[Xymon] OS version tags

[J.C. Cleaver]

On Mon, March 14, 2016 9:02 am, Johan Karlsson wrote:
> Hi!
>
> We have an issue with RHEL7 and xymon-client 4.3.26
>
> In client-local.cfg on our xymon server we have these log rules:
>
> [linux]
> log:/var/log/daemon.log:102400
> log:/var/log/kern.log:102400
> log:/var/log/syslog:102400
> log:/var/log/messages:102400
> ignore MARK
>
> [rhel3]
> log:/var/log/messages:102400
> ignore MARK
>
> We have an old RHEL5 server which reports the following to Xymon and thus
> get matched against [rhel3] in client-local.cfg:
>
> [collector:]
> client oldserver,xxx,com.rhel3 rhel3
>
> However, unconfigured the RHEL7 server reports:
>
> [collector:]
> client newserver,xxx,com.linux linux
>
> Setting CLIENTOS="rhel3" in /etc/sysconfig/xymon-client only changes the
> first:
>
> [collector:]
> client newserver,xxx,com.rhel3 linux
>
> We need it to report:
>
> [collector:]
> client newserver,xxx,com. rhel3 rhel3
>
> Any idea where to change the setting for that?
>
> The issue is that RHEL doesn't have daemon.log, kern.log etc, so these
> turn up as warnings in the msgs test
>
> Regards,
>
> Johan

Hmm,

Leaving aside the issue of the old 'rhel3' label there (this also affects
how vmstat output is parsed, so it may be causing an unwanted side
effect), there's actually a bit more of a fundamental logical problem
here: a CLASS=linux will match before OS=<whatever>, and by default we're
sending both OSTYPE and CLASS.

The precise bug is in a change in the RPM (which has been there for a
while, I think), as this line in xymonclient.cfg:

CONFIGCLASS="$SERVEROSTYPE"     # Default configuration class for logfiles

... is parsed before the CLIENTOS variable in /etc/sysconfig/xymon-client
is converted to SERVEROSTYPE in /usr/libexec/xymon-client/xymonclient.sh.

As an immediate work-around, edit that variable in xymonclient.cfg.

If you're feeling more adventurous, changing [linux] to [os=linux] in
client-local.cfg *should* cause the (CLASS=)[rhel3] line to take priority
here, while still letting the default linux clients work OK.


I'm not quite sure on the right solution here is (other than consolidating
variable names in 4.x going forward); there might be good causes for both
linux as a class and linux as an OS type remaining separately tweakable
according to local needs. OTOH, the status quo is definitely somewhat
confusing. Likewise, it's possible that client-local.cfg's default
settings should be hard-coded to the lowest-precedence category (os=) so
that overrides are more likely to work.

All that aside, I'd advise making a new class type for different
categorizations like this (or just using the hostname, if it's a one-off)
rather than the 'rhel3' tag. That's definitely intended for legacy
support.


Regards,
-jc