[Nagiosplug-devel] RFC: new style command arguments for thresholds

[Matthias Eble]

Hi Ton, hi list,
> 
> 
> COMPLICATIONS
> 
> As this is a new command syntax I can see this being acceptable, as long 
> as the old syntax still works correctly. However, the performance data 
> part will be a problem to current parsers since I'd like to redefine the 
> meaning of warn and crit.

I really like your proposals but I think, keeping the perfdata working 
isn't possible without a --old flag. If I understood the perfdata 
prefixes correctly the : as a seperator isn't recognized by old-style 
parsers leading to a label like for example "/var:free_space=.."
I guess many performance graphers rely on the label as an RRA name - 
which can neither be renamed nor added without recreating the rrd afaik. 
perfgrapher developers, please :)

> One option is that the new perf data is outputted in XML format. This 
> might help with structural changes in future. This also ties in with a 
> request from Gerd Muller of Netways at NagConf where he wanted some 
> metadata re: the plugin to be available (name=check_disk version=1.80).

I think xml is a bit to bloat for the limited pluginoutput of nagios 
prior 3.0 and imho the plugins need to work for every version. At least 
until 3.0 is spread wide enough - and there still seem to be a couple of 
installations < 2.0 according to nagios-users list postings.


Apart from the in depth specifications: The plans look after hard work
and the sf tracker still shows 90 patches and 68 Bugs.
I guess you plan a gradual switch?


matthias