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authorSubhendu Ghosh <sghosh@users.sourceforge.net>2002-05-27 02:05:55 +0000
committerSubhendu Ghosh <sghosh@users.sourceforge.net>2002-05-27 02:05:55 +0000
commit911f631f59a4d6cafe760d55dffa330b13d4f921 (patch)
treeb7e89c8cda4580f044776008474c9eac1f027425 /doc/developer-guidelines.html
parent2d4960a4a7c2152faa57458f159e10ba74237537 (diff)
downloadmonitoring-plugins-911f631f59a4d6cafe760d55dffa330b13d4f921.tar.gz
added developer guidelines.
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1<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
2<HTML
3><HEAD
4><TITLE
5>Nagios plug-in development guidelines</TITLE
6><META
7NAME="GENERATOR"
8CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.64
9"></HEAD
10><BODY
11CLASS="BOOK"
12BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"
13TEXT="#000000"
14LINK="#0000FF"
15VLINK="#840084"
16ALINK="#0000FF"
17><DIV
18CLASS="BOOK"
19><A
20NAME="AEN1"
21></A
22><DIV
23CLASS="TITLEPAGE"
24><H1
25CLASS="TITLE"
26><A
27NAME="AEN3"
28>Nagios plug-in development guidelines</A
29></H1
30><H3
31CLASS="AUTHOR"
32><A
33NAME="AEN5"
34>Karl DeBisschop</A
35></H3
36><DIV
37CLASS="AFFILIATION"
38><DIV
39CLASS="ADDRESS"
40><P
41CLASS="ADDRESS"
42>karl@debisschop.net</P
43></DIV
44></DIV
45><H3
46CLASS="AUTHOR"
47><A
48NAME="AEN11"
49>Ethan Galstad</A
50></H3
51><DIV
52CLASS="AFFILIATION"
53><DIV
54CLASS="ADDRESS"
55><P
56CLASS="ADDRESS"
57>netsaint@linuxbox.com</P
58></DIV
59></DIV
60><H3
61CLASS="AUTHOR"
62><A
63NAME="AEN21"
64>Hugo Gayosso</A
65></H3
66><DIV
67CLASS="AFFILIATION"
68><DIV
69CLASS="ADDRESS"
70><P
71CLASS="ADDRESS"
72>hgayosso@gnu.org</P
73></DIV
74></DIV
75><H3
76CLASS="AUTHOR"
77><A
78NAME="AEN27"
79>Subhendu Ghosh</A
80></H3
81><DIV
82CLASS="AFFILIATION"
83><DIV
84CLASS="ADDRESS"
85><P
86CLASS="ADDRESS"
87>sghosh@sourceforge.net</P
88></DIV
89></DIV
90><H3
91CLASS="AUTHOR"
92><A
93NAME="AEN33"
94>Stanley Hopcroft</A
95></H3
96><DIV
97CLASS="AFFILIATION"
98><DIV
99CLASS="ADDRESS"
100><P
101CLASS="ADDRESS"
102>stanleyhopcroft@sourceforge.net</P
103></DIV
104></DIV
105><P
106CLASS="COPYRIGHT"
107>Copyright &copy; 2000 2001 2002 by Karl DeBisschop, Ethan Galstad,
108 Hugo Gayosso, Stanley Hopcroft, Subhendu Ghosh</P
109><HR></DIV
110><DIV
111CLASS="TOC"
112><DL
113><DT
114><B
115>Table of Contents</B
116></DT
117><DT
118><A
119HREF="#PREFACE"
120>About the guidelines</A
121></DT
122><DD
123><DL
124><DT
125><A
126HREF="#AEN51"
127>Copyright</A
128></DT
129></DL
130></DD
131><DT
132><A
133HREF="#AEN56"
134></A
135></DT
136><DD
137><DL
138><DT
139><A
140HREF="#PLUGOUTPUT"
141>Plugin Output for Nagios</A
142></DT
143><DD
144><DL
145><DT
146><A
147HREF="#AEN60"
148>Print only one line of text</A
149></DT
150><DT
151><A
152HREF="#AEN63"
153>Screen Output</A
154></DT
155><DT
156><A
157HREF="#AEN67"
158>Return the proper status code</A
159></DT
160><DT
161><A
162HREF="#AEN71"
163>Plugin Return Codes</A
164></DT
165></DL
166></DD
167><DT
168><A
169HREF="#SYSCMDAUXFILES"
170>System Commands and Auxiliary Files</A
171></DT
172><DD
173><DL
174><DT
175><A
176HREF="#AEN117"
177>Don't execute system commands without specifying their
178 full path</A
179></DT
180><DT
181><A
182HREF="#AEN121"
183>Use spopen() if external commands must be executed</A
184></DT
185><DT
186><A
187HREF="#AEN125"
188>Don't make temp files unless absolutely required</A
189></DT
190><DT
191><A
192HREF="#AEN128"
193>Don't be tricked into following symlinks</A
194></DT
195><DT
196><A
197HREF="#AEN131"
198>Validate all input</A
199></DT
200></DL
201></DD
202><DT
203><A
204HREF="#PERLPLUGIN"
