Re: RFC: Module idea: Carp + controlled email

Thanks to everyone for your comments.

I took a look at Log::Log4Perl, and it looks very cool. I'll take a closer look this week.
I like the idea of logging to syslog and then scanning through the logs, especially if I use a central logging server.
Regarding the eval {} test idea, I actually do worry about every line of code causing my script to die. Or more accurately, the one time I forget the eval {} test is the one time I'm going to really eat my own foot. So, I really need something that logs/emails problems that I don't forsee.
Nagios sounds like something nice for monitoring if your web server is running or something like that, but I really want something that's going to send me email when my account creation script finds a line from the student registrations dump that contains a field it can't parse. Am I missing some features of Nagios that are cooler than I realise?

Thanks!

Comment on Re: RFC: Module idea: Carp + controlled email

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Re^2: RFC: Module idea: Carp + controlled email by john_oshea (Priest) on Nov 27, 2005 at 12:30 UTC
Regarding the Nagios approach, you could have your program log errors to file, then use Nagios to monitor the file - possibly using the check_logs plugin If you're concerned about your programs terminating unexpectedly, you could either: do some basic monitoring to see if the process is still running (for long-running processes), or log a 'program starting' message, then write a plugin to check for subsequent 'in progress' messages (or a corresponding 'program finishing' message) within a certain time period, and raise an alert if you've not heard anything. That would be the stuff that's most applicable to your situation as I understand it - there are plugins for an awful lot of sysadmin-related tasks, so I guess your use of Nagios is going to be dictated by how much of the other functionality is going to be of use. If your sole use is going to be for monitoring your own code, installing and configuring Nagios is probably going to be overkill. Still, it's nice to have options, eh? ;-)	[reply]

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Re^2: RFC: Module idea: Carp + controlled email
by john_oshea (Priest) on Nov 27, 2005 at 12:30 UTC

Regarding the Nagios approach, you could have your program log errors to file, then use Nagios to monitor the file - possibly using the check_logs plugin

If you're concerned about your programs terminating unexpectedly, you could either:

do some basic monitoring to see if the process is still running (for long-running processes), or
log a 'program starting' message, then write a plugin to check for subsequent 'in progress' messages (or a corresponding 'program finishing' message) within a certain time period, and raise an alert if you've not heard anything.

That would be the stuff that's most applicable to your situation as I understand it - there are plugins for an awful lot of sysadmin-related tasks, so I guess your use of Nagios is going to be dictated by how much of the other functionality is going to be of use. If your sole use is going to be for monitoring your own code, installing and configuring Nagios is probably going to be overkill. Still, it's nice to have options, eh? ;-)

[reply]