[Xymon] what IS the "DNS" check in xymon?

[Christoph Zechner]

On 15/02/2022 09:38, Ian Diddams wrote:
> if we set a hosts.cfg line
> 
> 10.24.38.132    walkie # ssh dns
> 
> we can expect xymon to check that ssh connections exist for thats erver, 
> and also does some sort of dns check.
> 
> what exactly IS this check?

Quote from the man page of hosts.cfg (Debian 11):

"DNS SERVER TESTS
        These tags are used to setup monitoring of DNS servers.

        dns    Simple DNS test. It will attempt to lookup the A record 
for the hostname of the DNS server.

        dig    This is an alias for the "dns" test. In xymonnet, the 
"dns" and "dig" tests are handled identically, so all of the facilities 
for testing described for the "dns" test are also available for the 
"dig" test.

        dns=hostname

        dns=TYPE:lookup[,TYPE:lookup...]
               The default DNS tests will attempt a DNS lookup of the 
DNS' servers own hostname. You can specify the hostname to lookup on a 
DNS server by listing it on each test.

               The second form of the test allows you to perform 
multiple queries of the DNS server, requesting different types of DNS 
records. The TYPE defines the type of DNS data: A (IP-address), MX (Mail 
eXchanger),  PTR  (re‐
               verse),  CNAME  (alias),  SOA  (Start-Of-Authority),  NS 
(Name  Server)  are  among  the  more  common  ones  used.  The 
"lookup" is the query. E.g. to lookup the MX records for the "foo.com" 
domain, you would use
               "dns=mx:foo.com". Or to lookup the nameservers for the 
"bar.org" domain, "dns=ns:bar.org".  You can list multiple lookups, 
separated by commas. For the test to end up with a green status, all 
lookups must succeed."

Cheers
Christoph


> 
> becasue the dns on that server is runjning fine - but the xymon alert 
> shopws red.
> 
> 
> 
> Service dns on walkie is not OK : Service unavailable
> 
> 
> Name not found
> 
> Seconds: 0.007559000
> 
> 
> 
> 
> any ideas please/  Ive googled and come up with nothing (though my 
> googling skills are not the greatest)
> 
>