205>Perl Plugins</A
206></DT
207><DT
208><A
209HREF="#RUNTIME"
210>Runtime Timeouts</A
211></DT
212><DD
213><DL
214><DT
215><A
216HREF="#AEN165"
217>Use DEFAULT_SOCKET_TIMEOUT</A
218></DT
219><DT
220><A
221HREF="#AEN168"
222>Add alarms to network plugins</A
223></DT
224></DL
225></DD
226><DT
227><A
228HREF="#PLUGOPTIONS"
229>Plugin Options</A
230></DT
231><DD
232><DL
233><DT
234><A
235HREF="#AEN174"
236>Option Processing</A
237></DT
238><DT
239><A
240HREF="#AEN187"
241>Plugins with more than one type of threshold, or with
242 threshold ranges</A
243></DT
244></DL
245></DD
246><DT
247><A
248HREF="#SUBMITTINGCHANGES"
249>New submissions and patches</A
250></DT
251></DL
252></DD
253></DL
254></DIV
255><DIV
256CLASS="PREFACE"
257><HR><H1
258><A
259NAME="PREFACE"
260>About the guidelines</A
261></H1
262><P
263>The purpose of this guidelines is to provide a reference for
264 the plug-in developers and encourage the standarization of the
265 different kind of plug-ins: C, shell, perl, python, etc.</P
266><DIV
267CLASS="SECTION"
268><HR><H1
269CLASS="SECTION"
270><A
271NAME="AEN51"
272>Copyright</A
273></H1
274><P
275>Nagios Plug-in Development Guidelines Copyright (C) 2000 2001
276 2002
277 Karl DeBisschop, Ethan Galstad, Hugo Gayosso, Stanley Hopcroft,
278 Subhendu Ghosh</P
279><P
280>Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim
281 copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this
282 permission notice are preserved on all copies.</P
283><P
284>The plugins themselves are copyrighted by their respective
285 authors.</P
286></DIV
287></DIV
288><DIV
289CLASS="ARTICLE"
290><DIV
291CLASS="TOC"
292><DL
293><DT
294><B
295>Table of Contents</B
296></DT
297><DT
298><A
299HREF="#PLUGOUTPUT"
300>Plugin Output for Nagios</A
301></DT
302><DT
303><A
304HREF="#SYSCMDAUXFILES"
305>System Commands and Auxiliary Files</A
306></DT
307><DT
308><A
309HREF="#PERLPLUGIN"
310>Perl Plugins</A
311></DT
312><DT
313><A
314HREF="#RUNTIME"
315>Runtime Timeouts</A
316></DT
317><DT
318><A
319HREF="#PLUGOPTIONS"
320>Plugin Options</A
321></DT
322><DT
323><A
324HREF="#SUBMITTINGCHANGES"
325>New submissions and patches</A
326></DT
327></DL
328></DIV
329><DIV
330CLASS="SECTION"
331><H1
332CLASS="SECTION"
333><A
334NAME="PLUGOUTPUT"
335>Plugin Output for Nagios</A
336></H1
337><P
338>You should always print something to STDOUT that tells if the
339 service is working or why its failing. Try to keep the output short -
340 probably less that 80 characters. Remember that you ideally would like
341 the entire output to appear in a pager message, which will get chopped
342 off after a certain length.</P
343><DIV
344CLASS="SECTION"
345><HR><H2
346CLASS="SECTION"
347><A
348NAME="AEN60"
349>Print only one line of text</A
350></H2
351><P
352>Nagios will only grab the first line of text from STDOUT
353 when it notifies contacts about potential problems. If you print
354 multiple lines, you're out of luck. Remember, keep it short and
355 to the point.</P
356></DIV
357><DIV
358CLASS="SECTION"
359><HR><H2
360CLASS="SECTION"
361><A
362NAME="AEN63"
363>Screen Output</A
364></H2
365><P
366>The plug-in should print the diagnostic and just the
367 synopsis part of the help message. A well written plugin would
368 then have --help as a way to get the verbose help.</P
369><P
370>Code and output should try to respect the 80x25 size of a
371 crt (remember when fixing stuff in the server room!)</P
372></DIV
373><DIV
374CLASS="SECTION"
375><HR><H2
376CLASS="SECTION"
377><A
378NAME="AEN67"
379>Return the proper status code</A
380></H2
381><P
382>See <A
383HREF="#RETURNCODES"
