path: root/README.pod

=head1 NAME

mon - A Humble Monitoring API Tool for https://github.com/Crapworks/RESTlos

=head1 SYNOPSIS

m is a synonym of the mon command. You can use either command, but m is shorter to type.

    m [OPTIONS] QUERY [OPTIONS]

mi is a synomym for mon --interactive --meta

    mi [OPTIONS]

=head2 Where OPTIONS can be one (or several) of:

=over 

=item --config=VAL or -c=VAL

Specifies a config file to read instead the default ones.

=item --debug or -D

Prints out extra debugging infos during execution. This option also implies --verbose.  CAUTION: This switch does not work together with the shell auto completion.

=item --dry or -d

Does not modify any object via the API, read only operations only.

=item --errfile=PATH or -E=PATH

If mon is used it is usefull to track if the last mon invocation exited with an error. PATH specifies the full path to a status file to be written if mon exists with an error.

Puppet can check for that file and can re-try the same operation the next run. 

Mon deletes that file automatically after the next successfull run.

=item --help or -h

Implies a --dry. Also prints out all available options.

=item --interactive or -i

Starts mon in interactive mode. Prefix a command with '!' to run it via shell, e.g. '!ls /tmp'.

=item --meta or -m

By default mon does not show any meta (aka nagios custom variables) in its JSON output. Those are all variables starting with an underscore (e.g. _WORKER). One exception is the 'edit' operation of mon, it always shows all the meta variables.

The meta switch makes mon to display also all meta vairables all the time.

=item --nocolor or -n

By default mon prints out some text in colors. Use this switch to disable that. Or use an environment variable to do that (see ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES below).

=item --quiet or -q

Quiet mode. No output at all. This also implies --debug=0, --verbose=0, --nocolor.

=item --syslog or -s

Loggs stuff to syslog. See later in this manpage for info more about this.

=item --unique or -u

Prints only unique entries in getfmt.

=item --verbose or -v

Prints out extra infos during execution. CAUTION: This switch does not work together with the shell auto completion.

=item --version or -V

Prints out program version.

=item --foo.bar=value

In addition it is possible to overwrite all values of the mon.conf via command line interface. E.g. --restlos.api.port=10043 will overwrite the api port (ignores the value of the mon.conf). 

These keys must be in 'dot-separated' format.

=back

An option can be written at the beginning or at the end of each command.

=head2 Where QUERY can be one one of:

    delete CATEGORY [where FIELD1 OP VALUE1 [and ...]] 
    edit|view CATEGORY [where FIELD1 OP VALUE1 [and ...]] 
    get CATEGORY [where FIELD1 OP VALUE1 [and ...]]
    get CATEGORY [where FIELD1 OP VALUE1 [and ...]] > datafile.json
    getfmt FORMAT CATEGORY [where FIELD1 OP VALUE1 [and ...]]
    getfmt FORMAT CATEGORY [where FIELD1 OP VALUE1 [and ...]] > datafile
    insert CATEGORY set FIELD1 = VALUE1 [and FIELD2 = VALUE2 ...] 
    post CATEGORY < datafile.json 
    post CATEGORY from datafile.json 
    put CATEGORY < datafile.json 
    put CATEGORY from datafile.json 
    update CATEGORY delete FIELD1 [and FIELD2 ...] 
      where FIELD3 OP VALUE3 [and ...]]]
    update CATEGORY set FIELD1 = FORMAT [and FIELD2 = 
      FORMAT2 ...] where FIELD3 OP VALUE3 [and ...]]] 
    verify|restart|reload [OPTIONS]

=head3 Shortcut versions of the commands above are:

    a for and
    d for delete
    e for edit
    f for getfmt
    g for get
    i for insert
    l and ~ for like
    p for post
    r for reload/restart
    s for set
    t for put
    u for update
    v for view
    y for verify
    : for where
    == for eq
    != for ne
    =~ for matches
    !~ for nmatches

They don't show up in the online help in order not to mess it up.

