08-02-04 10:57 PM
On 2 Aug 2004 09:05:46 -0700, Brian Bouchard <bbouch@mcio.org> wrote:
> I just recently joined a group of system administrators, after working
> for about 5 years in programming on OS/390.
>
> I have been asked to write a PERL script to monitor httpd daemons over
> time, initially worried about the Size field in a ps -efl
Well, I'd actually suggest using something like wget, lynx, or curl to
fetch the http served by the webserver, rather than the output of ps.
You can have processes that have gone stupid and still show up in
ps, but not be actually doing anything useful.
> ps -efl | grep "httpd -k start"
>
> which seems to be getting what I wanted, but while I was getting this
> started, it occurred to me, there must be a billion other similar
> scripts out there as to what I am about to start writing.
Yup. Depending on what other things you want to do, you might consider
using a program that's already written and spend your time adapting
it. Big Brother comes to mind - http://bb4.org/
> Does anyone have anything like this? I realize it would actually be a
> good learning for me to start this from scratch, but the script is
> needed ASAP for aid in troubleshooting some production problems, and I
> would rather not have to do this from scratch if someone else has
> something that would work for our purposes and is relatively simple so
> I could modify as needed.
In that case, definately look at BigBrother. About a half day to install
and config, assuming you have access to compilers.
> Credit would be given to whomever helped me out. I'm not looking to
> impress anyone by getting it done faster than anticipated... I just
> want to have something soon so the guys working on the problem aren't
> being held up by me trying to learn the ins and outs of a new
> language/system.
It'll be good to write a script well and quickly, maybe setting up a system
that can be extended for more than just that purpose would be even more
helpful to your organization and your reputation. Worth considering,
anyway. But, if you want to roll your own, condider the wget, curl, or
lynx approach rather than the ps approach.
Dave Hinz
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