<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On 18 Oct 2006, at 02:08, Gavin Carr wrote:</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Common way to deal with this is to have option that reads additional</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">arguments from specified file, i.e. it would be:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Usage: check_db_query_rowcount [-v] -q <query> -w <warn-count></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>-c <crit-count> [--config <config-file>]</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">where the file would contain</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>-d <dsn> -u user> -p <pass></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">It clearly _does_ involve another point of configuration, as you've still</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">got a new file containing configuration data; but as least it's the same</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">kind of configation i.e. just a new place to put arguments - is that what</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">you mean here?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I'm not strongly opposed to something like this if people feel it's<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">significantly simpler. There are two main differences between this and what<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I proposed:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">- the config file here contains just a single item, where I was suggesting</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>an ini-style config allowing multiple sections. This way I guess you end</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>up with a lot of little config files (arbitrarily named, I guess)<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>containing argument snippets to various plugins; my way you end up with<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>multiple sections in a single well-known config file. You _can_ use</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>multiple files in my proposal if it's motivated by other factors, like</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>John's comment that he'd like to separate them out by permissions, but</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>it's not required. I guess if we go this way we might want to a separate</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>directory (e.g. /etc/nagios/plugins) to prevent these configs cluttering</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>up the main nagios directory</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">- this way uses plugin arguments directly, where I was suggesting using<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>arbitrary name-value pairs that then get mapped back to plugin arguments.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Using plugin arguments directly is simpler, but it means that each config</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>is tightly coupled to a particular plugin's argument set - if another<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>plugin also wants to connect to that same database but happens to use<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>-P for password, you need to duplicate your config details, with all the</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>associated maintenance issues. So I think the extra level of indirection<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>is worth it, but it's clearly arguable both ways.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I'm coming round to the idea of the config file - it has been well argued here.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I don't like the idea of having the "extra level of indirection" with another set of "standard" parameters (Where are they defined? Why are the different?). So, I think the ini file should just hold the current options, but in a more secure/readable format.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I don't think a file that holds:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>-u username -p password</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>is sufficient, because if it is generalised to other arguments, shell quoting/expansion may cause a problem (--regex="this string").</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Can I make a slight refinement to the current proposal?</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Plugins that support this new config file parsing of options take the option (as Sean suggested) of </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV> --extra-opts=[configfile][:stanzaname]</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The config file is ini style. You can default configfile to $HOME/np.conf (or maybe /usr/local/nagios/etc/np.conf). The [:stanzaname] defines a stanza within the config file, otherwise defaults to name of plugin (maybe reserve "main" as a stanza name - this config file has given me some ideas for future stuff).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>An example stanza:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>[check_mysql]</DIV><DIV>username=tonvoon</DIV><DIV>password=secret</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>So running "check_mysql -S --extra-opts=" should give the same result as running "check_mysql -S --username=tonvoon --password=secret". If fact, the variable names could just be the short option form:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>[check_mysql]</DIV><DIV>u=tonvoon</DIV><DIV>p=password</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>But I'm guessing using that long names will be preferred. I think a plugin invocation with -v -v should show the command line options with the extra parameters added in, so a user knows what has been run.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>In terms of implementation on the C side, I think we could create a new utils function called np_getopt_long which basically calls getopt_long. But if it finds --extra-opts, then it reads the ini file and then returns parameters to the plugin as if they were from the command line, so there shouldn't be many changes required at the plugin level. This allows us to then run tests against this function to prove it works as expected (did I just hawk testing again? Sorry!).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Ton</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><A href="http://www.altinity.com">http://www.altinity.com</A></DIV><DIV>T: +44 (0)870 787 9243</DIV><DIV>F: +44 (0)845 280 1725</DIV><DIV>Skype: tonvoon</DIV></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>