[Xymon] Terebithia RPM's vs Build.

Wed Mar 30 15:51:24 CEST 2022

Hi Neil,

I know there are differences with what's in the Terabithia RPMs and in
upstream Xymon source. The Terabithia RPMs add extra patches on top of the
source with various enhancements. I believe the creator of those RPMs was
working on getting all the extra changes incorporated into upstream but not
sure how far he got in that process. I know there are some differences that
still exist. I believe he changed jobs and hasn't been able to dedicate as
much (volunteer) time to the Xymon project as he used to. I would take a
look at the README (Terabithia RPMS)
<https://terabithia.org/xymon/xymon.README.terabithia> and CHANGES
(Terabithia RPMS) <https://terabithia.org/xymon/xymon.CHANGES.terabithia>
files found on the Terabithia RPM main page (https://terabithia.org/xymon/)
<https://terabithia.org/xymon/> for more information on the differences.

I've been running a Xymon server using the Terabithia RPMs on RHEL 7 for 7+
years now with no significant issues (that hadn't been addressed). Note you
will need EPEL if you use the Terabithia RPMs (RHEL 7 or 8), but ONLY on
the Xymon server itself. The xymon-client Terabithia RPM package doesn't
require anything outside the normal RHEL repositories (for RHEL 6/7/8).

I am actually in the process of moving our Xymon server from RHEL 7 to RHEL
8 now as well and based on my testing *so far*, I haven't found any issues
with the RHEL 8 Terabithia Xymon server RPMs (been using the RHEL 8
xymon-client RPM on clients for a long time with no issues).

One thing to note if you're using NTP checks is that Xymon uses ntpdate by
default for these checks but ntpdate doesn't exist at all in any RHEL 8
repos at all (neither does ntp), nor does it exist in any trusted
third-party repos, as it was completely replaced by chrony in RHEL 8
(chronyc is the client tool). chrony also requires you make certain changes
in the chrony.conf file on any clients you use the NTP check on to allow
the chronyc remote commands to work.

You can change the binary/path for what is used for the NTP checks and the
options used (NTPDATE and NTPDATEOPTS in xymonserver.cfg) but there are
also some hard coded parts in the source code which go by what it assumes
the ntpdate command output format looks like, which doesn't match chronyc
output at all. So if you use NTP checks, you'll need to figure out a way to
extract the chronyc output to match the ntpdate output or do without the
NTP checks. Note this is the same issue regardless if you're using the
Xymon source or the Terabithia RPMs. (See past discussion on this here
<https://lists.xymon.com/pipermail/xymon/2020-June/047190.html> and here
<https://lists.xymon.com/pipermail/xymon/2020-June/047191.html>.)

This is something I would *love* if it was fixed in the Xymon source code,
but not sure the likelihood of it happening anytime soon (*note to Xymon
maintianers!*).

Hope this helps!

Thanks.

-- 
Matt Vander Werf

On Wed, Mar 30, 2022 at 8:51 AM Neil Simmonds <Neil.Simmonds at studio.co.uk>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>
>
> Can anyone tell me what the difference is for Xymon Server between
> compiling from source and installing the Terabithia RPM’s?
>
>
>
> Also, I noticed there seems to be at least rrd-devel packages that are
> outside of the main Repos for RHEL 8, are there any other considerations of
> that nature for RHEL 8.5?
>
>
>
> I’m looking at building a new Xymon server as our current one is CentOS
> 5.6 and Xymon 4.3.4 so a bit ancient and very overdue a rebuild to more
> modern versions.
>
>
>
> I’d like to build with RHEL 8.5 and Xymon 4.3.30 and I’d like to build
> using the Terebithia RPM’s but I know I’m going to get questions from our
> Cyber team regarding the differences and any nonstandard Repo’s I need so
> I’d like to be prepared with some answers.
>
>
>
> Also, I’d just like to check that Xymon is still being developed? I notice
> 4.3.30 seems to be 2.5 years old and while I remember some talk about
> Version 5, I haven’t seen any news on that yet.
>
>
>
> Kind Regards,
>
>
>
> Neil*.*
>
>
>
> *Neil Simmonds*
>
> Senior Platform & Middleware Engineer (Unix).
>
>
>
>
>
>
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