Not using method "HEAD" for connection testing

[Marcus Mülbüsch]

Hello list,

   when monit does connection testing it uses the method "HEAD", which 
is fine for it causes less traffic.

   However, some services don't send http-headers, so this method will 
fail.

   For example, when checking http-replicator 
(https://sourceforge.net/projects/http-replicator/) with

> if failed
>         port 8080
>         protocol http
> then alert

  http-relicator responds with a 503 and monit raises an alarm. Here is 
its logfile:

>   HEAD / HTTP/1.1
>   connection: close
>   host: localhost:8080
>   accept: */*
>   user-agent: Monit/5.17.1
>
> 27 Jul 2016 16:54:51 DEBUG: HttpClient 1 received header:
>
>   HTTP/1.1 503 Service Unavailable
>   date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 14:54:51 GMT
>   connection: close

   I changed the method by sending a "GET", so http-replicator responds 
with something (if running) and monit alerts only on true failures:

> # !!! use 'send "GET"...' else monit uses method "HEAD" which http-replicator 
> does not respond well to!
> if failed
>         port 8080
>         protocol http
>         send "GET / HTTP/1.1"
> then alert

   Is there a better way to achieve this?

   I now have the problem that I want to monitor the alarm-log of my 
innovaphone telephone system which is readable via authenticated https 
and responds with an xml file. So to access the alarm-log I use a monit 
configuration of:

> check host pbx with address 11.22.33.44
> if failed
>         port 443
>         protocol https
>         request "/LOG0/FAULT/mod_cmd.xml?cmd=xml-alarms"
>         use http headers [Authorization: Basic blabla==]
>         send "GET / HTTP/1.1"
>         with content != 'type="alarm"'
> then alert

   However, that doesn't work as expected.

   If I drop the "send" line, the telephony system responds with a 404 
(there's no header in the xml).

   If I use the send line it seems as monit does not evaluate the content?

   I artificially created an alarm and the system now responds with

https://11.22.33.44/LOG0/FAULT/mod_cmd.xml?cmd=xml-alarms

> <alarms>
>         <fault type="alarm" severity="1" active="true" code="0x00010002" date="1469703580" 
> time="28.07.2016-12:59:40" xsl="fault_phone.xsl" handle="744">
>                 <text>Registration down (timeout)</text>
>                 <source>PHONE/SIG/REG2</source>
>                 <remote addr="1.2.3.4" name="IP241-ab-cd-ef"/>
>         </fault>
> </alarms>

   However, monit (given the above configuration) does not raise an 
alarm? Am I doing something wrong, or is monit at fault here?

Marcus