checkservice - checks the status of services on (remote) hosts

checkservice [OPTIONS]...

Checkservice will get its information about what to do from the combination of a global configfile and host-specific files. It can scan either one host or all hosts for which those host-specific configfiles are available. Checkservice provides two types of scans that are configurable for every separate service: simple and extended. For an extended service-check plugins are used. These will thoroughly check if the service is REALLY working. If no plugin is available for that service or the configuration for that service is set to do a simple check, Checkservice will perform a test if the port/ports given for that service is/are open.

Checkservice provides three types of output:

logfiles

Write the status of each service in a separate logfile for the specified host.

stdout

This is meant for the Checkservice php-script, the format is exactly like the configfile but with the status at then end.

mrtg

Simple form of output: print a zero if the specified host is up and all the services are working correctly, or a one if one of the services is failing the test or the host is down. This number is followed by the localtime (see also: perlfunc (1p) for the format).

-t, --targethost=STR

Specify the host to scan. A configfile for that host must be available in <configdir>/hosts. If STR is '*', all hosts will be scanned for which configfiles are available.

-c, --configdir=PATH

Specifies configdir, (default: /etc/checkservice).

-l, --logdir=PATH

Logdirectory where host-specific logs should be kept. If PATH is '-', Checkservice will print to stdout (default).

-m, --mrtg

Generate only a 0 (host is up & all services are ok) or 1 to stdout, followed by localtime. Using this option, logdir specification will be ignored. NB. The targethost option is compulsory!

-h, --help

Show this help and exit.

-v, --version=MODE

Show version (if MODE is 'short', only version number will be printed) and exit.

/etc/checkservice/config

Global configfile.

/etc/checkservice/*.mail

Template mail files, in which the following variables can be used:

%t time server/service went down.

%h host that either is unreachable or has a failing service.

%s service that went down (not available in the host unreachable-template).

%p portset defined for service.

The subject is also configurable by adding a 'Subject: .....' line on top of the template, it will be stripped from the mail's contents. Variable substitution is also performed to that Subject-line.

/etc/checkservice/hosts/*

Host-specific configfiles. Look at checkservice(5) for the format. Note that directory structures are allowed to create a sort of groups (and subgroups, etc).

This manual page was written by Paul van Tilburg <paul@linvision.com>, for Linvision BV.

Report bugs to paul@linvision.com

This software is copyright © 2000, by Paul van Tilburg

You are free to distribute this software under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

checkservice(5)