SMOKEPING_CONFIG(1)         SmokePing         SMOKEPING_CONFIG(1)



OOVVEERRVVIIEEWW
       SmokePing takes its configuration from a single central
       configuration file.  Its location must be hardcoded in the
       smokeping script and smokeping.cgi.

       The contents of this manual is generated directly from the
       configuration file parser.

       The Parser for the Configuration file is written using
       David Schweikers ParseConfig module. Read all about it in
       ISG::ParseConfig.

       The Configuration file has a tree-like structure with sec-
       tion headings at various levels. It also contains variable
       assignements and tables.

RREEFFEERREENNCCEE
       The text below describes the syntax of the SmokePing con-
       figuration file.

       ****** GGeenneerraall ****** _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_c_t_i_o_n_)

       General configuration values valid for the whole SmokePing
       setup.

       The following variables can be set in this section:

       oowwnneerr _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           Name of the person responsible for this smokeping
           installation.

       iimmggccaacchhee _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           A directory which is visible on your webserver where
           SmokePing can cache graphs.

       iimmgguurrll _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           Either an absolute URL to the iimmggccaacchhee directory or
           one relative to the directory where you keep the
           SmokePing cgi.

       ddaattaaddiirr _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           The directory where SmokePing can keep its rrd files.

       ppaaggeeddiirr
           Directory to store static representations of pages.

       ppiiddddiirr _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           The directory where SmokePing keeps its pid when dae-
           monised.

       sseennddmmaaiill
           Path to your sendmail binary. It will be used for
           sending mails in connection with the support of
           DYNAMIC addresses.

       ooffffsseett
           If you run many instances of smokeping you may want to
           prevent them from hitting your network all at the same
           time. Using the offset parameter you can change the
           point in time when they will start. Offset is speci-
           fied in % of total interval, or alternatively as 'ran-
           dom'. I recomment to use 'random'. Note that this does
           NOT influence the rrds itself, it is just a matter of
           when data accqusition is initiated.

       ssmmookkeemmaaiill _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           Path to the mail template for DYNAMIC hosts. This mail
           template must contain keywords of the form <<####_k_e_y_-
           _w_o_r_d####>>. There is a sample template included with
           SmokePing.

       ccggiiuurrll _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           Complete URL path of the SmokePing.cgi

       mmaaiillhhoosstt
           Instead of using sendmail, you can specify the name of
           an smtp server and use perl's Net::SMTP module to send
           mail to DYNAMIC host owners (see below).

       ccoonnttaacctt _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           Mail address of the person responsible for this
           smokeping installation.

       ssyyssllooggffaacciilliittyy
           The syslog facility to use, eg. local0...local7.
           Note: syslog logging is only used if you specify this.

       ssyyssllooggpprriioorriittyy
           The syslog priority to use, eg. debug, notice or info.
           Default is info.

       ****** DDaattaabbaassee ****** _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_c_t_i_o_n_)

       Describes the properties of the round robin database for
       storing the SmokePing data. Note that it is not possible
       to edit existing RRDs by changeing the entries in the cfg
       file.

       The following variables can be set in this section:

       sstteepp _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           Duration of the base operation interval of SmokePing
           in seconds.  SmokePing will venture out every sstteepp
           seconds to ping your target hosts.

       ppiinnggss _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           How many pings should be sent to each target. Sug-
           gested: 20 pings.

       This section also contains a table describing the setup of
       the SmokePing database. Below are reasonable defaults.
       Only change them if you know rrdtool and its workings.
       Each row in the table describes one RRA.

        # cons   xff steps rows
        AVERAGE  0.5   1   1008
        AVERAGE  0.5  12   4320
            MIN  0.5  12   4320
            MAX  0.5  12   4320
        AVERAGE  0.5 144    720
            MAX  0.5 144    720
            MIN  0.5 144    720

       column 0
           Consolidation method.

       column 1
           What part of the consolidated intervals must be known
           to warrant a known entry.

       column 2
           How many sstteeppss to consolidate into for each RRA entry.

       column 3
           How many rroowwss this RRA should have.

