System administration

Full blown packages...

Cricket is flexible system for monitoring trends in time-series data. I wrote several modules which basically use ssh to acquire data from remote hosts with minimal or no installation on monitored host (apart from .ssh/authorized_keys setup). They include monitoring of:

maillog (using perl script on target) screenshot
iptraf logfile (using perl script on target) screenshot
bind9 stat file (using rndc stats on target) screenshot
disk space (using df on target) screenshot
NTP servers (using ntpq on local host) screenshot
HP OmniBack (using OmniBack command-line user agent on local host)
There is much more comprehensive package called omni_gantt, however...
PostgreSQL monitor for monitoring transactions and disk access
WiFi statistics using hostap driver on Linux screenshot
There is also generate-overview.pl script with generates daily, weekly, monthly and yearly overview of all cricket graphs on one page. It can show or hide some of graphs (to produce cleaner page) and state of each graph (shown or hidden) will be saved using cookies.

Download whole tar-ball or examine ChangeLog, CVS or README [fm]
cricket-modules.tar.gz 22 Kb

Mon is tool used for monitoring service availability and triggering alerts. I wrote or modified several modules for it:

pgsql.monitor is a script which monitors PostgreSQL databases, local and remote (it tries to connect and checks if there are tables in database)
fping+args.monitor is fping monitor which also understands username[:password]@host/database format of hostgroup which pgsql.monitor uses, so you can fping your database servers first
sap.monitor which monitors SAP R/3 servers using sapinfo from RFCSDK
socksch.monitor modification of tcpch.monitor to use SOCKS server (so you can check HTTP and SMTP server through SOCKS server -- I use it to reach external side of my servers)
lwp-http.mon and anon_ftp.monitor are HTTP and FTP monitors which support returning success if any of servers are available, thus creating possibility for bounce testing using hosts on Internet.
tcpch.monitor is modified to include option -f which will enable monitoring of services which close connection really fast (like SAP lpr server)
Modules are nice, but I wanted to check status of my servers using WAP phone, so...

I patched monshow.cgi to produce WML for WAP mobile phones (see screenshot). Here is a patch against monshow.cgi 1.7 or whole monshow.cgi.
Another useful feature would be for mon to send me SMS alerts. Here is module for that:

sms.alert which uses smstools to send out alert SMS messages

All modules available for mon or take a look at ChangeLog or CVS [fm]
mon-modules.tar.gz 27 Kb

omni_gantt -- Work in progress

omni_gantt is a package consisting of three scripts which use OmniBack command-line client under Linux:

omni2db.pl - uses omnistat and store status of currently running backups in PostgreSQL database. It should be stated from cron every minute or so...
db2gantt.cgi - CGI script which draws gantt charts from data stored in database
repgen.pl - script started every hour which uses omnirpt to create html pages (hyper-linked!) with details about backup session. Those pages are also hyper-linked from Gantt charts.

Together those package provides powerful and easy to use web reporting for OmniBack, much better than built-in html output without any hyper-links (you should really wonder why they decided to output html without any links...).

This package, however, have some visual BUGS which I have to solve before releasing 0.0 version. Gantt chars tend to get too wide. It's actually a design decision. I opted to show any event with at least two pixels wide bar in chart. That enables you to see status of that backup (by just moving mouse over spot) or see details (by clicking on it). I think that narrower segments (or skipping some really short events) is not valid option. However, it produces quite strange graphs at some times.
But, it's useful for us in current form also, so I decided to release it early (after 10 months of usage). I would also like to see versions ported to other databases (but, why? PostgreSQL is great :-) and/or to other backup systems (preferably Open Source ones). I'm not quite sure that I will do any of this. But, it's here, under GPL license, so you could give it a try.

All modules available for omni_gantt or take a look at ChangeLog, CVS or screenshot
omni_gantt.tar.gz 10 Kb

psinib - Perl Snapshot Is Not Incremental Backup is script for backup of Samba/CIFS shares to central disk space with snapshots and it has it's own page.