384>Table 1 in the section called <I
385>Plugin Return Codes</I
386></A
387> below
388 for the numeric values of status codes and their
389 description. Remember to return an UNKNOWN state if bogus or
390 invalid command line arguments are supplied or it you are unable
391 to check the service.</P
392></DIV
393><DIV
394CLASS="SECTION"
395><HR><H2
396CLASS="SECTION"
397><A
398NAME="AEN71"
399>Plugin Return Codes</A
400></H2
401><P
402>The return codes below are based on the POSIX spec of returning
403 a positive value. Netsaint prior to v0.0.7 supported non-POSIX
404 compliant return code of "-1" for unknown. Nagios supports POSIX return
405 codes by default.</P
406><P
407>Note: Some plugins will on occasion print on STDOUT that an error
408 occurred and error code is 138 or 255 or some such number. These
409 are usually caused by plugins using system commands and having not
410 enough checks to catch unexpected output. Developers should include a
411 default catch-all for system command output that returns an UNKOWN
412 return code.</P
413><DIV
414CLASS="TABLE"
415><A
416NAME="RETURNCODES"
417></A
418><P
419><B
420>Table 1. Plugin Return Codes</B
421></P
422><TABLE
423BORDER="1"
424BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0"
425CELLSPACING="0"
426CELLPADDING="4"
427CLASS="CALSTABLE"
428><THEAD
429><TR
430><TH
431ALIGN="LEFT"
432VALIGN="TOP"
433><P
434>Numeric Value</P
435></TH
436><TH
437ALIGN="LEFT"
438VALIGN="TOP"
439><P
440>Service Status</P
441></TH
442><TH
443ALIGN="LEFT"
444VALIGN="TOP"
445><P
446>Status Description</P
447></TH
448></TR
449></THEAD
450><TBODY
451><TR
452><TD
453ALIGN="CENTER"
454VALIGN="TOP"
455><P
456>0</P
457></TD
458><TD
459ALIGN="LEFT"
460VALIGN="MIDDLE"
461><P
462>OK</P
463></TD
464><TD
465ALIGN="LEFT"
466VALIGN="TOP"
467><P
468>The plugin was able to check the service and it
469 appeared to be functioning properly</P
470></TD
471></TR
472><TR
473><TD
474ALIGN="CENTER"
475VALIGN="TOP"
476><P
477>1</P
478></TD
479><TD
480ALIGN="LEFT"
481VALIGN="MIDDLE"
482><P
483>Warning</P
484></TD
485><TD
486ALIGN="LEFT"
487VALIGN="TOP"
488><P
489>The plugin was able to check the service, but it
490 appeared to be above some "warning" threshold or did not appear
491 to be working properly</P
492></TD
493></TR
494><TR
495><TD
496ALIGN="CENTER"
497VALIGN="TOP"
498><P
499>2</P
500></TD
501><TD
502ALIGN="LEFT"
503VALIGN="MIDDLE"
504><P
505>Critical</P
506></TD
507><TD
508ALIGN="LEFT"
509VALIGN="TOP"
510><P
511>The plugin detected that either the service was not
512 running or it was above some "critical" threshold</P
513></TD
514></TR
515><TR
516><TD
517ALIGN="CENTER"
518VALIGN="TOP"
519><P
520>3</P
521></TD
522><TD
523ALIGN="LEFT"
524VALIGN="MIDDLE"
525><P
526>Unknown</P
527></TD
528><TD
529ALIGN="LEFT"
530VALIGN="TOP"
531><P
532>Invalid command line arguments were supplied to the
533 plugin or the plugin was unable to check the status of the given
534 hosts/service</P
535></TD
536></TR
537></TBODY
538></TABLE
539></DIV
540></DIV
541></DIV
542><DIV
543CLASS="SECTION"
544><HR><H1
545CLASS="SECTION"
546><A
547NAME="SYSCMDAUXFILES"
548>System Commands and Auxiliary Files</A
549></H1
550><DIV
551CLASS="SECTION"
552><H2
553CLASS="SECTION"
554><A
555NAME="AEN117"
556>Don't execute system commands without specifying their
557 full path</A
558></H2
559><P
560>Don't use exec(), popen(), etc. to execute external
561 commands without explicity using the full path of the external
562 program.</P
563><P
564>Doing otherwise makes the plugin vulnerable to hijacking
565 by a trojan horse earlier in the search path. See the main
