aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/README
blob: 94ec8d96d703b24c92bcba1a07a816954d28d037 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
Ping903 README
See the end of file for copying conditions.

* Overview

Ping903 is designed to periodically monitor a very large number of
remote hosts using ICMP ECHO packets. The system is built using the
client-server architecture.  The main component (ping903) is a daemon
that sits in memory and wakes up periodically to send certain number
of ICMP echo packets to a preconfigured number of hosts and to collect
replies.  The resulting round-trip statistics is made available via
REST API.

The daemon reads its settings from a plain text configuration file.
Most settings have sensible defaults, so that the only thing that the
user needs to supply to get started is a list of IP addresses to
monitor.  This list is referred to in this document as "ip-list".

A simple command line client utility (ping903q) allows the user to
communicate with the daemon, obtaining the needed information about
each host in particular, or all monitored hosts at once.  This utility
can operate in several modes.  In particular, it can be used as
Nagios external check tool, instead of the standard check_ping utility.

* Installation

To build ping903 you will need GNU Libmicrohttpd library[3]. It is
available for download from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libmicrohttpd.

When building from source package, usual incantations apply:

 ./configure
 make
 make install

This will install the package under /usr/local.  That is, the server
will be installed as /usr/local/sbin/ping903, the client program as
/usr/local/bin/ping903q, etc.  You can give a number of options to
./configure in order to customize your installation, in particular to
alter the default installation paths.  For example, to install to the
/usr file hierarchy, use

  ./configure --prefix=/usr

Please refer to the INSTALL document in this directory for a
discussion of available options to configure and their effect.

After installing the package, copy the file src/ping903.conf to
/etc/ping903.conf and edit it to your liking.  This file contains
configuration settings that control the behavior of the server daemon
and, to a certain extent, that of a query tool.  The file contains
short annotations before each statement to help you navigate through
it.  You will find a detailed discussion of the configuration file in
the manpage ping903.conf(5).  What follows is a short outline, intended
for quick start.

At the very beginning you can leave most settings at their default
values.  You might wish to supply a list of IP addresses to monitor,
although even that is not mandatory, since you can add them later,
when the program is already running.  To specify them in configuration
file, use the "ip-list" statement.  Its argument is either the name
of a file with the IP addresses, or a list of IP addresses as a
"here-document":

  ip-list FILENAME

or

  ip-list <<EOF
  ...
  EOF

(you can use arbitrary word in place of EOF in the latter example,
the only requirement being that the list end with exactly the same
word as the one that followed '<<' at its beginning).

In either case, IP addresses must be listed one per line of input.
Leading and trailing whitespace is ignored, as well as empty lines.
Comments are introduced by a hash sign (#) appearing as the first
non-whitespace character on a line.

You are not required to keep all your IP addresses in a single file.
If necessary, you can scatter them among several files and name each
of them in a separate ip-list statement.

IP addresses listed in ip-list files form the "immutable" IP list,
called so because it cannot be altered while the program is running.
The REST API allows the user to add any number of IP addresses at
runtime as well as remove any of IP addresses added this way.  These
addresses form the "mutable" IP list.  Mutable IP list is preserved
across program restarts.

This means that actually the immutable IP list is optional.  You may
choose to keep monitored addresses in an external storage (an SQL
database, for example) and load them dynamically after the daemon
has started.  A working example program for adding IP addresses from
a MySQL database is shipped in the examples directory.  A full-fledged
client package able to add or delete keywords at runtime, both
individually or in batches and providing another features is available
from <http://git.gnu.org.ua/cgit/ping903/mangemanche.git>.

Normally, the ip-list file should contain IP addresses of the hosts to
monitor.  It is OK, however, to use symbolic DNS names, too.  If a
hostname resolves to a single A record, such usage is equivalent to
placing that IP in the ip-list.  However, if the hostnames resolves to
multiple IPs, only first one will be used.

By default, the server will wake up each minute and send 10 echo
requests within 1 second intervals to each registered IP.  If the
number of collected replies is less than 7, the IP will be declared as
dead ("alive": false, in the returned JSON).  Otherwise it is
considered alive ("alive": true).

The following settings control these parameters:

  probe-interval N
    Interval between wake-ups in seconds.
    Default N=60.
    
  ping-count N
    Number of ICMP packets to send within each probe.
    Default N=10.

  ping-interval N
    Interval in seconds between two sequential echo requests.
    Default N=1.

  tolerance N
    Maximum number of lost requests after which the host is considered
    dead.
    Default N=3.

Another statement worth your attention is "listen".  It configures the
IP address and port on which the server will listen for incoming HTTP
requests.  The default is localhost:8080.  Change this if this port is
already occupied on your system.

The access to the HTTP interface is protected by the default access
control library (the files /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny).
Refer to hosts_access(3) for details.

When you have finished with the configuration file, start the daemon.
Just run ping903.  Check if there are no errors (on the standard error
and in the syslog channel "daemon").  To verify if the daemon is
operational, run

  curl http://localhost:8080/config

This should return the running configuration.

Within the next 'probe-interval' seconds the server will collect
enough statistics to answer your queries.  You can request information
about any particular IP from your ip-list by running

  ping903q IP

This will return the current status of the IP, e.g.

  $ ping903q 203.0.113.1
  203.0.113.1 is alive

To get the detailed statistics use the -v option.  The result will be
formatted in a ping(8)-like manner:

  $ ping903q -v 203.0.113.1
  203.0.113.1 is alive
  --- 203.0.113.1 ping statistics ---
  10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 9414ms
  rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 41.212/41.265/41.374/0.046 ms

In both cases, any number of IP addresses can be given.  E.g. the
following command will returns statistics for two IPs:

  $ ping903q -v 203.0.113.1 203.0.113.5

To check the current status of all hosts, run

 $ ping903q -a
  
Note, that depending on your settings the output can be huge.

Please refer to ping903q(1), for a detailed discussion of the tool.

* System start-up sequence

To configure ping903 to start automatically at the system start-up,
see the "rc" subdirectory.  It contains start up scripts for various
flavors of GNU/Linux distributions.

* Nagios external check

The ping903q tool can be used as a Nagios external check program.  The
following snippet illustrates the simple Nagios configuration that
makes use of it:

  # Define the check_ping903 command
  define command {
    command_name  check_ping903
    command_line  /usr/bin/ping903q -r -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -w $ARG1$ -c $ARG2$
  }

  # Define the service using the new command
  define service {
    host_name            server.example.net
    address              203.0.113.1 
    service_description  Server status
    check_command        check_ping903!200.0,20%!600.0,60%
    check_interval  5
    retry_interval  1
  }

* Startup scripts

The package includes startup scripts for several major GNU/Linux
distributions.  Please refer to rc/README for instructions on
adding ping903 to the operating system startup and shutdown sequences.

* Installation from a git clone

If you are building from a clone of the Git repository, you will need
GNU autotools to bootstrap the package first. Run

  ./bootstrap

in the top level source directory. This will create the configure
script and populate the directory with the missing files. Then proceed
as described above.

* REST API

The default channel for communication with the ping903 daemon is the
HTTP socket open on localhost port 8080.  Only GET requests are
allowed.  The following endpoints are provided:

** /id

Identifies the running instance.  On success, a JSON object with the
following attributes is returned:

- "package": string
  The package name.

- "version": string
  Package version string.

- "pid": number
  PID of the running instance.

** /id/ATTR

ATTR is one of the attributes discussed above.  Returned is the value
of that attribute.

** /host/[NAME]?[select=HOSTLIST][attr=ATTRLIST]

NAME is the IP address or hostname and HOSTLIST is a comma-separated
list of such names.  If NAME is supplied, it is added at the beginning
of HOSTLIST and the hosts in HOSTLIST are looked up in the list of
hosts being monitored.  Note that NAME is treated as a character
string and must coincide exactly with the IP or hostname as it was
supplied in configuration.  In particular, if a host was specified by
its symbolic DNS name in the configuration, exactly that name must be
used in URL to obtain statistics for that host.  If you wish to use
IP, see the "/match" endpoint, discussed below. 

The return value is a JSON array whose elements correspond to the
entries in HOSTLIST (after addition of NAME, if given).  Each element
is an object with the following attributes:

- "name": string

The IP or hostname of the host under which it was supplied in the
ip-list.

- "validity": boolean

Status of this record.  If false, the data has not been collected yet
or the host is unreachable.  A more detailed information is available in
the "status" member (see below).  If "validity" is false, only the
following keys are warranted to be present in the object: "name",
"validity", "status", and "xmit-timestamp".  If it is true, the full
statistics is available as described below.

- "status": string

Detailed status of the object.  Following values are defined:

  "init"
     Initial state: data are being collected ("validity":false).
  "valid"
     The object is valid and its statistics is reliable ("validity": true).
  "pending"
     The object is valid, it contains reliable statistics.  The host
     is being probed at the moment and the object will be updated
     soon ("validity": true).
  "invalid"
     Host is unreachable.  No statistics available ("validity": false).

- "xmit-timestamp": number

Time (the number of seconds since the Epoch) when the last ICMP
ECHO request was transmitted.

- "start-timestamp": number

Time when the recent probe sequence was initiated.

- "stop-timestamp": number

Time when the recent probe sequence was finished.

- "xmit": number

Number of ICMP ECHO requests transmitted during the probe.

- "recv": number

Number of ICMP ECHO responses received during the probe.

- "loss": number

Percentage of lost packets.

- "tmin": number

Minimal round-trip time observed during the probe.

- "tmax": number

Maximal round-trip time observed during the probe.

- "avg": number

Average round-trip time.

- "stddev": number

Standard deviation of round-trip times.

- "alive": boolean

Host status computed as a result of the probe.  It is true, if the
difference between "xmit" and "recv" parameters is less than the
"tolerance" configuration setting, and false otherwise.

Example of the returned JSON for a reachable host:

  {
     "alive":true,
     "avg":25.85150,
     "dup":0.00000,
     "loss":0.00000,
     "name":"203.0.113.1",
     "recv":10.00000,
     "start-timestamp":1581666176.01285,
     "status":true,
     "stddev":0.03201,
     "stop-timestamp":1581666185.27210,
     "tmax":25.91400,
     "tmin":25.81200,
     "xmit":10.00000,
     "xmit-timestamp":1581666185.24628
  }

Example of the returned JSON for an unreachable host:

  {
     "name":"203.0.113.2",
     "status":false,
     "xmit-timestamp":1581666176.01373
  }

The "attr" request argument allows you to specify attributes in the
"stat" object that you are interested in.  It is a comma-separated
list of attribute names.  If given, each returned "stat" object will
contain only elements from that list.

** /host

Return statistics for all monitored hosts.  The result is returned as
an array of JSON "stat" objects (described above).

This is an experimental endpoint.  Be careful with it, as it may cause
considerable strain on the server.

** /match/[HOST]?[select=HOSTLIST]

Return monitored names that correspond to HOST or HOSTLIST.  HOSTLIST
is a comma-separated list of host names or IPv4 addresses, HOST is a
single such address.  Both HOST and HOSTLIST can be supplied:
/match/HOST?select=HOSTLIST is equivalent to /match?select=HOST,HOSTLIST.

Each name in the resulting HOSTLIST is resolved and monitored hosts
with IPs matching any of its IPv4 addresses are returned as an
array of JSON objects.  Each element in the array describes a single
host from the HOSTLIST and has the following attributes:

- "name": string

Original name from the HOSTLIST to which this object corresponds.

- "hosts": array of strings

Array of monitored names corresponding to this "name".  Each name
from the array can be used as argument in a GET request to the
"/host" endpoint.

This array is empty if none of the IP addresses of this "name" are
monitored by the server.

If any error occurred during processing, the following attribute is
added as well:

- "error": string

Textual description of the error.

** /config

Return current server configuration as a JSON object.

** /config/KEYWORD

Return the value of a particular configuration setting.

* Updating configuration on the fly.

The following requests allow administrator to update the IP list
without reloading the server.  For the purpose of updating the
IP list is sectioned in two parts:

 1. Immutable IP addresses
   These are IP addresses specified in the configuration file using
   the "ip-list: statement.  These addresses cannot be modified using
   the API described in this section.  An attempt to do so will return
   an error status.
   
 2. Mutable IP addresses.
   These are additional IP addresses configured via this API.
   The mutable IP addresses are saved in the file
   "/var/lib/ping903/ip-list" before starting next ping probe.
   This file is read upon start-up, after all files supplied
   in the configuration have been read and processed.  This ensures
   that the mutable IP address list persists between restarts.

** POST /config/ip-list

Adds one or more IP addresses to the list.  The request must have
the Content-Type: application/json.  The content can be either an
array of IP addresses in dotted-quad representation (or hostnames
that can be resolved to IPv4 addresses) or an object.  The latter
must contain the attribute "ip-list" whose value is an array of
IP addresses formatted as described above, and the "mode" attribute.
If "mode" has the value "replace", the new addresses will replace
the current content of the ip-list.  If its value is "append", the
new addresses will be appended to the ip-list.

On success, returns 200 (OK).  On error, returns a meaningful error
status.  If the error response has the Content-Type
"application/json", the returned JSON object describes the error in
detail.  It contains at least the "message" attribute with a
descriptive explanation of the error.  If the error refers to an
element of the "ip-list" array, the "index" attribute contains the
1-based index of that element in the array.

** PUT /config/ip-list/IP

Adds IP to the current IP list.  Returns HTTP status 201 (Created) on
success. On error, the following codes can be returned:
  - 403 (Forbidden)
    The entry for this IP address already exists or (if a hostname is
    given) the argument cannot be resolved to a IPv4 address.  If the
    Content-Type of the response is "application/json", the "message"
    attribute of the returned JSON object supplies an explanation of
    the error.
  - 500 (Internal server error)
    
If such an IP is already in the list, returns .

** DELETE /config/ip-list/IP-OR-HOSTNAME

Deletes IP-OR-HOSTNAME from the IP list.  Returns 200 (OK) on success.
If IP-OR-HOSTNAME was not found in the IP list or is immutable,
returns 404 (Not found).

All update requests are queued and take effect at the beginning of the
next ping probe.


* Copyright information:

Copyright (C) 2020 Sergey Poznyakoff

   Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
   of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
   copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
   thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.

   Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
   of this document, or of portions of it,
   under the above conditions, provided also that they
   carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.

Local Variables:
mode: outline
paragraph-separate: "[	]*$"
version-control: never
End:


  

Return to:

Send suggestions and report system problems to the System administrator.