On Jun 17, 2008, at 4:53 PM, Peter Tribble wrote: > As I was reading this, I started to wonder - why does SMF have to > build > in snmp traps, or email. Doesn't the 'execution of a shell script' > cover those > (and any other sorts of actions that you may wish to trigger)?
Well true, "execute a shell script" means one can implement whatever they feel, up to and including executing snmptrap or /bin/mail... But that has its own problems as reading the MIB and concocting the correct snmptrap(1M) arguments can be daunting for those who don't have a PhD in (Net-)SNMP. Not to mention the software fault being reported might very well have put the system into a state where fork()'ing these processes is unattainable (filled RAM /and/ swap) and the alert gets swallowed unheard or greatly delayed. Granted, in the later scenario other monitoring systems/facilities could be present and would signal that there's some sort of shenanigans going on, but then again, they could very well not be. /dale
