SYSMON.CONF(5) System Administration SYSMON.CONF(5)NAME
sysmon.conf - sysmond(man) configuration file
DESCRIPTION
The sysmon.conf file is the main configuration file for the sys‐
mond(man) which monitors systems and services on various machines con‐
nected to a network.
Every rule consists of at least three fields, and at most nine.
Lines starting with a hash mark (``#'') and empty lines are ignored.
This release of sysmond is able to understand an extended syntax. A
rule may have a replacement performed on it, if a variable is declared
earlier in the configuration file.
GLOBAL SETTINGS
There are various global settings that sysmond can have configured.
Currently there is some inconsistency with some of the settings, but we
expect to make them more standard in a newer version of sysmond.
Values that can be configured with ``set''
pmesg sender from subject upcolor downcolor recentcolor
These variables are configured in the following format
set pmesg = "value"
set sender = "value"
set from = "value"
set subject = "value"
set upcolor = "value"
set downcolor = "value"
set recentcolor = "value"
Generic Variables
The set command allows the creation of generic variables which can be
automatically replaced further down in a configuration file. This can
be used to seperate routers from servers, while still providing an easy
way to update all the devices being monitored with a new "contact".
The example that follows, all cases of $oncall will be replaced with
oncall@example.com
Example:
set oncall = "oncall@example.com"
router.example.com ping "main router" $oncall
Values that can be configured with ``config''
queuetime include showupalso errorsto maxqueued replyto noheartbeat
pageinterval logging dnslog dnsexpire statusfile nosubject numfailures
html refresh pidfile
queuetime
The ``config queuetime'' directive is used to specify the number of
seconds between the completion of the last test of the service and the
start of the next test of the service. This time is in seconds, and
the default is 60.
include
The ``config include'' directive is used to specify the path to another
file that should be included at that point in the current file. This
is useful if you have software that generates some of your configura‐
tion files, and you wish to have a per-router configuration file, while
maintaining your current dependencies. Other uses could be having an
oncall database that is generated to allow automatic changing of
shifts.
showupalso
The ``config showupalso'' directive allows all hosts (both those as
being monitored as up and down) and services being monitored to appear
in the html or text status file that is created by sysmond. This does
not affect the display of the curses client.
errorsto
The ``config errorsto'' directive inserts an Errors-to: header in any
e-mail that sysmond generates to a contact. This is useful if the
address that sysmond is sending from is not a real account, to allow
bounces or page-not-sent messages to be collected in a central loca‐
tion.
maxqueued
The ``config maxqueued'' directive takes an integer argument that spec‐
ifies the number of simultaneous checks that may be performed at once.
Large networks may experience problems with polling if sysmond receives
a large number of icmp responses at once because many hosts are being
pinged at once, or if the operating system or daemon has a restricted
number of filedescriptors available. The default is 100.
replyto
The ``config replyto'' directive inserts a Reply-to: header in any e-
mail that sysmond generates to a contact. This is useful to have users
that reply to a message about an outage reach a support person at an
organization.
noheartbeat
The ``config noheartbeat'' directive disables the default behavior of
sysmond to send a registration packet to our registration server. This
information is collected to determine the hardware platforms and oper‐
ating systems being used for monitoring so we can concentrate testing
and development on these systems. Disabling this feature will cause no
adverse affect to monitoring, as the packet is sent blindly once on
startup.
pageinterval
The ``config pageinterval'' directive allows you to configure a
reminder interval that a host is still down. This is an integer repre‐
senting the number of minutes since the last e-mail message to a con‐
tact about the outage. Once that timer has been reached, another mes‐
sage is sent. This is useful for people who sleep through their
pagers.
logging
The ``config logging'' directive allows you to specify a syslog facil‐
ity to be logged to. These options vary slightly from one operating
system to the next. Sysmon supports logging to the following facili‐
ties:
kern user mail daemon auth syslog lpr news uucp cron authpriv
local0-local7 none
The default is daemon.
dnslog
The ``config dnslog'' directive allows you to configure the logging
interval of the internal dns cache statistics. This number is an inte‐
ger representing the number of seconds between logging intervals. The
default is 900 seconds (15 minutes).
dnsexpire
The ``config dnsexpire'' directive allows you to configure the internal
time-to-live of dns entries cached. This number is an integer repre‐
senting the number of seconds an element should be allowed to stay in
the cache. The default is 1500 seconds (25 minutes).
statusfile
The ``config statusfile'' directive takes two arguments. The first is
the specification of the file, be it "text" or "html". The second
argument is the path to the file that gets written. The default is to
not write a status file.
nosubject
The ``config nosubject'' directive specifies that there should be no
subject in the messages sent to the contact address. This is necessary
to not consume characters for some e-mail to pager gateways such that
the full message gets delivered.
numfailures
The ``config numfailures'' directive takes an integer argument and
specifies the number of times that a site must be monitored as down
before a message is sent to the contact address. The default is 4.
sleeptime
The ``config sleeptime'' option is now obsolete. See the queuetime
configuration option.
html refresh
Supply an integer argument in seconds (default 60) to put in the
Refresh pseudo-header of the HTML status page.
date
Supply a string which may contain formatting codes from strftime(3)
(default "%x %X"), or the shorthand words "ISO" ("%F %T") or "DEC" ("%T
%d-%b-%Y").
EXAMPLES
Here are some examples, which should give you an idea of how each
option can be configured.
#
# insert examples here
#
FILES
/etc/sysmon.conf
Configuration file for sysmond
BUGS
Insufficent documentation to document the bugs, let alone the features.
SEE ALSOsysmond(man)COLLABORATORS
Sysmon is primarily written by
Jared Mauch
jared@puck.nether.net
Version 0.83 21 June 2000 SYSMON.CONF(5)