566 plugin distribution for examples on how this is done.</P
567></DIV
568><DIV
569CLASS="SECTION"
570><HR><H2
571CLASS="SECTION"
572><A
573NAME="AEN121"
574>Use spopen() if external commands must be executed</A
575></H2
576><P
577>If you have to execute external commands from within your
578 plugin and you're writing it in C, use the spopen() function
579 that Karl DeBisschop has written.</P
580><P
581>The code for spopen() and spclose() is included with the
582 core plugin distribution.</P
583></DIV
584><DIV
585CLASS="SECTION"
586><HR><H2
587CLASS="SECTION"
588><A
589NAME="AEN125"
590>Don't make temp files unless absolutely required</A
591></H2
592><P
593>If temp files are needed, make sure that the plugin will
594 fail cleanly if the file can't be written (e.g., too few file
595 handles, out of disk space, incorrect permissions, etc.) and
596 delete the temp file when processing is complete.</P
597></DIV
598><DIV
599CLASS="SECTION"
600><HR><H2
601CLASS="SECTION"
602><A
603NAME="AEN128"
604>Don't be tricked into following symlinks</A
605></H2
606><P
607>If your plugin opens any files, take steps to ensure that
608 you are not following a symlink to another location on the
609 system.</P
610></DIV
611><DIV
612CLASS="SECTION"
613><HR><H2
614CLASS="SECTION"
615><A
616NAME="AEN131"
617>Validate all input</A
618></H2
619><P
620>use routines in utils.c or utils.pm and write more as needed</P
621></DIV
622></DIV
623><DIV
624CLASS="SECTION"
625><HR><H1
626CLASS="SECTION"
627><A
628NAME="PERLPLUGIN"
629>Perl Plugins</A
630></H1
631><P
632>Perl plugins are coded a little more defensively than other
633 plugins because of embedded Perl. When configured as such, embedded
634 Perl Nagios (ePN) requires stricter use of the some of Perl's features.
635 This section outlines some of the steps needed to use ePN
636 effectively.</P
637><P
638></P
639><OL
640TYPE="1"
641><LI
642><P
643> Do not use BEGIN and END blocks since they will be called
644 the first time and when Nagios shuts down with Embedded Perl (ePN). In
645 particular, do not use BEGIN blocks to initialize variables.</P
646></LI
647><LI
648><P
649>To use utils.pm, you need to provide a full path to the
650 module in order for it to work with ePN.</P
651><P
652CLASS="LITERALLAYOUT"
653> &nbsp;&nbsp;e.g.<br>
654 use&nbsp;lib&nbsp;"/usr/local/nagios/libexec";<br>
655 use&nbsp;utils&nbsp;qw(...);<br>
656 &nbsp;&nbsp;</P
657></LI
658><LI
659><P
660>Perl scripts should be called with "-w"</P
661></LI
662><LI
663><P
664>All Perl plugins must compile cleanly under "use strict" - i.e. at
665 least explicitly package names as in "$main::x" or predeclare every
666 variable. </P
667><P
668>Explicitly initialize each varialable in use. Otherwise with
669 caching enabled, the plugin will not be recompilied each time, and
670 therefore Perl will not reinitialize all the variables. All old
671 variable values will still be in effect.</P
672></LI
673><LI
674><P
675>Do not use &#60; DATA &#62; (these simply do not compile under ePN).</P
676></LI
677><LI
678><P
679>Do not use named subroutines</P
680></LI
681><LI
682><P
683>If writing to a file (perhaps recording
684 performance data) explicitly close close it. The plugin never
685 calls <I
686CLASS="EMPHASIS"
687>exit</I
688>; that is caught by
689 p1.pl, so output streams are never closed.</P
690></LI
691><LI
692><P
693>As in <A
694HREF="#RUNTIME"
695>the section called <I
696>Runtime Timeouts</I
697></A
698> all plugins need
699 to monitor their runtime, specially if they are using network
700 resources. Use of the <I
701CLASS="EMPHASIS"
702>alarm</I
703> is recommended.
