Re: [Zabbix-developers] How easy would it be to add a 'plug-in'?

[Alexei V. <al...@go...>]

Hi,

I do have plans of introducing user hooks to make possible the following:

 - extending Zabbix agents without making changes/recompiling of Zabbix 
 code
 - adding new delivery channels for user alerts (like SMS, Novell messages, 
 etc)
 - other

I cannot give any estimations when this could be implemented.

Currenly, no plug-ins are supported. However you may extend Zabbix 
functionality by:

 - defining user parameters in zabbix_agentd.conf
 - sending information to the Zabbix server using zabbix_sender 

I'd like to see functionality you described as part of Zabbix. I believe
it would be useful for many users. Implementation of this functionality
will require introduction of new data type: blob. New parameter, say
fetch_html[www.sf.net], could periodically fetch the URL and store it in
the database. Function 'diff' can already be used to check if the latest
result of fetch is equal to previous one. Also function 'str' can be used
to check if received result contains specific substring.

Check of regular expression will obviously require new function.

I'll update TODO list to include your ideas.

I would suggest to do the following if you want to have this functionality today:

1. Add new item of type Trapper having Key="page_was_changed"
2. Set up CRON job to call a script which would do the job of retrieving HTML page,
searching for required string
3. If the string is found, zabbix_sender will be called to send '1' as
value of 'page_was_changed'. '0' - otherwise
4. Define trigger and actions to receive email notification when
parameter 'page_was_changed' changes its value.

The only missing part of the solution is lack of a link to the cached failed page.

Please, let me know if this helped. Anyway, do not hesitate to ask any
questions :)

Best regards,
Alexei

On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 11:06:57AM -0800, Benjamin 'Quincy' Cabell V wrote:
> Hi
> 
> We need a feature which Zabbix doesn't have, and I'm just wondering how
> easy it would be to add this feature without needing to modify core
> Zabbix code.  I didn't know if Zabbix had an architecture which
> allowed/encouraged plug-ins.
> 
> Here's what we need, to give you an idea.  I don't see anything in the
> manual to indicate that Zabbix has this:
> 
> A URL check which fetches a page and looks for the presence or absence
> of one or more regular expressions.  For example, I could say, fetch
> this page, and fail if you find "Status: ERROR", which would be
> something we might define our code to return if there was some error
> condition.  Also, we might say, fetch this URL and fail if the URL does
> NOT include one or more regular expressions (maybe the symptoms of one
> web application's failure is the absence of specific content).  And we'd
> store the failed page and would want to be able to have a link for that
> cached failed page in the failure notification e-mail that goes out
> through the Zabbix system.
> 
> Could anyone tell me whether this exists or could easily be done without
> needing to significantly modify Zabbix?  (We really don't have the
> resources to have to re-integrate our changes every time we want to keep
> up with a Zabbix update.)
> 
> Quincy
> 
> 
> 
> 
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