[Xymon] Xymon, community, updates, and directions (was Re: Is this thing on?)
J.C. Cleaver
cleaver at terabithia.org
Mon Aug 14 22:50:45 CEST 2023
Hello all,
Catching up with the thread from these past few days, this seems the
proper place for me to chime back in.
While it's possible to call xymon simply a quiet, stable project (which it
is, with many installs simply and quietly doing their jobs in the
background out there), it's also very fair to say that the project -- or
at least the plans I (and, I'll assume, Henrik) had for it has indeed
reached a stalling point.
That doesn't mean it can't come out of a stall! But it does mean it takes
effort to resume work on.
Following on with others' comments, the Xymon codebase is somewhat...
intense. When I was performing near-daily performance enhancement and
tweaks for Xymon for $dayjob, there was a solid ability to stay in the
zone and I could add features as needed at a rapid clip. Since then, as I
moved on to other positions and responsibilities, my day-to-day
involvement with the code base dried up, and getting back into it can be
difficult unless you're doing a lot of C elsewhere and not spending it
cursing at kubernetes.
In short, there's a significant ramp-up and re-ramp-up involved, as one
might expect from any mature codebase. While the underlying documentation
for use and administration is extremely thorough IMHO, an Intro for Devs
document was something we never followed through well on.
Development plans had at one point been something like:
- direct SSL support and/or message signing (probably the most frequently
requested things, for those for whom stunnel-wrapping was not an option)
- IPv6 (some of which is working in the 4.4 alpha branch)
- abstraction of remaining formatting to simple CSS to allow for skinning
and dashboarding
I'd also had in mind things like a JSON endpoint version of
xymondx{log|board}, and a REST-based C shim .cgi, both of which could help
folks integrating Xymon with other monitoring systems out there.
Of course, the initial target was simply the forklifting of the many
performance enhancements and tweaks from the Terabithia RPMs into the
source tarball. This got pretty far there in the 4.4 branch, with only a
few major components not integrated. However debugging those components
and patches stalled out, especially with the need to maintain robust
pan-*nix compatibility.
That, ultimately, is where we are now.
To kick things off: In the past, there had been requests to move the
source to Github in the hopes of creating an easier onramp for patch
submissions via PRs, bug reports, and the like. While I personally feel
like SF and svn would still work, I think this probably deserves to be
back on the table.
In addition, Henrik had mentioned that we'll need a mailing list migration
at some point coming up soon.
Beyond that, to be honest I'm not sure what the next, best step is to
take. Life had indeed gotten in the way, to follow from the comment below,
as $dayjob+=4 and other responsibilities cropped up.
I really welcome the entire community's input here going forward.
Regards,
J.C. Cleaver
On Mon, August 14, 2023 09:58, Bruno Manzoni wrote:
> Hellor Xymon Lovers I'm not a coder either, but I see there's quite a
> bit of brains out there (and I think if there are enough of us we can
> try to maintain and improve it). Perhaps the current officials could
> first tell us what their plans are and how we could help them. On our
> side, we can perhaps encourage them: it would be good to list what we
> can bring to the project, as some have done! - I try to maintain
> "devmon" (on the github repo) and some other xymon tool (I did try to
> understand how devmon is integrate to xymon, but I am not an expert in
> Xymon code) - I am a telecom engineer - I can give some some time - I am
> an independent and I have some infra to play with - Usually I speak
> swiss-french (so sorry for all my mistakes) Bruno
>
> On 14.08.2023 18:36, James Louis wrote:
>> Is the Terabithia RPM also dead?
>>
>> Jim
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 10:03 AM Scot Kreienkamp
>> <Scot.Kreienkamp at la-z-boy.com> wrote:
>>
>> I would be OK with contributing some as well…. But that’s not
>> what
>> Xymon needs. Xymon needs caretaker(s) to keep it relevant. That
>> means code updates to fix bugs, adapt it to new OS versions, etc.Â
>> Otherwise it will fade away to obscurity like many other open
>> source projects. I’m not a coder either, or I would gladly give
>> some time to it.
