[Nagiosplug-devel] Working on testcases

[sean finney]

hey,

On Mon, Nov 14, 2005 at 10:32:42AM +0000, Ton Voon wrote:
> >about dns: i think there are two specific and very different kinds
> >of failure.  there is "general resolution failure", and there is a
> >"host does not exist failure".  i would say that the former ought
> >to remain as an UNKNOWN, as it parallels similar failures in other
> >system calls such as malloc.  however, if the plugin gets a "no such
> >host" response, then it definitely should be CRITICAL--as you could
> >implicitly divine that the hostname is supposed to resolve.   
> >similarly,
> >i feel that remote service check connection failures should remain
> >CRITICAL.
> 
> Given the above definition, both failures should be UNKNOWN. I'm with  
> Andreas on this. But there's Sean and Ethan on CRITICAL. So the  
> voting currently stands at 2-2.
> 
> If we go with CRITICAL, then this needs to be marked as an exception  
> in the guidelines.

i disagree that this would be an "exception", and has more to do with
individual interpretation of the two classes of errors.  

in the case that name resolution fails entirely, this would be indicative
of a problem outside the control of both the plugin and the remove service
being checked(maybe someone tripped over the nagios servers' cable).
in such a case, nothing can be divined about the ability to reach a
specified host, and the contact for the service is not the proper person
to notify.

but... if the lookup operation succeeds (that is, it talks with a name
server, but was unable to find a specified host), then dns is working
"just fine" (or working, anyway).  in such a case, there is nothing
wrong with the plugin's attempt to prepare and/or execute the check,
but the host does not seem to exist.  such a problem would be more
properly directed to the contact for the service.


	sean
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