[Xymon] Hand editing config files

[Jamison Maxwell]

My vote is on text files....  I wouldn't complain about a syntax checker, but I probably wouldn't use it either.... (I edit /etc/shadow with VI, I know, I'm a rebel.)




Jamison Maxwell
Jamison at newasterisk.com

-----Original Message-----
From: xymon-bounces at xymon.com [mailto:xymon-bounces at xymon.com] On Behalf Of FORD Alan
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 7:42 PM
To: 'Scot Kreienkamp'; 'Henrik Størner'; Xymon mailinglist
Subject: Re: [Xymon] Hand editing config files

Here here :-) agree a config/syntax checker would be great...

Would be good to have something that generates the web pages into a folder so you can see the changes without actually putting them into Xymon so you can adjust the layout with immediately affecting the "Live view" :-)


Alan Ford
Senior Database Administrator
Com Serv - Information Communications and Technology Stanwell Corporation Limited

www.stanwell.com



-----Original Message-----
From: xymon-bounces at xymon.com [mailto:xymon-bounces at xymon.com] On Behalf Of Scot Kreienkamp
Sent: Thursday, 14 June 2012 9:13 AM
To: 'Henrik Størner'; Xymon mailinglist
Subject: Re: [Xymon] Hand editing config files

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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