       ****** PPrreesseennttaattiioonn ****** _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_c_t_i_o_n_)

       Defines how the SmokePing data should be presented.

       The following variables can be set in this section:

       tteemmppllaattee _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           The webpage template must contain keywords of the form
           <<####_k_e_y_w_o_r_d####>>. There is a sample template included
           with SmokePing; use it as the basis for your experi-
           ments. Default template contains a pointer to the
           SmokePing counter and homepage. I would be glad if you
           would not remove this as it gives me an indication as
           to how widely used the tool is.

       cchhaarrsseett
           By default, SmokePing assumes the 'iso-8859-15' char-
           acter set. If you use something else, this is the
           place to speak up.

       The following sections are valid on level 1:

       ++oovveerrvviieeww _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_c_t_i_o_n_)
           The Overview section defines how the Overview graphs
           should look.

           The following variables can be set in this section:

           wwiiddtthh _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
               Width of the Overview Graphs.

           hheeiigghhtt _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
               Height of the Overview Graphs.

           rraannggee
               How much time should be depicted in the Overview
               graph. Time must be specified as a number followed
               by a letter which specifies the unit of time.
               Known units are: sseconds, mminutes, hhours, dddays,
               wweeks, yyears.

           mmaaxx__rrtttt
               Any roundtrip time larger than this value will
               cropped in the overview graph

           mmeeddiiaann__ccoolloorr
               By default the median line is drawn in red. Over-
               ride it here with a hex color in the format
               _r_r_g_g_b_b.

           ssttrrffttiimmee
               Use posix strftime to format the timestamp in the
               left hand lower corner of the overview graph

       ++ddeettaaiill _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_c_t_i_o_n_)
           The following variables can be set in this section:

           wwiiddtthh _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
               How many pixels wide should detail graphs be

           hheeiigghhtt _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
               How many pixels high should detail graphs be

           llooggaarriitthhmmiicc
               should the graphs be shown in a logarithmic scale
               (yes/no)

           uunniissoonn__ttoolleerraannccee
               if a graph is more than this factor of the median
               'max' it drops out of the unison scaling algo-
               rithm. A factor of two would mean that any graph
               with a max either less than half or more than
               twice the median 'max' will be dropped from unison
               scaling

           mmaaxx__rrtttt
               Any roundtrip time larger than this value will
               cropped in the detail graph

           ssttrrffttiimmee
               Use posix strftime to format the timestamp in the
               left hand lower corner of the detail graph

           nnooddaattaa__ccoolloorr
               Paint the graph background in a special color when
               there is no data for this period because smokeping
               has not been running (#rrggbb)

           The detailed display can contain several graphs of
           different resolution. In this table you can specify
           the resolution of each graph.

           Example:

            "Last 3 Hours"    3h
            "Last 30 Hours"   30h
            "Last 10 Days"    10d
            "Last 400 Days"   400d

           column 0
               Description of the particular resolution.

           column 1
               How much time should be depicted. The format is
               the same as for the aaggee  parameter of the Overview
               section.

           The following sections are valid on level 2:

           ++++lloossss__ccoolloorrss
               In the Detail view, the color of the median line
               depends the amount of lost packets. SmokePing
               comes with a reasonable default setting, but you
               may choose to disagree. The table below lets you
               specify your own coloring.

               Example:

                Loss Color   Legend
                1    00ff00    "<1"
                3    0000ff    "<3"
                100  ff0000    ">=3"

               column 0
                   Activate when the lossrate (in percent) is
                   larger of equal to this number

               column 1
                   Color for this range.

               column 2
                   Description for this range.

           ++++uuppttiimmee__ccoolloorrss
               When monitoring a host with DYNAMIC addressing,
               SmokePing will keep track of how long the machine
               is able to keep the same IP address. This time is
               plotted as a color in the graphs background.
               SmokePing comes with a reasonable default setting,
               but you may choose to disagree. The table below
               lets you specify your own coloring

               Example:

                # Uptime      Color     Legend
                3600          00ff00   "<1h"
                86400         0000ff   "<1d"
                604800        ff0000   "<1w"
                1000000000000 ffff00   ">1w"

               Uptime is in days!

               column 0
                   Activate when uptime in days is larger of
                   equal to this number

               column 1
                   Color for this uptime range range.

               column 2
                   Description for this range.

