Plugin not working - warnings? replied by khudgins @ Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:22:11 -0000

khudgins — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:22:11 -0000

I’ve got a plugin that tests okay (scout -p plugin.rb) but I’m getting a warning. (I’m monkeypatching Time)

Would this cause the plugin to fail in real-world use?

Uptime plugin replied by itsderek23 @ Wed, 21 May 2008 05:44:35 -0000

itsderek23 — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:44:35 -0000

Rafi,

Sorry for the delay – currently the uptime plugin doesn’t generate any alerts, so you’ll only get an email notification on an error.

Uptime plugin replied by rafi @ Thu, 15 May 2008 19:02:00 -0000

rafi — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:02:00 -0000

Just checking to make sure the uptime plugin does what I think, b/c I’m not sure I totally understand the email notification thresholds.

If I set up email notification for the uptime plugin (which isn’t parameterized), when will I get emailed by Scout?
Only after a reboot?
All day until uptime is >1?
Something else?

Plugin security replied by rafi @ Thu, 08 May 2008 18:44:36 -0000

rafi — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:44:36 -0000

A couple of ideas:

A. Have the plugin read the password from a file off the disk. For each machine Scout is monitoring, put that password file somewhere only the Scout client user has access to.

B. Set the DB password in an environment variable in the Scout user’s crontab, or just in the crontab line for Scout. Use the password from env in your plugin script.

Plugin security replied by wkoffel @ Wed, 07 May 2008 21:32:17 -0000

wkoffel — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:32:17 -0000

Of course, I found the “How does Scout approach security?” mere minutes after posting this. :-) I think that answers most of my questions. Still not quote confident that I want DB passwords in my plugins. Anyone else have a favorite solution to that issue?

Plugin security replied by wkoffel @ Wed, 07 May 2008 21:23:23 -0000

wkoffel — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:23:23 -0000

What can the admins tell us about plugin security? For example, I’d like to execute some DB queries directly in a plugin (not necessary to load my whole Rails environment). But to do that, I’d need a DB password in the plugin.

I haven’t sniffed to see, but are the connections that the scout client makes encrypted?

How about the security of the plugin store at scoutapp.com? Would it be inadvisable to store proprietary information in a plugin to be distributed by the scout server?

Plugins WANTED! replied by seebq @ Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:27:12 -0000

seebq — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:27:12 -0000

Matt—

I haven’t checked out m|monit, but I actually do use monit to keep all the components running for Scout. Unfortunately though, getting an e-mail about a process ballooning in memory and then restarting doesn’t really help me diagnose why it did it in the first place, or what was going on at the time. I’m with you (and probably preaching to the choir about how Scout helps to alleviate this problem by showing you what other factors could have contributed to this), though!

And having a scout plugin that works in conjunction with monit is a fantastic idea. Brilliant, even.

I am testing a new plugin called, simply enough: Keep Process Running and it couldn’t be simpler. I think interrogating the monit file is an awesome idea too.

Keep ‘em coming! Thanks for the feedback!

Plugins WANTED! replied by Matt @ Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:49:37 -0000

Matt — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:49:37 -0000

What about an interface to monit? The monit folk recently released their “m|monit” project (http://tildeslash.com/mmonit/).

Scout looks a heck of a lot cooler, has a great, defined plug-in interface, is much further along, and doesn’t require another process running (should monit monitor m|monit, too??)—in short, it seems like a far superior solution.

What about a plugin that lets you interface with the monit process already running on our servers? I see the plugin library already has a simple script to restart mongrel. But the monit process monitoring/restarting syntax is significantly more advanced: why re-invent the wheel?

It could start out simply enough: interrogate the monit conf file and execute commands held within, but seems a short hop to then replace all that m|monit does.

Interested in the everyone’s thoughts!!

Thanks,

—
Matt

Plugins WANTED! replied by itsderek23 @ Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:07:12 -0000

itsderek23 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:07:12 -0000

mark,

We don’t have a developer plan so far, but if you are a developer, shoot us an email: support at highgroove dot com and I’m sure we’ll set something up.

Plugins WANTED! replied by mhasse @ Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:53:43 -0000

mhasse — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:53:43 -0000

So, stupid question here, but I am interested in writing plug-ins for Scout. I’ve written a really simple one and was starting on a second, I have a few other ideas that I’d like to move on to from there. One problem—I can only run three plug-ins under the free account. Now, I’m currently monitoring my home server, so it doesn’t really make much sense to pay $14 per month just to have some fun developing in Ruby and then testing what I put together, but I’d like to both monitor critical stats (disk space, etc.) and run the plug-ins that I’ve written to see how they work over time, etc. Is there going to be an option for registered developers to run additional plugins? You can see http://www.bluezucchini.com/scoutplugins for what I’ve written so far and I’ll post the next one when I finish. Thanks in advance. mark.

Plugins WANTED! replied by phill @ Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:49:45 -0000

phill — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:49:45 -0000

Once I get an account I’ll probably do some plugins for different things. Off the top of my head maybe…

1. SNMP for collecting data from routers and access points.
2. Email server usage and Spam Stats.

SNORT plugin coming? replied by seebq @ Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:18:47 -0000

seebq — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:18:47 -0000

That is a most excellent suggestion. It seems like it would be very easy,—since Scout is simply Ruby, one could just parse the log file and grab what they wanted!

Check out our Rails Request plugin for details on how we implemented a simple log parser that reads the log from the end for a low memory footprint, and quick, detailed reads:

Rails Requests Plugin

SNORT plugin coming? replied by virginian @ Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:27:07 -0000

virginian — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:27:07 -0000

PCI compliance has as one of its requirements as a notification of security breach attempts from an IDS/IPS, not just logging.
Scout seems to be an ideal platform to integrate something like a SNORT plugin for this purpose.
High dollar solutions are available from alertlogic.com and others; however, a solution based on Scout and SNORT seems like it could fill a gap.

Any plans to do such in the near future?

Plugins WANTED! replied by seebq @ Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:42:29 -0000

seebq — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:42:29 -0000

Post your most wanted plugins here and we’ll help organize where development is happening!

Here are some of the plugins we’ve gotten requests for since launching:

Monitor Multiple URLS – a plugin that can take in a list of URLs and monitor each one, possibly reporting back data on each

Monitor a Single Mongrel – the mongrel monitor plugin right now takes in a directory like /etc/mongrel_cluster and checks every conf and yml file, for mongrel configurations—this plugin would monitor just a single .conf file for the mongrel

Any more? Comments wanted!

Getting Started Help replied by itsderek23 @ Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:33:46 -0000

itsderek23 — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:33:46 -0000

Creating a plugin for the first time? Check out our tutorial on the process:

HowTo Create a Plugin

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