[Kmon-devel] Re: Kmon

[Frank D. <ke...@dr...>]

hello,

> I was thinking the same thing.  How I was thinking to approach the problem
> would be to set up everything like objects.  You could have a Web Server
> Object that would watch http,https,ssh or what ever someone might have on a
> web server.  You could create your own service objects to meet your own
> needs. (My old job had a Mail server that also did DNS)

well, that was what we meant with 'roles', a server can have several roles...

> Once you have created your service object you could then assign that object
> to a server.  Then group the servers such that all the DNS servers could be
> shown in a summary (collapsable tree).  If we keep it flexable enough
> admins could create the trees however they want.  So they could group
> things logical, by location or both.

hmm yup, but here we have to be careful:
if a server goes down, all the servers that depend on it go down, but if a 
service goes down, the server containing that services goes down.. so in one 
case, dependancies go up in the tree, other case they go down in the tree. 
thats perfectly doable, but it might be confusing.

> So in this crapy example I would have created a DNS Service Object that
> watched bind and ssh.  A Web Service Object that would watch http and
> https. A Router object that would check TCP. And a localhost service object
> that would check ssh.
>
> (The + designates a collapsed tree)
>
> |-Site 1
> |
> |	|- DNS Servers
> |	|	+-DNS Server1
> |	|	+-DNS Server2
> |	|
> |	|- Web Servers
> |	|
> |		|-Web Server1
> |		|
> |			|-http
> |			|-https
> |
> |-Site 2
> |
> |	|-DNS Servers
> |	|
> |	|	|-DNS Server3
> |	|	|
> |	|	|	|-bind
> |	|	|	|-ssh
> |	|
> |	|	+-DNS Server4
> |
> |	+-Router
> |
> |	|-Web Servers
> |
> |		+-Web Server2
> |		+-Web Server3


aha, i think i now understand patrick better, he said about the same thing i 
think (about putting a role in the tree, it makes sense definately, i just 
didn't see it).
hmm and logical grouping of hosts, it seems to make sense too but it'll get 
really difficult to get dependancies in the same tree. i'd like to have the 
dependancies directly visible, but maybe it ain't needed and we just should 
do something right-mouse-button properties, dependancies, drag a something 
here to make this dependant on that something or so

> +-Site 3
>
> |-Localhost
> |
> 	|-ssh
>
> --You could collapse the whole tree to just show a "summary" --
>
>
> +-Site 1
>
> +-Site 2
>
> +-Site 3
>
> +-Localhost
>
>
> *  As far as creating the Service object I figure we would have a place to
> add the mon scripts.  It would just list them all.
> *  Another area to create/edit the Service Objects see attached file.  We
> could also add the action to take if failed here.
> * When creating a host you just bind it to a Service Object.  I haven't
> thought of a way to group the servers in a tree but it should be in this
> dialog.  If we don't put the action to take if failed at the Service Object
> level we would need to put it here.
> 
> If my crazy ideas don't make sense and you would like more screen shots to
> get a better picture let me know and I'll quickly create you some.

well i think it makes sense :) but 'when creating ...' don't you mean you 
create a host and then add some services and/or roles ?

> Oh, we might want to also have each server keep track of its own logs and
> maybe even have a history of them on file so admins can get an idea of
> total uptime. I would recomend looking at having a DB handle that.
>
> I will try to think of a way to incorporate your dependency idea.  I think
> its a great idea.  If we tack dependency we can also make smart decision
> like not have false actions taken.  IE Router goes down.  Kmon might think
> the router and everything behind it is also down.  Then the poor admin (me)
> gets a page for the router a page for the mail server a page for the web
> server . . . . . It should be enough to know the router is down.  On that
> same tone if every mon test in a service object fails not give pages for 3,
> 4 or how ever many mon's where attached to that service object.  One that
> says all services for your.server.com failed should be good.

well, the separating out the logs can be a good idea, keeping statistics too, 
but it would be cool if you could use kmon without a db i think, and i would 
not go into too much detail (kmon is still a desktop app, and desktops happen 
to be shutdown at night :p)

> What do you think.
>
> (I would also be happy to quickly qt designer up any proto type ideas you
> or anyone else has.  It might be helpful to make sure we are all going the
> same direction)

i'd change "parameters" into "extra parameters" and add a checkbox 
"pass hostname/ip as first parameter" in the dialog you made..

btw, kmo...@li... is the place to mail to :)

greetings,
frank