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

[Mark Ferlatte]

Jan-Henrik Haukeland said on Thu, Dec 11, 2003 at 11:35:57AM +0100:
> 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.
 
A very naive implementation could be as simple as having monit read the config
into memory only looking for include statements; when it finds one, replace the
line with the contents of the included file, else for each file in included
dir, add them in lexigraphic order.

Then use the existing parser on the string in memory.  :)

> 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.

I can see how this functionality would be desireable; however, for me
personally it's not useful.  m/monit sounds interesting, though.  I'm
currently using Nagios for that purpose.
 
> 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.
 
You know, this is not so bad, so long as you have a public DTD for the config
file.  Having the ability to easily generate and validate the config file from
a script is useful for me.

What would be nice, of course, is if both syntaxes were supported for one or
two releases so that people like me have time to transition.  I'm in the middle
of developing a fairly complex monitrc for my cluster right now, I'd hate to
have to switch config formats at the same time as upgrading monit. 

Whups, there I go again, wanting my cake _and_ wanting to eat it.  :)

M

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