Re: Detecting failed clients

[Elmar Kurgpold]

How about this...  Run cfengine from cron something like this:

   cfengine > /etc/last.cfengine.run
...or...
   cfengine && touch /etc/last.cfengine.run

Then also run a cron job like this:

   find /etc/last.cfengine.run -mtime +1 -exec /some/script {} \;

/some/script looks something like this:

#!/bin/sh
(ls -l $1 ; echo '---------------' ; cat $1) |\
    mailx -s "cfengine problem on `uname -n`" sysadmin@yourdomain

This doesn't give you much granularity, but it ought to work. 

        ++Elmar




On Wed, 6 Jun 2001, Jerry Christopher wrote:

> cfengine 1.6.3
> solaris 7, 8
> 
> I read Mike Lang's post 2001-04-09 regarding this subject and the two
> responses given.  I don't believe the responses (call cfrun & cfengine
> module using database connection) fit well for our situation, and I'm
> interested in hearing how others are approaching the same issue, if at
> all?
> 
> We have several sites using cfengine on solaris 7 & 8.  Our architecture
> is 3-tiered: a "gold" or master distribution server, a couple of
> "distrib" or slave servers at headquarters, and a "distrib" server on
> the LAN for each remote site.
> 
> Distrib servers and clients run cfengine periodically from cron and a
> new log is written locally on the client each time.  I'd like to know if
> & when a client has not run cfengine and/or the date and time of the
> last successful run.  
> 
> Example:  I make a change to cfengine.conf on the "gold" server to add a
> new link to the links section.  The distrib servers pick up the change
> on the next run and add the link on the run after that.  The 3rd tier
> clients pick up the change from the distrib server on their next run &
> make the link on the run after that.  A user on a client at "Site X"
> discovers that he doesn't have the link that his peers have on their
> workstation.  The user calls the helpdesk, submits a ticket or in
> someway makes this problem known.  It may be some time before I actually
> hear about the missing link and then I can go out and investigate the
> problem.
> 
> I'm looking for ways to proactively "know" when clients fail to run
> without serially calling every local and remote client with cfrun.
> (if this is a valid method by just parsing, I'd appreciate comment)
> 
> Some thoughts being tossed around are touching a file on an NFS mount or
> scripting a check of the date/time stamp on the log file, collecting
> this and the uname -n of the client, and getting this information "up
> the chain" back to the master server somehow.  A manual check of the
> file would find hosts that have not run cfengine "lately" and also might
> be compared against a layer 1 inventory of suns (using getethers? not
> sure here) to find a client that has never run cfengine for some reason.
> 
> Thoughts and comments appreciated!
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Jerry
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jerry Christopher
> UNIX Systems Administrator
> Applied Micro Circuits Corporation
> 6290 Sequence Drive
> San Diego, CA 92121 USA
> 
> Work 858-535-4245
> eFax 208-441-7898
> 
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|  Elmar Kurgpold
|  Email: elmarkurgpold@yahoo.com