Smaller PERL scripts

You really should rename scripts below before using them! By default, files have _download as extension to prevent web server execution. However, you will want to remove that extension before using them (and chmod 755 to make them executable). All those projects have CVS repository which you can browse.

script which reads syslog maillog (from multiple servers running sendmail and/or postfix) and follows each message as it hops from server to server. Output is written on message-by-message basis.
This script is extremely useful if your messages from multiple mail servers arrive in syslog out of order or interleaved with messages from other servers.
maillog_flow.pl 3.0 Kb

Perl (!) script to produce index file for HouseSpider, an Java applet that adds indexing and search capability to your web site.
It's much easier to use than suggested appletviewer and you can customize it to remove some parts of your web page (e.g. navigation)
HouseSpider.pl 1008 bytes

Did you ever needed to re-create your primary DNS server from secondary DNS? Did you try to read secondary bind DNS zone? Well, this script will sort it for you by IP numbers (and separate each B-class network -- but that's configurable)
sort_bindzone.pl 1.7 Kb

Send different attachments and same message to bunch of people, needs MIME::Lite from CPAN
email_attachements.pl 2.6 Kb

Remove some messages (e.g. Love Letter virus) from multiple mboxes. Very fast, some assembly required; based on code by David Luyer.
fix_mbox.pl 1.9 Kb

Take a directory of inboxes (in mbox format) and re-mail them through sendmail to check for viruses, expand aliases/forwards etc, etc...
mbox2sendmail.pl 819 bytes

Create passwd and shadow file for Linux PAM from Digital Unix (a.k.a. OSF) /etc/passwd file (no support for C2!)
osf2pam.pl 2.1 Kb

Draws graphs (signal and transfer) of your wireless card. Uses RRDTOOL. It can also draw normal ethernet interfaces for comparison.
istatd.pl 5.8 Kb

Other smaller scripts and snippets

Shell script which will create terminal GUI to apt-cache search with ability to install package. Nothing else, nothing more, but much faster than aptitude for this simple task.

This is semi-inteligent script which tries to make diff between two directories which can have slightly different files (e.g. with or without .in at end of filename) or different directory structure. It won't work well if you have files which have same name in more than one place in source directory!
diff_dirs 703 bytes

Full blown packages...
Cricket is flexible system for monitoring trends in time-series data. I wrote several modules which basically use ssh to acquire data from remote hosts with minimal or no installation on monitored host (apart from `.ssh/authorized_keys` setup). They include monitoring of: maillog (using perl script on target) screenshot iptraf logfile (using perl script on target) screenshot bind9 stat file (using `rndc stats` on target) screenshot disk space (using `df` on target) screenshot NTP servers (using `ntpq` on local host) screenshot HP OmniBack (using OmniBack command-line user agent on local host) There is much more comprehensive package called omni_gantt, however... PostgreSQL monitor for monitoring transactions and disk access WiFi statistics using hostap driver on Linux screenshot There is also `generate-overview.pl` script with generates daily, weekly, monthly and yearly overview of all cricket graphs on one page. It can show or hide some of graphs (to produce cleaner page) and state of each graph (shown or hidden) will be saved using cookies.
	Download whole tar-ball or examine ChangeLog, CVS or README [fm] `cricket-modules.tar.gz` 22 Kb
Mon is tool used for monitoring service availability and triggering alerts. I wrote or modified several modules for it: pgsql.monitor is a script which monitors PostgreSQL databases, local and remote (it tries to connect and checks if there are tables in database) fping+args.monitor is fping monitor which also understands `username[:password]@host/database` format of hostgroup which pgsql.monitor uses, so you can fping your database servers first sap.monitor which monitors SAP R/3 servers using `sapinfo` from RFCSDK socksch.monitor modification of `tcpch.monitor` to use SOCKS server (so you can check HTTP and SMTP server through SOCKS server -- I use it to reach external side of my servers) lwp-http.mon and anon_ftp.monitor are HTTP and FTP monitors which support returning success if any of servers are available, thus creating possibility for bounce testing using hosts on Internet. tcpch.monitor is modified to include option -f which will enable monitoring of services which close connection really fast (like SAP lpr server) Modules are nice, but I wanted to check status of my servers using WAP phone, so... I patched `monshow.cgi` to produce WML for WAP mobile phones (see screenshot). Here is a patch against `monshow.cgi` 1.7 or whole `monshow.cgi`. Another useful feature would be for mon to send me SMS alerts. Here is module for that: sms.alert which uses smstools to send out alert SMS messages
	All modules available for mon or take a look at ChangeLog or CVS [fm] `mon-modules.tar.gz` 27 Kb
`omni_gantt` -- Work in progress `omni_gantt` is a package consisting of three scripts which use OmniBack command-line client under Linux: `omni2db.pl` - uses `omnistat` and store status of currently running backups in PostgreSQL database. It should be stated from `cron` every minute or so... `db2gantt.cgi` - CGI script which draws gantt charts from data stored in database `repgen.pl` - script started every hour which uses `omnirpt` to create html pages (hyper-linked!) with details about backup session. Those pages are also hyper-linked from Gantt charts. Together those package provides powerful and easy to use web reporting for OmniBack, much better than built-in html output without any hyper-links (you should really wonder why they decided to output html without any links...). This package, however, have some visual BUGS which I have to solve before releasing 0.0 version. Gantt chars tend to get too wide. It's actually a design decision. I opted to show any event with at least two pixels wide bar in chart. That enables you to see status of that backup (by just moving mouse over spot) or see details (by clicking on it). I think that narrower segments (or skipping some really short events) is not valid option. However, it produces quite strange graphs at some times. But, it's useful for us in current form also, so I decided to release it early (after 10 months of usage). I would also like to see versions ported to other databases (but, why? PostgreSQL is great `:-)` and/or to other backup systems (preferably Open Source ones). I'm not quite sure that I will do any of this. But, it's here, under GPL license, so you could give it a try.
	All modules available for omni_gantt or take a look at ChangeLog, CVS or screenshot `omni_gantt.tar.gz` 10 Kb
	`psinib` - Perl Snapshot Is Not Incremental Backup is script for backup of Samba/CIFS shares to central disk space with snapshots and it has it's own page.