=head2 And OP can be:

=over 

=item like

Like is the fastest operator and will be used within the query string against the monitoring API itself.

Example:
  m get host where host_name like testfe01

will result in a query string /host?host_name=testfe01. All other operators Pre-fetch the results from the API and filter the response JSONs.

=item matches

Can be used to use perl regex to filter the fields.

Example:
  m get host where host_name matches 'server\d\d\.*\.cinetic.de'

=item nmatches

Negation of matches.

=item eq

The specific field must be exactly as specified.

Example:
  m get host where host_name eq 'server10.example.com'

=item ne 

Negation of eq

=item lt, le, gt, ge

The specific field must match (numerically) as specified.

Example:
  m get host where host_name lt 10

retrieves all hosts with its host number lower than 10.

Example:
  m get host where host_name gt 10 and host_name le 20 and host_name like server

retrieves all server hosts between 10 up to 20, which are server{11..20} actually.

=back

=head2 And FORMAT can be:

=over 

=item A string

Example:
  m update host set name = foo where host_name like testfe01

=item A string with special chars

Example:
  m update host set name = 'foo! bar% baz$' where host_name like testfe01

=item A mon variable (uses a value of the current object)

Examples:

  m update host set name = '$host_name' where host_name like testfe01

  m update host set name = '${host_name}foo' where host_name like testfe01

Notice: This actually uses the host_name value of the current host object being modified. It can be done with any value of this object.

=item A string with variables expanded by the shell 

Example:
  m update host set name = "$shell_expanded \$host_name" where host_name like testfe01b

Notice: In double quotes you must escape the variable if you want to use a mon variable. It is possible to use @ instead to avoid cryptic escape sequences.

  m update host set name = "$shell_expanded @host_name" where host_name like testfe01b

It also works this way:

  m update host set name = "$shell_expanded @{host_name}foo" where host_name like testfe01b

=item A common use case

  m update host set name = @host_name where host_name like testfe01

=item Some "encrypted" example

  m update host set _FOO = "@{host_name}knurks${bash_variable}\$foo' where host_name like testfe01

=item Or via getfmt

  m getfmt "Host: @host_name" host where host_name like testfe01

One special case is the following:

  m getfmt "Host: @HOSTNAME" host where host_name like testfe01

which explicitly turns host_name which may be a FQDN to a host name.

=back

=head1 CONFIG

Create a config file by using the the sample configuration file F</usr/share/mon/examples/mon.conf.sample> into one of the following (or into several places):

    /etc/mon.conf
    /etc/mon.d/*.conf
    ~/.mon.conf
    ~/.mon.d/*.conf

The last config file always overwrites the values configured in the previous config files. The password can be specified in plain text in restlos.auth.password. If that does not exist it can be in restlos.auth.password.enc but Base64 encoded. Example:

  bash -c 'read -s PASSWORD; tr -d "\n" <<< "$PASSWORD" | base64'

This can be overwritten with the MON_CONFIG environment variable or the --config= or -c= switch.

It's also possible to overwrite each single config line via command line option (see --foo.bar=value above).

Some configuration options also support default values. Read the comments of the sample config file to find out more about that.

=head1 STDOUT and STDERR

JSON output is always printed to STDOUT. Makes it easier to redirect it into a file. All other output is always printed to STDERR, so it's not interfering with the JSON stuff. 

=head1 JSON BACKUPS

Mon writes backups of the JSON data before data is going to be manipulated into the backups.dir directory. Backups older than backups.keep.days days will be deleted on each run automatically, thus the disk space and inodes should not be a problem. 

Backup file names are in the form of

    backup_%Y%m%d_%H%M%S_CATEGORY.json

To recover data just do something like this:

    vim ~/.mon/BACKFILE # For the case you want to edit some stuff
    m post CATEGORY < ~/.mon/BACKFILE

Set backups.disable to 1 to disable backups. 

