Re: Feature request: /etc/monit.d config directory and include support

[Jan-Henrik Haukeland]

Christian Hopp <address@hidden> writes:

> I think that is a good idea, too... +1.  But that might mean that we
> need some kind of preprocessor stage before we can parse.

Maybe we can do some hack with the lexer so it can switch input files
(files to scan tokens from) on the fly? We'll figure this out when we
start the implementation. Thanks for the vote, I have update our TODO
list with this feature at http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/next.html
see #5.

>> (I'm also playing with the idea to make
>> it possible to configure monit from it's own web-interface. It's just
>> an idea and I haven't done any work on it yet).
>
> I thought of that too, but I have some concerns when it comes to it...
>
> - security... by changing any values it would be possible to start
>   arbitrary code from there.

Good point, yes, that is a big concern, but it would also be an
incredible useful feature and make configuring monit very easy. Also
make it possible to configure monit remotely which would be very
useful for applications such as m/monit. But, yes, security is a real
concern and requiring Basic Auth. (and SSL), must be mandatory.

> - config writer... it is quite difficult if the CW is just modifying
>   the existing config file instead of writing down the contents of the
>   structure.  I think that would be hard to read for the admin.

That brings us back to using XML for the config file and including a
small XML parser to read and write the config file. It's not an easy
thing to do, i.e. to switch from our current nice control file
language to XML. But if we should implement monit-configuration via
the web-interface, XML seems to be the way to go. Changing config-file
language is a big thing to do so we need to think this through.

>> FYI, we don't have access to monit CVS at the moment since
>> savannah.gnu.org was cracked a while ago and we will have to wait
>> until the GNU folks have green-lighted the system again.
>
> Let see how long it takes... but it comes in quite handy for me, cuz
> I am quite busy with my dissertation these days.

I'm not sorry either :) 

-- 
Jan-Henrik Haukeland