You really should rename scripts below before using them! By default, files have `_download` as extension to prevent web server execution. However, you will want to remove that extension before using them (and `chmod 755` to make them executable). All those projects have CVS repository which you can browse.
	script which reads syslog maillog (from multiple servers running sendmail and/or postfix) and follows each message as it hops from server to server. Output is written on message-by-message basis. This script is extremely useful if your messages from multiple mail servers arrive in syslog out of order or interleaved with messages from other servers. `maillog_flow.pl` 3.0 Kb
	Perl (!) script to produce index file for HouseSpider, an Java applet that adds indexing and search capability to your web site. It's much easier to use than suggested `appletviewer` and you can customize it to remove some parts of your web page (e.g. navigation) `HouseSpider.pl` 1008 bytes
	Did you ever needed to re-create your primary DNS server from secondary DNS? Did you try to read secondary bind DNS zone? Well, this script will sort it for you by IP numbers (and separate each B-class network -- but that's configurable) `sort_bindzone.pl` 1.7 Kb
	Send different attachments and same message to bunch of people, needs `MIME::Lite` from CPAN `email_attachements.pl` 2.6 Kb
	Remove some messages (e.g. Love Letter virus) from multiple mboxes. Very fast, some assembly required; based on code by David Luyer. `fix_mbox.pl` 1.9 Kb
	Take a directory of inboxes (in mbox format) and re-mail them through sendmail to check for viruses, expand aliases/forwards etc, etc... `mbox2sendmail.pl` 819 bytes
	Create `passwd` and `shadow` file for Linux PAM from Digital Unix (a.k.a. OSF) `/etc/passwd` file (no support for C2!) `osf2pam.pl` 2.1 Kb
	Draws graphs (signal and transfer) of your wireless card. Uses RRDTOOL. It can also draw normal ethernet interfaces for comparison. `istatd.pl` 5.8 Kb

	Shell script which will create terminal GUI to `apt-cache search` with ability to install package. Nothing else, nothing more, but much faster than `aptitude` for this simple task.
	This is semi-inteligent script which tries to make diff between two directories which can have slightly different files (e.g. with or without .in at end of filename) or different directory structure. It won't work well if you have files which have same name in more than one place in source directory! `diff_dirs` 703 bytes