[Xymon] Hand editing config files

[Steve Holmes]

On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Scot Kreienkamp <SKreien at la-z-boy.com>wrote:

> I'm OK with text files, but a syntax checker for each config file sure
> would be nice.  I like the text files for the flexibility they allow.
>
> Scot Kreienkamp
> Senior Systems Engineer
> skreien at la-z-boy.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xymon-bounces at xymon.com [mailto:xymon-bounces at xymon.com] On Behalf
> Of Henrik Størner
> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 5:04 PM
> To: Xymon mailinglist
> Subject: [Xymon] Hand editing config files
>
> Hi,
>
> in another mail thread, another monitoring tool (Zenoss) was mentioned
> which had the advantage of "no hand editing of config files".
>
> Text based config files have their ups and downs - they are infinitely
> flexible and can adapt to all sorts of weird ways of defining your
> setup, but it is also easier to "get it wrong" and put something in
> there which doesn't work. Even happens to me occasionally.
>
> It's the age-old debate over whether something is "powerful" or
> "dangerous".
>
> I am currently working on the next Xymon version (except I've been
> swamped with for-pay work the past couple of months ... and a hefty
> round of lay-offs in other departments than mine). This involves a
> complete rewrite of the network testing tool, and for this rewrite I've
> started using an SQLite database for storing some intermediate data used
> by the network tester, instead of keeping it in a bunch of temporary
> text-files.
>
> And it has made me consider the idea of using a database for storing at
> least some of the configuration - first of all the hosts.cfg
> configuration of hosts, IP-adresses and network tests. This would make
> some things simpler, others a bit more complex - "xymongrep", for
> instance - but would also make it a lot easier to provide a GUI for
> managing what hosts are being monitored.
>
> This is not going to happen anytime soon, but since the subject was up
> in the air - what do you think about it ? Is it a major problem that
> Xymon has all configuration in text files ? How many of you
> auto-generate the Xymon config by extracting the information from a
> database already ?
>
> Just looking for some feedback...
>
>
> Regards,
> Henrik
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I'm ok with text and hand editing - BUT it would be really cool if there
was a tool that would make it easier to update multiple files consistently.
I realize with regexps on page AND host names this becomes very
complicated, but when I remove hosts I often forget the remove them from
the auxiliary config files. It doesn't really hurt anything, but makes for
a bigger clean-up job later.

Thanks for a great tool!
Steve Holmes

-- 
If they give you ruled paper, write the other way. -Juan Ramon Jimenez,
poet, Nobel Prize in literature (1881-1958)

I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I
prayed with my legs. -Frederick Douglass, Former slave, abolitionist,
editor, and orator (1817-1895)
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