[Xymon] Status, NCV and time stamps

[J.C. Cleaver]

FYI, all,

4.3.22 will have comment markers that can be used for both skipping a line
and for ending processing. Something along the lines of this will work:
<pre>
ip6_dst_cache : 7680
ndisc_cache : 7680
<!-- ncv_skip -->ip6_mrt_cache : 0
ext4_inode_cache : 7960000
<!-- ncv_end -->
scsi_sense_cache : 15360
</pre>

Not entirely sure if that will render properly :) But essentially:
pre-pend lines with "ncv_skip" in a regular HTML comment to skip it, and a
bare "ncv_end" in a comment will abort further processing for that
message.


I'd considered adding regex capabilities directly into the NCV module, but
it's a fairly time sensitive operation on more heavily-loaded servers, so
it's important to keep existing modules like that as efficient as
possible.

The process of RRD module writing here is pretty simple though (simpler
than I'd recalled it), and it shouldn't be too hard to add other types of
automated/regular processing besides NCV that could be called up.


HTH,

-jc


On Tue, October 6, 2015 7:42 am, Matt Vander Werf wrote:
> (Sending this again to the list, as I sent it using the wrong e-mail
> previously (non-subscriber e-mail))
>
> I second this request for enhancement. It would be nice to be able to send
> more data from the client to be displayed on the column/test page, but not
> get parsed to be included in the RRD graph. Only parsing certain lines
> that
> are in the NCV format would be a nice feature. Something like what J.C.
> mentioned ("a data parser that looks for a hidden HTML comment marker for
> lines to process (and ignores the rest)") would work well for this, IMO.
>
> Or is there a way to do this already? (even through a hack?)
>
> Nothing urgent, just something that would be nice to be included in some
> future Xymon release.
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Matt Vander Werf
>
> On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 10:39 AM, Matt Vander Werf <matt1299 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I second this request for enhancement. It would be nice to be able to
>> send
>> more data from the client to be displayed on the column/test page, but
>> not
>> get parsed to be included in the RRD graph. Only parsing certain lines
>> that
>> are in the NCV format would be a nice feature. Something like what J.C.
>> mentioned ("a data parser that looks for a hidden HTML comment marker
>> for
>> lines to process (and ignores the rest)") would work well for this, IMO.
>>
>> Or is there a way to do this already? (even through a hack?)
>>
>> Nothing urgent, just something that would be nice to be included in some
>> future Xymon release.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> --
>> Matt Vander Werf
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 7:48 PM, Boldt, David <dboldt at usgs.gov> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for these leads. Will looks at both the filter and "trends"
>>> message options.
>>>
>>> As a request for enhancement, I think it would be useful to have an
>>> option to use a regexp to extract data from the status, one for each
>>> variable.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 7:36 PM, J.C. Cleaver <cleaver at terabithia.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, October 5, 2015 3:52 pm, Boldt, David wrote:
>>>> > I'm in the process of converting Big Brother tests to XYMon and
>>>> would
>>>> like
>>>> > to enable RRD/graphics for these tests.
>>>> >
>>>> > Several of these tests present date/time information which is
>>>> important.
>>>> >
>>>> > As a workaround for one test I have replaced the colon on a HH:MM:DD
>>>> > formatted date with a dot, but it doesn't really look like a time
>>>> anymore.
>>>> >
>>>> > * Is there a way to have NCV ignore colons (and only use "=")?
>>>> >
>>>> > * Is there a way to have NCV ignore a line (which might contain
>>>> colons)?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Unfortunately, there isn't a way to do either of these at the moment.
>>>> I'd
>>>> considered a data parser that looks for a hidden HTML comment marker
>>>> for
>>>> lines to process (and ignores the rest), but it's not quite present
>>>> yet.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>> > * Can I use Data messages in such a way that the corresponding
>>>> Status
>>>> > message is not parsed?
>>>>
>>>> The easiest way to do this would be to add a --filter= option to the
>>>> xymond_channel command line for the xymond_rrd process that's handling
>>>> the
>>>> *status* channel, but not the data channel.
>>>>
>>>> There's a CPU load hit for doing so (since now you're doing a PCRE on
>>>> each
>>>> message), however it may not have much of an impact depending on your
>>>> message volume.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> > * Might there be some other mechanism entirely?
>>>>
>>>> Generally, speaking for more advanced RRD submission, the 'trends'
>>>> message
>>>> can be a useful data payload which is read directly by xymond_rrd. The
>>>> advantage there (aside from more direct control) is the ability to
>>>> send
>>>> data points for multiple graphs at once, which could outweigh the
>>>> expense
>>>> of another message transmission.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> HTH,
>>>>
>>>> -jc
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>                                          -- David Boldt
>>>                                             <dboldt at usgs.gov>
>>>
>>>
>>>    "Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I
>>> wasn't previously aware of."
>>>     --Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001), Arthur Dent in "The Hitchhikers
>>> Guide
>>> to the Galaxy"
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Xymon mailing list
>>> Xymon at xymon.com
>>> http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
>>>
>>>
>>
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