       ****** PPrroobbeess ****** _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_c_t_i_o_n_)

       The Probes Section configures Probe modules. Probe modules
       integrate an external ping command into SmokePing. Check
       the documentation of the Ping module for configuration
       details.

       The following sections are valid on level 1:

       ++//[[--__00--99aa--zzAA--ZZ]]++//
           Each module can take specific configuration informa-
           tion from this area. The jumble of letters above is a
           regular expression defining legal module names.

           The following variables can be set in this section:

           //[[--__00--99aa--zzAA--ZZ..]]++//
               Each module defines which variables it wants to
               accept. So this expression here just defines legal
               variable names.

       ****** AAlleerrttss ******

       The Alert section lets you setup loss and RTT pattern
       detectors. After each round of polling, SmokePing will
       examine its data and determine which detectors match.
       Detectors are enabled per target and get inherited by the
       targets children.

       Detectors are not just simple thresholds which go off at
       first sight of a problem. They are configurable to detect
       special loss or RTT patterns. They let you look at a num-
       ber of past readings to make a more educated decision on
       what kind of alert should be sent, or if an alert should
       be sent at all.

       The patterns are numbers prefixed with an operator indi-
       cating the type of comparison required for a match.

       The following RTT pattern detects if a targets RTT goes
       from constanty below 10ms to constantly 100ms and more:

        old ------------------------------> new
        <10,<10,<10,<10,<10,>10,>100,>100,>100

       Loss patterns work in a similar way, only that the loss is
       defined in percentage off the total of packets total sent
       packets.

        old ------------------------------> new
        ==0%,==0%,==0%,==0%,>20%,>20%,>=20%

       Apart from normal numbers, patterns can also contain the
       values ** which is true for all values regardless of the
       operator. And UU which is true for uunnkknnoowwnn data together
       with the ==== and ==!! operators.

       Detectors normally act on state changes. This has the dis-
       advantage, that they will fail to find conditions which
       were already present when launching smokeping. For this it
       is possible to write detectors that begin with the special
       value ====SS it is inserted whenever smokeping is started up.

       You can write

        ==S,>20%,>20%

       to detect lines that have been loosing more than 20% of
       the packets for two periodes after startup.

       Sometimes it may be that conditions occure at irregular
       intervals. But still you only want to throw an aert if
       they occure several times within a certain amount of
       times. The operator **XX** will ignore up to _X values and
       still let the pattern match:

         >10%,*10*,>10%

       will fire if more than 10% of the packets have been losst
       twice over the last 10 samples.

       A complete example

        *** Alerts ***
        to = admin@company.xy,peter@home.xy
        from = smokealert@company.xy

        +lossdetect
        type = loss
        # in percent
        pattern = ==0%,==0%,==0%,==0%,>20%,>20%,>20%
        comment = suddenly there is packet loss


        +miniloss
        type = loss
        # in percent
        pattern = >0%,*12*,>0%,*12*,>0%
        comment = detected loss 3 times over the last two hours

        +rttdetect
        type = rtt
        # in milli seconds
        pattern = <10,<10,<10,<10,<10,<100,>100,>100,>100
        comment = routing mesed up again ?

        +rttbadstart
        type = rtt
        # in milli seconds
        pattern = ==S,==U
        comment = offline at startup

       The following variables can be set in this section:

       ttoo _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
       ffrroomm _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)

       The following sections are valid on level 1:

       ++//[[^^\\ss,,]]++//
           The following variables can be set in this section:

           ttyyppee _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
               Currently the pattern types rrtttt and lloossss are known

           ppaatttteerrnn _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
               a comma separated list of comparison operators and
               numbers. rtt patterns are in milli seconds, loss
               patterns are in percent

           ccoommmmeenntt _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)

       ****** TTaarrggeettss ****** _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_c_t_i_o_n_)

       The Target Section defines the actual work of SmokePing.
       It contains a hierarchical list of hosts which mark the
       endpoints of the network connections the system should
       monitor.  Each section can contain one host as well as
       other sections.

