Frequently Asked Questions (with Answers)

Installing
  

1. I get all sort of permission denied errors from the cgi program, how should I have permission set on the various items in the datadir?

The datadir and auth file and control socket need to be writable by the www user (or whatever user/group your web server runs as).
The log, user and html/* files need to be readable by the www user and writable by the argus user (or whatever user argusd runs as).
The notno, notify/*, and stats/* need to be writable by the argus user.
There is, of course, more than one way to do this, but one way:

		ls -lF $datadir
		drwxr-xr-x  6 www          512 Oct 19 12:32 ./
		-rw-r--r--  1 www        32768 Oct 20 11:37 auth
		drwxr-xr-x  2 argus	   512 Sep 20 13:18 config/
		srw-rw-rw-  1 argus	     0 Oct 19 12:31 control=
		drwxr-xr-x  2 argus	  4608 Oct 20 11:37 html/
		-rw-r--r--  1 argus	151033 Oct 19 12:31 log
		drwxr-xr-x  2 argus	 18944 Oct 20 11:30 notify/
		-rw-r--r--  1 argus	     5 Oct 20 11:30 notno
		drwxr-xr-x  2 argus	 52224 Oct  3 11:10 stats/
		-rw-r--r--  1 argus	   134 Sep 20 15:25 users
	


Configuring
  

2. How can I monitor HTTP on a particular host on port 80/tcp and also HTTP on the same host on port 8080/tcp?
Argus does not like you if you add:

		Host "jeremy-03.example.com" {
			Service TCP/HTTP
			Service TCP/HTTP {
				port: 8080
			}
		}
	

It doesn't work because Argus requires objects to have unique names, so it can tell them apart. In the above example both objects will have the name HTTP_jeremy-03.example.com.
You can override the default name Argus uses to identify objects:

		Host "jeremy-03.example.com" {
			Service TCP/HTTP {
				uname: HTTP-PRIMARY
			}
			Service TCP/HTTP {
				port:  8080
				uname: HTTP-SECONDARY
			}
		}
	


  

3. I want argus to notify me about DOWN events, but not about UP events. Is there some syntax I can use to do this?

If you set the messageup or messagedn parameter to the empty string, then that message will not be sent.

		Service Ping {
			messageup:
		}
	


  

4. I am trying to monitor a djbdns server using UDP/DNS and it always shows as down. It appears to work when I test it manually. What to do?

The UDP/DNS test sends a DNS 'status' query, which is ignored by djbdns. Use the UDP/DNSQ test or a UDP/Domain test instead.


  

5. How can I monitor my DHCP server?

The DHCP protocol is a real bugger. Currently, Argus cannot monitor it directly. Some Argus users have had success setting Arus up to run the program 'dhcping':
DHCP Ping Freshmeat Page
This program does require being installed setuid root and has some limitations, so it may not work in all environments.


Other
  

6. I keep seeing: Sep 11 06:18:26 pluto.example.com sendmail[2665]: NOQUEUE: pluto.example.com [10.0.0.1] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to MTA in my sendmail log. What is this?

New versions of sendmail log every connection that does not issue valid mail transfer commands. The author recommends that you ignore the message.
If you to issue a valid MAIL command, you would still get entries in your log file (but different messages).
If the message really bothers you, and you don't mind breaking the protocol, the author has noticed that sendmail does not log syntax errors:

			Service TCP/SMTP {
				send:	MAIL\r\n
			}
	
silly, silly, sendmail developers...


  

7. Can I get on a mailing list to learn about new versions of the software

There is not currently a mailing list, but to find out about software updates, add the following to your config:

		Service TCP/URL {
			url:		http://www.tcp4me.com/code/argus/
			browser:	Argus Version Check - 3.01
			expect:		argus-3\.01\.tgz
			label:		Argus Version
			messagedn:	New Version of Argus Available
			frequency:	86400
			retries:	5
			retrydelay:	600
		}
	


  

8. Another monitoring application includes a feature that lets me get a random quotation by clicking a button, such as:

		"It was as true as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them." 
		Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
	
How can I get argus to do this?

Why do you want a monitoring application to provide random quotations?