=head1 

ZSH users can copy or include the following file to have shell auto completion: F</usr/share/mon/contrib/zsh/_mon.zsh>. You can add F</usr/share/mon/contrib/zsh> to the FPATH variable and run B<compinit m mon>.

There is nothing like that for the Bash atm.
=head1 ZSH AUTO COMPLETION

ZSH users can copy or include the following file to have shell auto completion: F</usr/share/mon/contrib/zsh/_mon.zsh>. You can add F</usr/share/mon/contrib/zsh> to the FPATH variable and run B<compinit m mon>.

There is nothing like that for the Bash atm.

=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

=head2 COLOR OUTPUT

By default mon uses Term::ANSIColor to produce colorful text output. To disable that just set the MON_COLORFUL environment variable to 0. It's not possible to specify this in a config file because in verbose mode there is stuff printed already before parsing it.

=head2 SSL CA CERTIFICATE

For restlos.api.host F<./ca.pem> or F</etc/ssl/certs/ca.pem> or F</usr/share/mon/ca.pem> is used (the first CA file found actually).  Alternatively point the HTTPS_CA_FILE environment variable to the CA file to use.

The file F</etc/ssl/certs/ca.pem> actually comes from the recommended package dependency ca-root-cert, which should be in the Unitix deb repository.

=head2 SYSLOG

it's possible to set the MON_SYSLOG environment variable to a value != to logg to syslog. Mon always uses LOG_LOCAL0. 

=head1 EXIT CODE

=over 

=item 0

Mon terminates without any error.

=item 2

The API itself terminates with an error (e.g. syntax error).

=item 3

Some hard error raised by mon itself.

=back

All other exit codes are undefined and/or caused by the autodie Perl module.

=head1 INPUT JSON FORMAT

The mon supports everything that the RESTlos API supports as valid JSON input. In addition mon also supports to insert a single object in list style format.  

Example:

  [ "address", "172.19.184.14", "host_name", "server01.example.com" ]

Will be interpreted by mon as

  { "address" : "172.19.184.14", "host_name" : "server01.example.com" }

and pushed this way into the API. 

=head1 MORE EXAMPLES

Get a list of possible commands

    m

Get a list of possible categories

    m get

Get all defined category objects (e.g. 'mon get host' gets all hosts)

    m get CATEGORY

Print notice with all possible fields

    m get CATEGORY where

Get some stuff

    m get CATEGORY where FIELDNAME like VALUE [and FIELDNAME2 like VALUE2 ...]

Update objects per POST request (e.g. mon post contact < pbuetow.json)

    m post CATEGORY < object.json

Get some stuff, open the results in $EDITOR (vim by default), commit the changes back via put.

    m edit CATEGORY where FIELDNAME like VALUE [and FIELDNAME2 like VALUE2 ...]

Get some stuff, open the results in $PAGER (view by default), just to see in read only mode.

    m view CATEGORY where FIELDNAME like VALUE [and FIELDNAME2 like VALUE2 ...]

Validate the current monitoring configuration

    m verify

Restart/reload the monitoring configuration by restarting the monitoring core. Validation of the configuration is done by the monitoring API. On failure the previous version will be rolled back automatically by the API.

    m restart

Run a command in verbose mode

    m verbose get

Fetch all categories

    ( m get 2>&1 ) | while read category; do m get $category > $category.json; done

Delete all contacts with alias like Foo

    m delete contact where alias like Foo

Update fields of an existing object

    m update contact set alias = "Paul Buetow" and _CUSTOM_NEW = "foo" where alias like Buetow

Create some fields, and delete them again

    m update contact set _FOO = "Master of the Universe" and _BAR = "Beer" where email like 1und1

    m update contact delete _FOO and _BAR where email like 1und1

Insert a new contact (raises an error if contact already exists)

    m insert contact set name = "Master of the Universe" and _BAR = "Beer"

=head1 AUTHOR

Paul Buetow - <paul@buetow.org>

=cut