status of IPv6 support?

[Christian Herzog]

Dear Henrik,

we run a moderately large xymon installation (> 8500 tests on > 850 hosts) and
are lucky to also employ Axel Beckert, one of Debian's xymon package
maintainers. This year we can (and have to) finally make our first steps into
IPv6 territory and we decided early on that a working monitoring system is
very high on the list. We are pretty happy with xymon and have repeatedly
contributed to its well-being in the past. Hence we would very much like to
stick with xymon also for our IPv6 monitoring. Reading the mailing lists, we
got the impression that the upcoming 4.4/5.0 will be v6-ready and has
progressed nicely. So we installed trunk [1] on a test server, and after
writing a small patch to lib/loadhosts_file.c [2] we tried it in our IPv6 test
net. Unfortunately we hit several road blocks (one of them being xymonnet2
intermittently crashing and not returning any output), which is just fair
considering we're using unreleased trunk code. However, it leads us to the
following questions:

- do you have any indication when v5 will be ready for prime time (other than
"Version 5 is currently (August 2012) under development, and is expected to
be released later in 2012)"?

- if you're in need of a) testers, b) code contributions or even c) financial
incentives, we might be able to help out

We are now at a crossroads where we have to decide whether to stay with
(v6-ready) xymon or to switch to some other monitoring system. As already
said: we'd like to stick around, but we do need v6 support at some point in
the not-too-distant future.

Thank you very much and kind regards,
-Christian


[1] http://sourceforge.net/p/xymon/code/7197/tree/trunk/
[2]
320c320,322
< sprintf(newitem->ip, "%d.%d.%d.%d", ip1, ip2, ip3, ip4);
---

char ipaddr[16];
sprintf(ipaddr, "%d.%d.%d.%d", ip1, ip2, ip3, ip4);
newitem->ip = ipaddr;

[Henrik Størner]

Hi Christian,

Post by Christian Herzog
- do you have any indication when v5 will be ready for prime time (other than
"Version 5 is currently (August 2012) under development, and is expected to
be released later in 2012)"?

Barring unforeseen events, I think there will be a version ready for
testing mid-september. It will probably require some shakedown, since
there is a lot of new code, but a release during the autumn should be
possible.

Post by Christian Herzog
- if you're in need of a) testers, b) code contributions or even c) financial
incentives, we might be able to help out

I'll definitely need testers, and code contributions are always welcome.


Regards,
Henrik

[Christian Herzog]

Dear Henrik,

thanks a lot for this encouraging update. We'll stand by with our test setup,
ready to get our hands dirty.

best,
-Christian

Post by Henrik Størner
Hi Christian,

Post by Christian Herzog
- do you have any indication when v5 will be ready for prime time (other than
"Version 5 is currently (August 2012) under development, and is expected to
be released later in 2012)"?

Barring unforeseen events, I think there will be a version ready for
testing mid-september. It will probably require some shakedown,
since there is a lot of new code, but a release during the autumn
should be possible.

Post by Christian Herzog
- if you're in need of a) testers, b) code contributions or even c) financial
incentives, we might be able to help out

I'll definitely need testers, and code contributions are always welcome.
Regards,
Henrik
_______________________________________________
Xymon mailing list
http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon

[Henrik Størner]

Post by Christian Herzog

Post by Henrik Størner

Post by Christian Herzog
- do you have any indication when v5 will be ready for prime time

Barring unforeseen events, I think there will be a version ready for
testing mid-september. It will probably require some shakedown,
since there is a lot of new code, but a release during the autumn
should be possible.

thanks a lot for this encouraging update. We'll stand by with our test setup,
ready to get our hands dirty.

Okay .... if you really want to get dirty, then I have some code waiting
for all of you to test. Head over to http://www.xymon.com/misc/ and grab
the 4.3.99.<date> tar-file.

(Or grab the latest trunk from Sourceforge's SVN archive).

NOTE: I strongly recommend that you run this in a test setup - or at
least be prepared to break your current installation. At least, backup
your xymon installation directory and the *.chk files in the server/tmp/
directory.


Building it should be well-known, except that you need two more
libraries: The new network test module uses an SQLite3 database
internally, and xymond now needs the "zlib" library - so those must be
installed, including any "developer" packages.

On Debian, I have the libsqlite3-0:amd64, libsqlite3-dev:amd64 and
sqlite3 packages for SQLite3; and the zlib1g:amd64 and zlib1g-dev:amd64
packages for zlib.


make - make install


Make sure that the xymond/etcfiles/protocols2.cfg file is installed in
you server/etc/ directory. The old protocols.cfg is no longer used.

Make sure the server/bin/fping4 and fping6 programs are suid-root; if
not then "chown 0 server/bin/fping*; chmod u+s server/bin/fping*" as root.

Start Xymon and see what happens :-o


The new network module runs as a daemon, so don't be surprised that it
runs all the time. xymonnet2 does the normal network checks (tcp tests),
and the "netmodule ping" job handles all of the ping checks.

"ping" status is now reported in a "ping" column. This will change
before the final release.

If a host has both an IPv4 and IPv6 address, then Xymon will test the
IPv4 address only. You cannot change that right now.

SSL certificate status is not yet there. We have the data, but don't
generate the status update yet.

LDAP- and RPC-checks are not implemented yet.

Some of the more exotic details are also missing, e.g. pinging hosts
with multiple IP's.


What I am most interested in right now is - does it work at all ? Does
it crash ? You'll probably need to add "--debug" options to the new
commands, but be warned: There's a lot of debug output.


Now a bit of personal news: Those of you who have followed Xymon
development over the years may know that I have been working for CSC
while writing Xymon. Xymon has been used a lot at CSC here in
Copenhagen, so doing special Xymon customisation was also part of my
work there.

But times are changing, and I have decided to leave CSC. On Thursday I
start in a new job at KMD - a local danish IT company providing IT
services for a lot of danish public-sector companies, but also moving in
to the general outsourcing business.

My new employer knows about the work I do on Xymon, and although I
probably won't be able to work in Xymon as part of my employment, it
will continue to grow as the Open Source project it has always been.


Regards,
Henrik

[Christian Herzog]

Good morning Henrik,

thanks for the good news. I'm compiling the new version as we speak. I'll keep
you posted as we progress.

cheers,
-Christian

Post by Henrik Størner

Post by Christian Herzog

Post by Henrik Størner

Post by Christian Herzog
- do you have any indication when v5 will be ready for prime time

Barring unforeseen events, I think there will be a version ready for
testing mid-september. It will probably require some shakedown,
since there is a lot of new code, but a release during the autumn
should be possible.

thanks a lot for this encouraging update. We'll stand by with our test setup,
ready to get our hands dirty.

Okay .... if you really want to get dirty, then I have some code
waiting for all of you to test. Head over to
http://www.xymon.com/misc/ and grab the 4.3.99.<date> tar-file.
(Or grab the latest trunk from Sourceforge's SVN archive).
NOTE: I strongly recommend that you run this in a test setup - or at
least be prepared to break your current installation. At least,
backup your xymon installation directory and the *.chk files in the
server/tmp/ directory.
Building it should be well-known, except that you need two more
libraries: The new network test module uses an SQLite3 database
internally, and xymond now needs the "zlib" library - so those must
be installed, including any "developer" packages.
On Debian, I have the libsqlite3-0:amd64, libsqlite3-dev:amd64 and
sqlite3 packages for SQLite3; and the zlib1g:amd64 and
zlib1g-dev:amd64 packages for zlib.
make - make install
Make sure that the xymond/etcfiles/protocols2.cfg file is installed
in you server/etc/ directory. The old protocols.cfg is no longer
used.
Make sure the server/bin/fping4 and fping6 programs are suid-root;
if not then "chown 0 server/bin/fping*; chmod u+s server/bin/fping*"
as root.
Start Xymon and see what happens :-o
The new network module runs as a daemon, so don't be surprised that
it runs all the time. xymonnet2 does the normal network checks (tcp
tests), and the "netmodule ping" job handles all of the ping checks.
"ping" status is now reported in a "ping" column. This will change
before the final release.
If a host has both an IPv4 and IPv6 address, then Xymon will test
the IPv4 address only. You cannot change that right now.
SSL certificate status is not yet there. We have the data, but don't
generate the status update yet.
LDAP- and RPC-checks are not implemented yet.
Some of the more exotic details are also missing, e.g. pinging hosts
with multiple IP's.
What I am most interested in right now is - does it work at all ?
Does it crash ? You'll probably need to add "--debug" options to the
new commands, but be warned: There's a lot of debug output.
Now a bit of personal news: Those of you who have followed Xymon
development over the years may know that I have been working for CSC
while writing Xymon. Xymon has been used a lot at CSC here in
Copenhagen, so doing special Xymon customisation was also part of my
work there.
But times are changing, and I have decided to leave CSC. On Thursday
I start in a new job at KMD - a local danish IT company providing IT
services for a lot of danish public-sector companies, but also
moving in to the general outsourcing business.
My new employer knows about the work I do on Xymon, and although I
probably won't be able to work in Xymon as part of my employment, it
will continue to grow as the Open Source project it has always been.
Regards,
Henrik
_______________________________________________
Xymon mailing list
http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon

[Christian Herzog]

Hi Henrik,

executive summary: wow!

We dove right in, and things are looking pretty good. Stuff we noticed:

make install:
- error: chown xymon /opt/xymon/server/etc/protocols.cfg - cannot access
`/opt/xymon/server/etc/protocols.cfg': No such file or directory,
lines 136f in xymonnet/Makefile - obsolete protocols.cfg
- error: chown xymon /opt/xymon/server/ext/* - cannot access
`/opt/xymon/server/ext/*': No such file or directory

after that, we quickly managed to get it up and running with some of our hosts
and also an IPv6-only machine. Our patch [1] is no longer needed. The new
client sometimes complains in the logs:
xymon 4.3.99
Usage: /opt/xymon/client/bin/xymon [--debug] [--merge]
[--proxy=http://ip.of.the.proxy:port/] RECIPIENT DATA
RECIPIENT: IP-address, hostname or URL
DATA: Message to send, or "-" to read from stdin

but still reports just fine. Other than that: great work! This is amazing
progress compared to the last trunk version we tried.

