[hobbit] File existence monitoring

Charles Jones jonescr at cisco.com
Thu Nov 29 01:22:33 CET 2007


It won't work the way you are doing it now.  You are using an ls command 
to dynamically create the list of files to check in your client-local, 
so when that file is missing, the ls command doesn't output it as a 
filename to check, so the test drops off when that file dissappears,

Since the files are dynamic, I assume created every day, you are going 
to have to figure out a way to tell if one of them goes away.  Maybe you 
could have a cron job that runs every morning, and does an ls of the 
files and saves the output somewhere like /var/tmp/todays_files.txt, and 
then in your client-local you could do something like:

[hostname]
file:`head -1 /var/tmp/todays_files.txt|tail -1`
file:`head -2 /var/tmp/todays_files.txt|tail -1`
file:`head -3 /var/tmp/todays_files.txt|tail -1`
...

That would add a file entry for every line of todays_files.txt.  So if 
one of the files got deleted, it would still be referenced in 
todays_files.txt, and thus continue to be monitored (including 
notification that it was no longer there).

That is a frightful way to do it, but I can't think of anything better 
at the moment :)  Dealing with randomly generated filenames is a pain.

-Charles

Stuffle, David (Corporate) wrote:
>
> I found part of my problem of why the file existence isn't working.  I 
> wasn't specifying the full path in the hobbit-clients.cfg file.  I 
> also had to escape the forward slashes and underscores with 
> backslashes.  Plus, the "red" parameter wasn't valid from what the log 
> said.
>
>  
>
> But still, I want to know if a file doesn't exist.  The 
> hobbitcleint.log file on the client just keeps saying
>
>  "ls: /usr/local/scripts/logs/dcsmnj8yecotnwbcevyym9t8c_4d7i*: No such 
> file or directory".  Therefore, it doesn't report anything about it.  
> But I want to be alerted that it doesn't exist.
>
>  
>
> Is anyone successfully monitoring file existence?
>
>  
>
> D. Stuffle
>
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* Stuffle, David (Corporate) [mailto:David.Stuffle at adesa.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 27, 2007 5:15 PM
> *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk
> *Subject:* RE: [hobbit] File existence monitoring
>
>  
>
> Thanks Greg,
>
> The filenames do change, they have the date appended to them.  I'm 
> wanting to check that the files are there and that they're not 0 bytes. 
>
>  
>
> I know that when I was first setting it up I messed up something and 
> it said "File missing" when it didn't find the file.  Now it doesn't 
> seem to care. 
>
>  
>
> D. Stuffle
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* Hubbard, Greg L [mailto:greg.hubbard at eds.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 27, 2007 4:49 PM
> *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk
> *Subject:* RE: [hobbit] File existence monitoring
>
>  
>
> If the file names never change, then specify the file name in the 
> client-local.cfg instead of running the ls command.  If you delete the 
> file, then the ls command will return nothing.  That is what I would 
> try first, anyway.
>
>  
>
> Or, it could be your check -- you are only asking for an alarm if the 
> file size is bigger than 1K.  A missing file is not bigger than 1K is 
> it?  And it seems like you need to do some other things as well to get 
> this correct.  I am working from memory...
>
>  
>
> GLH
>
>      
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>     *From:* Stuffle, David (Corporate) [mailto:David.Stuffle at adesa.com]
>     *Sent:* Tuesday, November 27, 2007 2:59 PM
>     *To:* hobbit at hswn.dk
>     *Subject:* [hobbit] File existence monitoring
>
>     Hi,
>
>     I'm wanting to check the existence of specific files in a
>     directory and that they are at leat 1K in size.  I have this in
>     the hobbit-clients.cfg file:
>
>      
>
>     HOST=hostname1
>
>             PROC httpd
>
>             FILE %^sdc_.* MTIME<3600 TIME=W:0730:2200 red
>
>             FILE %^dcs1xaz9saotnw713cmtaut8c_6w3j.* red size>1K
>     TIME=*:0730:1800
>
>             FILE %^dcsaplg0kbotnwvrj16x28msg_1i2n.* red size>1K
>     TIME=*:0730:1800
>
>             FILE %^dcsdq1p60cotnw32xcywlbisg_9i5q.* red size>1K
>     TIME=*:0730:1800
>
>             FILE %^dcsmnj8yecotnwbcevyym9t8c_4d7i.* red size>1K
>     TIME=*:0730:1800
>
>             FILE %^dcsp6ro5kbotnwvjh6yh0dmsg_3j1y.* red size>1K
>     TIME=*:0730:1800
>
>             FILE %^dcsu5rokrbotnwb01tmd19mat_4w7s.* red size>1K
>     TIME=*:0730:1800
>
>      
>
>     And this in client-local.cfg:
>
>      
>
>     [hostname1]
>
>     file:`find /usr/local/webtrends/sdc/weblog -type f | xargs ls -1tr
>     | tail -1`
>
>     file:`ls -1 /usr/local/scripts/logs/dcs1xaz9saotnw713cmtaut8c_6w3j*`
>
>     file:`ls -1 /usr/local/scripts/logs/dcsaplg0kbotnwvrj16x28msg_1i2n*`
>
>     file:`ls -1 /usr/local/scripts/logs/dcsdq1p60cotnw32xcywlbisg_9i5q*`
>
>     file:`ls -1 /usr/local/scripts/logs/dcsmnj8yecotnwbcevyym9t8c_4d7i*`
>
>     file:`ls -1 /usr/local/scripts/logs/dcsp6ro5kbotnwvjh6yh0dmsg_3j1y*`
>
>     file:`ls -1 /usr/local/scripts/logs/dcsu5rokrbotnwb01tmd19mat_4w7s*`
>
>      
>
>      
>
>     They all show up under the files column.  To test it, I deleted
>     the file specified in the last line from the directory, but all
>     Hobbit does is remove it from displaying.  I want it to go red
>     saying that the file does not exist.
>
>      
>
>     The man pages says "By default, a warning is triggered for files
>     that have a FILE entry, but which do not exist."  But, I'm not
>     seeing this occur.
>
>      
>
>     Any ideas?
>
>      
>
>     D. Stuffle   
>
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