Quick note...Versions of Webmin beyond about .92 have a Mon module. As you may, or may not, know, Webmin provides a great framework for this sort of thing...Almost automatically adding ACLs, action logging, SSL, etc.
Whenever I hear a question like "I need, or plan to write, a Web-based administration tool for _blank_", my answer is almost always Webmin! ;-) I'm sure Jamie would be happy to accept any patches for enhancements to the module as well. Joe Rhett wrote: > David, did you ever get management approval on that? I've gotten > management approval to build a web-based configuration tool for Mon and > rerelease it back to the world, but I don't want to duplicate effort if > you've already gotten part of it done. > > On Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 10:45:00AM -0500, David Nolan wrote: > >> >>--On Wednesday, December 05, 2001 12:54 PM -0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>wrote: >> >> >>>A while back, I started to write a Perl/Tk configuration tool for mon. I'm >>>a really lousy gui designer, and I found a couple of new bugs in Perl/Tk >>>(since fixed), but the really hard part of the project was having to rip >>>the parser for the config file out of mon and try to keep up with new mon >>>releases. I think it would be valuable to have gui or web-based >>>configuration tools for mon (perhaps a webmin module?); I'm finding a >>>large config file a bit difficult to maintain, even with m4, and I'd like >>>to let other less unix-aware people have some sort of controlled access >>>to it. The only way I can see to make this easy would be if the mon >>>config file parser were broken out into its own perl module. I don't >>>think this would be too difficult, since it mainly involves encapsulating >>>code that's already there. >>> >>>Having a Mon::Config module would also make it possible (not easy!) to >>>optionally use something other than a flat file for the configuration, >>>e.g. a database. The advantage of this would be to use database user >>>access to restrict parts of the configuration. >>> >> >>Assuming I can get management approval, we're going to be starting a >>project ASAP to replace our current monitoring infrastructure with a system >>based on mon & cricket. The largest component of the work in our design so >>far is going to be implementing a monitoring system configuration database, >>which will address the needs you point out above. The goal is to have a >>database representation of all the data in the mon config file, and a web >>interface to allow our admins to update the configuration. There will be >>access controls, so operations/help center people can see what is >>monitored, but not change things, and sysadmins will get control of what is >>monitored, and periods for when people get paged vs. when email is sent, >>etc, and monitoring admins will be able to control things like system wide >>defaults (i.e. default 'alertevery' of 30m, but individual entries could >>override). It will support a 'tree' of mon's, with a central mon host >>responsible for sending alerts, and slave mon hosts responsible for all the >>monitoring, but with all the configuration generated from one system. And >>we may try to make it NOT be mon specific, possibly with XML based output >>that we would post process to create the mon.cfg. >> >>With a network of thousands of devices and hundreds of servers, a good >>interface that empowers all the staff to update the system themselves >>without having to understand the intricacies of mon.cfg is essential. Even >>better is automating device detection, and integrating host/service >>monitoring in with established system management procedures, which are also >>parts of our design, but those parts may not be as easy to keep separate >>from our in-house systems. >> >>This is all a dream for now... but if I get management approval soon, we'll >>be starting work on this within the next few weeks. We do intend to >>release the end result. >> >> >>-David Nolan >> Network Software Developer >> Computing Services >> Carnegie Mellon University > > -- Joe Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.swelltech.com Web Caching Appliances and Support
