path: root/docs/mon.txt

NAME
    mon - A Humble Monitoring API Tool

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]

  Where OPTIONS can be one (or several) of:
    --config=VAL or -c=VAL
        Specifies a config file to read instead the default ones.

    --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.

    --dry or -d
        Does not modify any object via the API, read only operations only.

    --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.

    --help or -h
        Implies a --dry. Also prints out all available options.

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

    --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.

    --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).

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

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

    --unique or -u
        Prints only unique entries in getfmt.

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

    --version or -V
        Prints out program version.

    --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.

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

  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]

   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.

  And OP can be:
    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.

    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'

    nmatches
        Negation of matches.

    eq  The specific field must be exactly as specified.

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

    ne  Negation of eq

    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.

  And FORMAT can be:
    A string
        Example: m update host set name = foo where host_name like testfe01

    A string with special chars
        Example: m update host set name = 'foo! bar% baz$' where host_name
        like testfe01

    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.

    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

    A common use case
          m update host set name = @host_name where host_name like testfe01

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

    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.

CONFIG
    Create a config file by using the the sample configuration file
    /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.

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.

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.


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

    There is nothing like that for the Bash atm.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
  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.

  SSL CA CERTIFICATE
    For restlos.api.host ./ca.pem or /etc/ssl/certs/ca.pem or
    /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 /etc/ssl/certs/ca.pem actually comes from the recommended
    package dependency ca-root-cert, which should be in the Unitix deb
    repository.

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

EXIT CODE
    0   Mon terminates without any error.

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

    3   Some hard error raised by mon itself.

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

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.

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"

AUTHOR
    Paul Buetow - <paul@buetow.org>