704 Plugins may import a default time out ($TIMEOUT) from utils.pm.
705 </P
706></LI
707><LI
708><P
709>Perl plugins should import %ERRORS from utils.pm
710 and then "exit $ERRORS{'OK'}" rather than "exit 0"
711 </P
712></LI
713></OL
714></DIV
715><DIV
716CLASS="SECTION"
717><HR><H1
718CLASS="SECTION"
719><A
720NAME="RUNTIME"
721>Runtime Timeouts</A
722></H1
723><P
724>Plugins have a very limited runtime - typically 10 sec.
725 As a result, it is very important for plugins to maintain internal
726 code to exit if runtime exceeds a threshold. </P
727><P
728>All plugins should timeout gracefully, not just networking
729 plugins. For instance, df may lock if you have automounted
730 drives and your network fails - but on first glance, who'd think
731 df could lock up like that. Plus, it should just be more error
732 resistant to be able to time out rather than consume
733 resources.</P
734><DIV
735CLASS="SECTION"
736><HR><H2
737CLASS="SECTION"
738><A
739NAME="AEN165"
740>Use DEFAULT_SOCKET_TIMEOUT</A
741></H2
742><P
743>All network plugins should use DEFAULT_SOCKET_TIMEOUT to timeout</P
744></DIV
745><DIV
746CLASS="SECTION"
747><HR><H2
748CLASS="SECTION"
749><A
750NAME="AEN168"
751>Add alarms to network plugins</A
752></H2
753><P
754>If you write a plugin which communicates with another
755 networked host, you should make sure to set an alarm() in your
756 code that prevents the plugin from hanging due to abnormal
757 socket closures, etc. Nagios takes steps to protect itself
758 against unruly plugins that timeout, but any plugins you create
759 should be well behaved on their own.</P
760></DIV
761></DIV
762><DIV
763CLASS="SECTION"
764><HR><H1
765CLASS="SECTION"
766><A
767NAME="PLUGOPTIONS"
768>Plugin Options</A
769></H1
770><P
771>A well written plugin should have --help as a way to get
772 verbose help. Code and output should try to respect the 80x25 size of a
773 crt (remember when fixing stuff in the server room!)</P
774><DIV
775CLASS="SECTION"
776><HR><H2
777CLASS="SECTION"
778><A
779NAME="AEN174"
780>Option Processing</A
781></H2
782><P
783>For plugins written in C, we recommend the C standard
784 getopt library for short options. If using getopt_long, check to
785 be sure that HAVE_GETOPT_H is defined (configure checks this and
786 sets the #define in common/config.h).</P
787><P
788>For plugins written in Perl, we recommend Getopt::Long module.</P
789><P
790>Positional arguments are strongly discouraged.</P
791><P
792>There are a few reserved options that should not be used
793 for other purposes:</P
794><P
795CLASS="LITERALLAYOUT"
796>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-V&nbsp;version&nbsp;(--version)<br>
797&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-h&nbsp;help&nbsp;(--help)<br>
798&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-t&nbsp;timeout&nbsp;(--timeout)<br>
799&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-w&nbsp;warning&nbsp;threshold&nbsp;(--warning)<br>
800&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-c&nbsp;critical&nbsp;threshold&nbsp;(--critical)<br>
801&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-H&nbsp;hostname&nbsp;(--hostname)<br>
802 </P
803><P
804>In addition to the reserved options above, some other standard options are:</P
805><P
806CLASS="LITERALLAYOUT"
807>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-C&nbsp;SNMP&nbsp;community&nbsp;(--community)<br>
808&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-a&nbsp;authentication&nbsp;password&nbsp;(--authentication)<br>
809&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-l&nbsp;login&nbsp;name&nbsp;(--logname)<br>
810&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-p&nbsp;port&nbsp;or&nbsp;password&nbsp;(--port&nbsp;or&nbsp;--passwd/--password)monitors&nbsp;operational<br>
811&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-u&nbsp;url&nbsp;or&nbsp;username&nbsp;(--url&nbsp;or&nbsp;--username)<br>
812 </P
813><P
814>Look at check_pgsql and check_procs to see how I currently
815 think this can work. Standard options are:</P
816><P
817>The option -V or --version should be present in all
818 plugins. For C plugins it should result in a call to print_revision, a
819 function in utils.c which takes two character arguments, the
820 command name and the plugin revision.</P
821><P
822>The -? option, or any other unparsable set of options,
823 should print out a short usage statement. Character width should
824 be 80 and less and no more that 23 lines should be printed (it
825 should display cleanly on a dumb terminal in a server
826 room).</P
827><P
828>The option -h or --help should be present in all plugins.
