[Xymon] Xymonproxy and an unreachable server

[Wim Nelis]

On a Raspberry Pi zero W xymon-client is running to monitor some sensors and the 
PRi0 itself. As the xymon server itself is not reachable by times, a minimal 
xymon-server is running too on the RPi0. Xymonproxy is used to distribute the 
status and data messages to both the local xymon server and the primary xymon 
server. The intention of this setup is to have all the RRD's locally complete at 
the RPi0. If needed, the RRDs can be copied from the RPi0 to the primary xymon 
server.

The local xymon server is listening to port 1985, the xymonproxy to port 1984. 
The latter distributes the messages to two servers, using parameter 
"--server=127.0.0.1:1985,192.168.178.72:1984". This setup is working, but the 
graphs created from the local RRD's contain gaps in the periods that the primary 
xymon server is not reachable. The logfiles of the clients running on the RPi0 
contain messages like the following, about twice an hour:

2018-02-21 06:10:01.664965 Whoops ! Failed to send message (Connection failed)
2018-02-21 06:10:01.665673 ->  Could not connect to Xymon daemon at 127.0.0.1:1984 
(Connection refused)
2018-02-21 06:10:01.665767 ->  Recipient '127.0.0.1', timeout 15
2018-02-21 06:10:01.665851 ->  1st line: 'status rpi00.mve green Wed 2018.02.21 
06:10:01'

This does explain the gaps. The logfile of xymonproxy shows that the proxy is 
restarted a dozen times per hour:

2018-02-21 05:55:38.272757 xymonproxy version 4.3.28 starting
2018-02-21 05:55:38.273605 Listening on 0.0.0.0:1984
2018-02-21 05:55:38.273751 Sending to Xymon server(s) 127.0.0.1:1985 
192.168.178.72:1984
2018-02-21 05:56:05.304985 Server not responding, message lost
2018-02-21 06:00:30.195973 Server not responding, message lost
2018-02-21 06:00:36.221908 Server not responding, message lost
2018-02-21 06:00:41.231668 Server not responding, message lost
2018-02-21 06:00:41.236076 Server not responding, message lost
*** buffer overflow detected ***: /usr/lib/xymon/server/bin/xymonproxy terminated
2018-02-21 06:00:42.269357 xymonproxy version 4.3.28 starting
2018-02-21 06:00:42.270200 Listening on 0.0.0.0:1984
2018-02-21 06:00:42.270346 Sending to Xymon server(s) 127.0.0.1:1985 
192.168.178.72:1984
2018-02-21 06:01:09.301618 Server not responding, message lost
2018-02-21 06:05:29.188224 Server not responding, message lost
2018-02-21 06:05:40.201194 Server not responding, message lost
2018-02-21 06:05:45.208531 Server not responding, message lost
2018-02-21 06:05:45.208936 Server not responding, message lost
2018-02-21 06:05:45.209058 Server not responding, message lost
*** buffer overflow detected ***: /usr/lib/xymon/server/bin/xymonproxy terminated
2018-02-21 06:10:45.237707 xymonproxy version 4.3.28 starting
2018-02-21 06:10:45.239061 Listening on 0.0.0.0:1984
2018-02-21 06:10:45.239219 Sending to Xymon server(s) 127.0.0.1:1985 
192.168.178.72:1984
2018-02-21 06:11:11.272425 Server not responding, message lost

I have been playing with the queue length, but to no avail. Is it possible to 
have xymonproxy not to terminate every 5 minutes, but just report the inability 
to send a message to a particular server?

Regards,
   Wim Nelis.