Yes, this is called "data driven programming" and is generally agreed on as a Good Thing. :-)

There is room for improvement though. You are using functions that take no parameters, a single time each. There's no need to put that code in functions.

As suggested, a refined ps call will help a lot. If you have a GNU ps available, try ps xo command.

A suggestion for your configuration needs: use Config::General, makes for much nicer files, something like:

Enabled 1

<Process ldap>
    Name "ldapd -p 389"
    Message "LDAP is not running"
    Level medium
</Process>

<Process mta>
    Name "sendmail: accepting"
    Message "Sendmail daemon is not accepting connections"
    Level critical
</Process>

<Process ntp>
    Name /xntpd
    Message "NTP daemon is not running"
    Level minor
</Process>

<Process httpd>
    Name apache/bin/httpd
    Message "Apache web server is not running"
    Level minor
</Process>

[download]
Overall it then looks like this: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Config::General;

delete @ENV{qw(IFS PATH CDPATH ENV BASH_ENV)};

my %config = Config::General->new(
    -ConfigFile => ".processcheckrc",
    -LowerCaseNames => 1,
)->getall;

exit unless $config{enabled};

my $ptable = `/usr/bin/ps xo command`;

my %alert;

while(my($name,$option) = each %{$config{process}}) {
    my $re = quotemeta $option->{name};
    push @{ $alert{ $option->{level} } }, $option->{message}
        unless $ptable =~ /$re/;
}

print "REPORT TAKEN AT " . localtime . "\n";

print map "$_\n", "\U$_\E ALERTS", @{%alert{$_}}
    for sort keys %alert;

[download]

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re: Anticipation of future needs and other musings from the crystal ball by Aristotle
in thread Anticipation of future needs and other musings from the crystal ball by Limbic~Region

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