       The following variables can be set in this section:

       pprroobbee _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           The name of the probe module to be used for this host.
           The value of this variable gets propagated

       mmeennuu _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           Menu entry for this section. If not set this will be
           set to the hostname.

       ttiittllee _(_m_a_n_d_a_t_o_r_y _s_e_t_t_i_n_g_)
           Title of the page when it is displayed. This will be
           set to the hostname if left empty.

       rreemmaarrkk
           An optional remark on the current section. It gets
           displayed on the webpage.

       aalleerrttss
           A comma separated list of alerts to check for this
           target. The alerts have to be setup in the Alerts sec-
           tion. Alerts are inherited by child nodes. Use an
           empty alerts definition to remove inherited alerts
           from the current target and ist childern.

       The following sections are valid on level 1:

       ++PPRROOBBEE__CCOONNFF
           Probe specific variables.

           The following variables can be set in this section:

           //[[--__00--99aa--zzAA--ZZ..]]++//
               Should be found in the documentation of the corre-
               sponding probe. The values get propagated. If a
               child node uses the same Probe as the parent.

       ++//[[--__00--99aa--zzAA--ZZ]]++//
           Each target section can contain information about a
           host to monitor as well as further target sections.
           Most variables have already been described above. The
           expression above defines legal names for target sec-
           tions.

           The following variables can be set in this section:

           pprroobbee
           mmeennuu
           ttiittllee
           aalleerrttss
               Comma separated list of alert names

           nnoottee
               Some information about this entry which does NOT
               get displayed on the web.

           eemmaaiill
               This is the contact address for the owner of the
               current host. In connection with the DDYYNNAAMMIICC
               hosts, the address will be used for sending the
               belowmentioned script.

           hhoosstt
               Can either contain the name of a target host or
               the string DDYYNNAAMMIICC.

               In the second case, the target machine has a
               dynamic IP address and thus is required to regu-
               larly contact the SmokePing server to verify its
               IP address.  When starting SmokePing with the com-
               mandline argument ----eemmaaiill it will add a secret
               password to each of the DDYYNNAAMMIICC host lines and
               send a script to the owner of each host. This
               script must be started regularly on the host in
               question to make sure SmokePing monitors the right
               box. If the target machine supports SNMP SmokePing
               will also query the hosts sysContact, sysName and
               sysLocation properties to make sure it is still
               the same host.

           rreemmaarrkk
           rraawwlloogg
               Log the raw data, gatherd for this target, in tab
               separated format, to a file with the same basename
               as the corresponding RRD file. Use posix strftime
               to format the timestamp to be put into the file
               name. The filename is built like this:

                basename.strftime.csv

               Example:

                rawlog=%Y-%m-%d

               this would create a new logfile every day with a
               name like this:

                targethost.2004-05-03.csv

           aalleerrtteeee
               If you want to have alerts for this target and all
               targets below it go to a particular address on top
               of the address already specified in the alert, you
               can add it here.

           The following sections are valid on level 2:

           ++++PPRROOBBEE__CCOONNFF
               Probe specific variables.

               The following variables can be set in this sec-
               tion:

               //[[--__00--99aa--zzAA--ZZ..]]++//
                   Should be found in the documentation of the
                   corresponding probe. The values get propa-
                   gated. If a child node uses the same Probe as
                   the parent.

           ++++//[[--__00--99aa--zzAA--ZZ]]++//
               Each target section can contain information about
               a host to monitor as well as further target sec-
               tions. Most variables have already been described
               above. The expression above defines legal names
               for target sections.

CCOOPPYYRRIIGGHHTT
       Copyright (c) 2001-2003 by Tobias Oetiker. All right
       reserved.

LLIICCEENNSSEE
       This program is free software; you can redistribute it
       and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
       License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
       either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any
       later version.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
       useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
       warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
       PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more
       details.

       You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
       License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
       Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA
       02139, USA.

AAUUTTHHOORR
       Tobias Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch>



1.30                        2004-05-13        SMOKEPING_CONFIG(1)
