SMOKEPING(1)

NAME
smokeping - Commandline tool for SmokePing

SYNOPSIS
smokeping [ --email | --makepod | --version | --restart ]

 Options:

 --man        Show the manpage

 --help       Help :-)

 --email      Send SmokePing Agents to all Targets marked DYNAMIC

 --makepod    Create POD documentation on Config file

 --version    Show SmokePing Version

 --debug      Run Only once and do not Fork

 --restart    Restart SmokePing

 --nodaemon    Do no daemonize the process (no fork)

 --filter=x   Only measure entries which pass the filter x

 --logfile    Append warnings to this logfile

 --static[=x] Generates a static website in directory x.  If x is left out,
              pagedir from the config is used.

DESCRIPTION
The smokeping tool is the commandline part of the SmokePing system. Its main function is to run as a daemon and send Pings to all the Targets you have specified in the Config file. When you call smokeping without arguments it will start as a daemon and do it's work.

If called with an argument, then further functions can be activated, as seen in the Synopsis above. The --email function is explained in the documentation on the config file.

The --filter option allows you to run the deamon on a big config file, but have the config file filtered and only measure the entries that pass the filter. This is useful for remote measurement. Run Smokeping with two exclusive filters in two locations and rsync the rrds back to the webserver host where you run the cgi. Filters act on the secion names in the config file. Multiple secions names are concatenated with / like path names:

 *** targets ***
 + A
 ....
 + B
 ...
 ++ C

This gives

 /A

and

 /B, /B/C

If I want to monitor /A my filter would look like this:

 --filter=/A

Filters follow regular expression syntax. The are always anchored at the tip of the string. by adding a ! to the front of the filter string you negate it. Matching entreis will be excluded from monitoring. Multiple --filter arguments can be used to assemble complex filters:

  --filter=/A --filter=/B

would include all the targets

  --filter=/A --filter=/B --filter=!/B/C

would include all but /B/C.

The --makepod does get used internally to produce the documentation on the SmokePing configuration file.

Please refer to the installation document for detailed setup instructions.

SETUP
When installing SmokePing, this file has to be adjusted to fit your local system. Three paths have to be entered.

One pointing to your rrdtool installation

 use lib qw(/usr/pack/rrdtool-1.0.33-to/lib/perl);

One pointing to the place where you have installed the SmokePing libraries

 use lib qw(/home/oetiker/public_html/smokeping/lib);

The third path is the argument to the Smokeping::main command. It points to the SmokePing configuration file.

 use Smokeping;
 Smokeping::main("/home/oetiker/.smokeping/config");

COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2002 by Tobias Oetiker. All right reserved.

LICENSE
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.

AUTHOR
Tobias Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch>