[Nagiosplug-help] Broken check_procs or malusage?

[Matthias Eble]

> That depends, I'd say. Using a stable API to get the information means
> future versions of the program will most likely never ever break.
> check_proc is one of those programs that has gotten broken several times
> over the years because the ps output changes slightly, or someone changes
> a parsing routine that's used by too many architectures.

Yes. To me output parsing is almost always a pain.
I've been having this on my "wanna fix" list, for some time, too.
At the moment I haven't found anything about a portable way to get OS 
processes.
Thus there only remain two opportunities:
	- continue to detect ps columns and parse output
	- use os dependent systemcalls/whatever/proc interfaces

or (maybe??) a combination of them.

> Not really. If you can get check_proc to work with pstat_getproc()
> I believe that would be a better way to go. Ofcourse, the plugin devs
> may well disagree with me.

I'd really like to see a way to get check_procs more reliable, too.
But GNU folks don't seem to do have a ps for all the OSes either. There 
is procps which is fine for linux. Don't know for bsd and other un*x 
versions.

If there could be a clean combination of both (using eg. 
procps/pstat_getproc and old ps detection) that'd be great to me.
But I haven't looked at the code for some weeks, now.

Matthias