[hobbit] Configuration database backend.

[Buchan Milne]

On Friday 08 December 2006 00:01, Trent Melcher wrote:
> Has anyone thought about or implemented a configuration database backend
> for hobbit, primarily a database replacement for the hobbit-clients.cfg
> and hobbit-alerts.cfg to start....

I have been thinking about it ... but I think Henrik's concern is not to add a 
dependency on another tool to the monitoring system.

There are however ways of getting around this. For example, it may be possible 
to have a task that builds the configuration files from a database. You can 
then potentially have both advantages.

> these are a couple that I would like 
> to buils a webfront to and be able to give limited access to users so
> they could modify thresholds and alerting capabilities when needed.

For me the big reason isn't to ease configuration, but rather to leverage 
existing configuration information we have on our hosts. Our linux machines 
are deployed automatically based on configuration information in our config 
database, and includes IP addresses, function, hardware, site information 
etc, sufficient to deploy the machine ready for production in 10 minutes. 
Then, monitoring has to be added ....

> I did this about 4 years back for Big Brother using Informix,  I was
> able to setup thresholds and a replacement for the bb-host file inside a
> couple tables in a database.  However back then Big Brother was mostly
> shell scripts and flat files for all its configuration.  So adding hooks
> into it for talking to a databse was easy.  With hobbit its all compiled
> code and Im not sure where to start, plus I don't have access to an
> Informix database or the API's for it anymore so Im looking at mysql and
> its api's for writing code in C.

This approach would probably mean that Hobbit is dependant on one of those 
flaky things it is supposed to monitor, or in the case of a power outage, one 
of those things that might not start up ...

> I guess Im looking to see if anyone has started some development in this
> area?

I think there are potential advantages, but IMHO:
-a means for providing a standard way of configuring external checks should be 
done first
-Henrik needs to agree with the architecture

Since we already have a nice web interface to our configuration system (built 
with perl Catalyst) with authentication (against our LDAP server that 
everything authenticates against), session management, authorisation etc. 
already handled, I wouldn't really want to put user authentication in the 
same place.

Regards,
Buchan

-- 
Buchan Milne
ISP Systems Specialist - Monitoring/Authentication Team Leader
B.Eng,RHCE(803004789010797),LPIC-2(LPI000074592)
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