[hobbit] Is there a way to clone host definitions in bb-hosts?

[Buchan Milne]

On Wednesday 11 June 2008 01:29:21 John Burk wrote:
> I'm using hobbit for monitoring a compute cluster of nearly 1000
> identical hosts.  I'm using includes in my bb-hosts to keep the file
> length down, but my included files are comprised of hundreds of hosts
> all identical except for the ipaddresses and hostnames.
>
> Surely there must be a way to template this, I just can't find it in
> the bb-hosts manpage...

[...]

> I'd like to be able to define the tags in a template, and simply use
> that template.  Does this mechanism exist in bb-host?

No. This is the biggest weakness in Hobbit, but it is also one of the 
BigBrother-compatibility features.

> That way 
> if/when I need to change the tags for all my hosts, I only need to do
> it in one place, and not on every line in 3 different files.

But, do you want it only for bb-hosts (IOW, which tests to run and which tests 
to not propagate), or also for thresholds, log/file/dir checks, alerts etc?

Henrik has mentioned that the configuration issues need to be looked at, but 
it's a tradeoff between simplicity+repetitive, and excessively complex.

Regards,
Buchan