>>
>> *Scot Kreienkamp | Senior Linux Systems Engineer | La-Z-Boy
>> Corporate*
>> One La-Z-Boy Drive | Monroe, Michigan 48162 |( (734) 384-6403 | |
>> ) 1-734-915-1444 | Email: Scot.Kreienkamp at la-z-boy.com
>>
>> *From:* Rod <rodbass63 at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Monday, August 14, 2023 10:56 AM
>> *To:* Ralph M <ralphmitchell at gmail.com>
>> *Cc:* Scot Kreienkamp <Scot.Kreienkamp at la-z-boy.com>; xymon >>
>> xymon at xymon.com <xymon at xymon.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Xymon] Is this thing on?
>>
>> I would like to continue the legacy. I'm not a developer but I'm
>> willing to pay for hosting space and the domain name to keep it
>> going for as long as I'm alive. Its kept me employed for a long
>> time.
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 10:32 AM Ralph M <ralphmitchell at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I've been using Xymon at several different employers since it
>> was BigBrother owned by a couple of guys in Canada. My
>> current Senior VP wants Xymon to go away. He hasn't actually
>> told me that directly, but I've heard it via another channel.Â
>> We have SolarWinds on some machines, but I've never even seen
>> the GUI for that. We're also distributing Oracle Enterprise
>> Manager (OEM) to a bunch of machines. I don't know for sure,
>> but I suspect a contracting company is whispering in my SVP's
>> ear to sell support for OEM. In the meantime, my Xymon server
>> has 878 days uptime and they're still trying to figure out how
>> to install and configure the OEM agents. It's going to be
>> tons of fun watching them try to replace all the little
>> scripts I've written with OEM equivalents.
>>
>> @Cristoph - I don't know if I can use stunnel. It's a
>> military-related company and there are all kinds of
>> restrictions that sometimes even make sense.
>>
>> Ralph Mitchell
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 9:41 AM Scot Kreienkamp
>> <Scot.Kreienkamp at la-z-boy.com> wrote:
>>
>> No new release since 2019, no activity on the mailing
>> list, I think it’s safe to say it’s flatlined. Sad to
>> see
>> it fade, I’ve been using it for a decade or more.
>>
>> *Scot Kreienkamp | Senior Linux Systems Engineer |
>> La-Z-Boy Corporate*
>> One La-Z-Boy Drive | Monroe, Michigan 48162|((734)
>> 384-6403 | | )1-734-915-1444| *Scot.Kreienkamp at la-z-boy.com
>> www.la-z-boy.com <http://www.la-z-boy.com>Â |
>> facebook.com/lazboy <http://facebook.com/lazboy>Â Â |
>> twitter.com/lazboy <http://twitter.com/lazboy>|
>> youtube.com/lazboy <http://youtube.com/lazboy>
>> Smaller LZB Only Logo for Sign.png
>>
>> *From:* Xymon <xymon-bounces at xymon.com> *On Behalf Of
>> *Neil Simmonds
>> *Sent:* Monday, August 14, 2023 5:29 AM
>> *To:* xymon >> xymon at xymon.com <xymon at xymon.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Xymon] Is this thing on?
>>
>> Is Xymon dying? No new release since 2019, There was a
>> roadmap in 2015 that mention Versions 4.4 up to 5 but
>> nothing seems to have moved on that.
>>
>> It feels like Xymon has become a static project that’s
>> going to fade away. That would be a shame as I for one
>> think it’s a great tool.
>>
>> *From:* Xymon <xymon-bounces at xymon.com> *On Behalf Of
>> *Galen Johnson
>> *Sent:* Sunday, August 13, 2023 3:01 AM
>> *To:* xymon >> xymon at xymon.com <xymon at xymon.com>
>> *Subject:* [Xymon] Is this thing on?
>>
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>> --
>> *Jim Louis
>>
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