[Nagiosplug-devel] [RFC] Plugins config file

[sean finney]

On Mon, 2006-10-16 at 06:36 -0700, william(at)elan.net wrote:
> Common way to deal with this is to have option that reads additional 
> arguments from specified file, i.e. it would be:
>     Usage: check_db_query_rowcount [-v] -q <query> -w <warn-count>
>               -c <crit-count> [--config <config-file>]
> where the file would contain
>    -d <dsn> -u user> -p <pass>

this is a really interesting idea.  i especially like it because it's
generalizable to any kind of plugin, as long as it implemented that
feature.  i might suggest "--extra-opts" or similar as an alternative
name to "--config" though.

> Another option is to have environment variables but not actually expand 
> during call, i.e.
>     check_db_query_rowcount -p '$DB_PASS' -u '$DB_USER' ...
> Be carefull though to only read passed shell variables and not allow
> reading actual variables used in program.

unfortunately, no--you can read exported environment variables via ps as
well :(

> The processing of command-line options in one or both ways above could 
> potentially be done be done by optional plugin library and not something 
> each plugin writer  has to worry about - this would in fact make it 
> simple to further expand to common format config file for plugins.

yes.  though we would have to ensure that calls to process_arguments()
and the like were idempotent, or at least combine the two sets of
arguments into a single string before calling the function.



	sean
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