

You cannot have 2 cont checks with the same name. One will 'overwrite' the 
other. Henrik spoke about this in the following thread for your reference; 
http://www.hobbitmon.com/hobbiton/2006/08/msg00372.html.

I hope this helps,
 ~Steve