829 In C plugins, it should result in a call to print_help (or
830 equivalent). The function print_help should call print_revision,
831 then print_usage, then should provide detailed
832 help. Help text should fit on an 80-character width display, but
833 may run as many lines as needed.</P
834></DIV
835><DIV
836CLASS="SECTION"
837><HR><H2
838CLASS="SECTION"
839><A
840NAME="AEN187"
841>Plugins with more than one type of threshold, or with
842 threshold ranges</A
843></H2
844><P
845>Old style was to do things like -ct for critical time and
846 -cv for critical value. That goes out the window with POSIX
847 getopt. The allowable alternatves are:</P
848><P
849></P
850><OL
851TYPE="1"
852><LI
853><P
854>long options like -critical-time (or -ct and -cv, I
855 suppose).</P
856></LI
857><LI
858><P
859>repeated options like `check_load -w 10 -w 6 -w 4 -c
860 16 -c 10 -c 10`</P
861></LI
862><LI
863><P
864>for brevity, the above can be expressed as `check_load
865 -w 10,6,4 -c 16,10,10`</P
866></LI
867><LI
868><P
869>ranges are expressed with colons as in `check_procs -C
870 httpd -w 1:20 -c 1:30` which will warn above 20 instances,
871 and critical at 0 and above 30</P
872></LI
873><LI
874><P
875>lists are expressed with commas, so Jacob's check_nmap
876 uses constructs like '-p 1000,1010,1050:1060,2000'</P
877></LI
878><LI
879><P
880>If possible when writing lists, use tokens to make the
881 list easy to remember and non-order dependent - so
882 check_disk uses '-c 10000,10%' so that it is clear which is
883 the precentage and which is the KB values (note that due to
884 my own lack of foresight, that used to be '-c 10000:10%' but
885 such constructs should all be changed for consistency,
886 though providing reverse compatibility is fairly
887 easy).</P
888></LI
889></OL
890><P
891>As always, comments are welcome - making this consistent
892 without a host of long options was quite a hassle, and I would
893 suspect that there are flaws in this strategy. Perhaps clear
894 long-options is the most important of the above choices, but not
895 all POSIX systems have C libraries for long options, so the
896 short forms must exist as well.</P
897></DIV
898></DIV
899><DIV
900CLASS="SECTION"
901><HR><H1
902CLASS="SECTION"
903><A
904NAME="SUBMITTINGCHANGES"
905>New submissions and patches</A
906></H1
907><P
908>If you would like other to use your plugins and have it included in
909 the standard distribution, please include patches for the relavant
910 configuration files, in particular "configure.in" Otherwise submitted
911 plugins will be included in the contrib directory.</P
912><P
913>Plugins in the contrib directory are going to be migrated to the
914 standard plugins/plugin-scripts directory as time permits and per user
915 requests</P
916><P
917>Patches should be submitted via the SourceForge and be announced to
918 the mailing list.</P
919><P
920>For new plugins, provide a diff to add to the EXTRAS list (configure.in)
921 unless you are fairly sure that the plugin will work for all platforms with
922 no non-standard software added.</P
923><P
924>If possible please submit a test harness. Documentation on sample
925 tests coming soon.</P
926></DIV
927></DIV
928></DIV
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930></HTML
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