We'll continue to play around with it and let you know what our experiences
are.

thanks,
-Christian

[henrik-pDmt/]

Post by Christian Herzog
executive summary: wow!
We dove right in, and things are looking pretty good.

Thanks, I am obviously delighted that it works for you. Makes me a bit
more confident about it - having things work in the couple of setups I
have is one thing, having it work in "some random location" is another.
Details, details ... :-) I'll get that cleaned up.


Regards,
Henrik

[Christian Herzog]

Hi Henrik,

we have cloned our production monitoring to 4.3.99-20130730 and have almost
all hosts report to both servers in order to get real life data and also added
some IPv6-only hosts for good measure: https://phd-nfsv4.ethz.ch/xymon/
Within experimental error the monitoring results are very similar to
production 4.3.0-0.beta2, which is a really good sign!

What we did notice:

- after several minutes, xymonnet2 gets stuck at 100% CPU usage and doesn't
report any longer, rendering all net tests purple. If you kill it, a new one
gets started, buying you another 5-10 minutes. Neither --debug nor strace in
the task file showed me anything uselful, it just goes belly up
- ./xymon.sh restart fails to get rid of running xymonnet processes
- cosmetics: IPv6 ping tests are somewhat confusing as they add :0 (port?) to
the end of the v6 address: 2a01:4f8:162:464::113:0 (see
https://phd-nfsv4.ethz.ch/xymon-cgi/svcstatus.sh?HOST=daduke&SERVICE=ping)

other than that, we're really amazed by how far it's come! Once xymonnet runs
reliably we see no major obstacle with the new code.

thanks a lot,
-Christian

[Lennon, Padraig]

Best of luck in your new role Henrik

regards
Padraig Lennon

-----Original Message-----
From: Xymon [mailto:xymon-bounces-aAyed+***@public.gmane.org] On Behalf Of Henrik Størner
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 7:18 AM
To: xymon-aAyed+***@public.gmane.org
Subject: [Xymon] Version 5 with IPv6 - anyone for testing? And some news ...

Post by Christian Herzog

Post by Henrik Størner

Post by Christian Herzog
- do you have any indication when v5 will be ready for prime time

Barring unforeseen events, I think there will be a version ready for
testing mid-september. It will probably require some shakedown,
since there is a lot of new code, but a release during the autumn
should be possible.

thanks a lot for this encouraging update. We'll stand by with our test setup,
ready to get our hands dirty.

Okay .... if you really want to get dirty, then I have some code waiting
for all of you to test. Head over to http://www.xymon.com/misc/ and grab
the 4.3.99.<date> tar-file.

(Or grab the latest trunk from Sourceforge's SVN archive).

NOTE: I strongly recommend that you run this in a test setup - or at
least be prepared to break your current installation. At least, backup
your xymon installation directory and the *.chk files in the server/tmp/
directory.


Building it should be well-known, except that you need two more
libraries: The new network test module uses an SQLite3 database
internally, and xymond now needs the "zlib" library - so those must be
installed, including any "developer" packages.

On Debian, I have the libsqlite3-0:amd64, libsqlite3-dev:amd64 and
sqlite3 packages for SQLite3; and the zlib1g:amd64 and zlib1g-dev:amd64
packages for zlib.


make - make install


Make sure that the xymond/etcfiles/protocols2.cfg file is installed in
you server/etc/ directory. The old protocols.cfg is no longer used.

Make sure the server/bin/fping4 and fping6 programs are suid-root; if
not then "chown 0 server/bin/fping*; chmod u+s server/bin/fping*" as root.

Start Xymon and see what happens :-o


The new network module runs as a daemon, so don't be surprised that it
runs all the time. xymonnet2 does the normal network checks (tcp tests),
and the "netmodule ping" job handles all of the ping checks.

"ping" status is now reported in a "ping" column. This will change
before the final release.

If a host has both an IPv4 and IPv6 address, then Xymon will test the
IPv4 address only. You cannot change that right now.

SSL certificate status is not yet there. We have the data, but don't
generate the status update yet.

LDAP- and RPC-checks are not implemented yet.

Some of the more exotic details are also missing, e.g. pinging hosts
with multiple IP's.


What I am most interested in right now is - does it work at all ? Does
it crash ? You'll probably need to add "--debug" options to the new
commands, but be warned: There's a lot of debug output.


Now a bit of personal news: Those of you who have followed Xymon
development over the years may know that I have been working for CSC
while writing Xymon. Xymon has been used a lot at CSC here in
Copenhagen, so doing special Xymon customisation was also part of my
work there.

But times are changing, and I have decided to leave CSC. On Thursday I
start in a new job at KMD - a local danish IT company providing IT
services for a lot of danish public-sector companies, but also moving in
to the general outsourcing business.

My new employer knows about the work I do on Xymon, and although I
probably won't be able to work in Xymon as part of my employment, it
will continue to grow as the Open Source project it has always been.


Regards,
Henrik