Service Results not updating completely with status changes

[Matthew.Roberts at nt.gov.au]

Hello Again,

I have found another problem with monitoring Services using the BBWin client
with the Hobbit server.

Say for example I am monitoring the DNS service and everything is ok. The svcs
page for that host will display something similar to:

      Mon May 12 10:55:04 2008 - Services OK
            DNS is automatic started req automatic started

      Name                                StartupType  Status
      DisplayName
      DNS                                 automatic    started        DNS Server


However if the status of the monitored Service changes to stopped, then an alert
is generated and the page turns red, however the result of the test displayed on
the svcs page does not change it stays as:

      Mon May 12 10:57:04 2008 - Services NOT ok
            DNS is automatic started req automatic started

Even though the data sent by the BBWin client has changed to

      Name                                StartupType  Status
      DisplayName
      DNS                                 automatic    stopped       DNS Server

When it should reflect this instead:

      Mon May 12 10:57:04 2008 - Services NOT ok
            DNS is automatic stopped req automatic started

So that we can quickly determine why Services are NOT ok.

I indentifed the reason this does not happen is because the string variable
which contains this information is set on startup of the Hobbit and the section
which generates the result does not get run again until the daemon is restarted
due to the the statement on line 2077 and 2078 of hobbitd/client_config.c

      result = (*walk)->rule->statustext;
                if (!result) {

By commenting the result = (*walk)->rule->statustext; line, I was able to force
the result to update when BBDisplay runs at its regular intervals. Before I
implement this change within our production environment, is there a specific
reason why the result variable does not get updated at every BBDisplay update?
Or was this line put in specifically to address some kind of performance issue?

I am not a C programmer and relatively new to the workings of Hobbit so any
comment would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Matthew Roberts
Senior Systems Administrator - Windows