vsimd - Very Simple Interface Monitoring Daemon

Project Summary: http://sourceforge.net/projects/vsimd/

Last page update: 2001/03/30

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                             Vsimd README
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Vsimd stands for Very Simple Interface Monitoring Daemon.

Vsimd goal is to provide a simple ICMP-ECHO-based infrastructure on
top of which monitoring tools can be built.

Vsimd periodicaly sends ICMP ECHO requests to a set of internet hosts,
waits for the replies and then reports the result as text
output. That's all.

One may write fancy display interfaces on top of vsimd. In the 'tools'
directory there is a small sample utility written in Perl and called
'webgen' which can read vsimd output and issue a web page. Simply
instruct webgen to send such output to your web server document tree
and you have a poor man's ping monitor.

Vsimd WEB RESOURCES

        Home Page:

                http://vsimd.sourceforge.net

        Project Summary:

                http://sourceforge.net/projects/vsimd/

COMPILING

        Vsimd has been compiled and tested on:

                System:         GNU/Linux Debian Potato
                Kernel:         Linux 2.2.17
                make:           3.79.1
                g++:            2.95.2
                libc6:          2.1.3
                libstdc++2.10   2.1.3

        In order to compile, type:

                cd src
                make

        The 'vsimd' binary is expected to be issued.

RUNNING

        Vsimd needs a configuration file which specifies the target
        hostnames, one per line. Use the file 'cfg/sample.cfg' as a
        template.

        The program needs root privileges in order to access raw ICMP
        sockets.

        Invokation Syntax:

        vsimd -h
        vsimd -v
        vsimd [-d ...] [-i] [-c ] [-o ] [-t ]

        Options:

        -h      Shows summary of options.
        -v      Shows program version.
        -d      Increases log verbosity. Logging is sent to system log
                under daemon facility.
        -i      Interactive mode; prevents program from detaching from
                terminal.
        -c      Specifies alternate configuration file. The default is
                /etc/vsimd.cfg.
        -o      Specifies alternate output file. The default is
                to use standard output.
        -t      Specifis alternate monitoring interval in seconds. The
                default is 10 seconds.

        Example:

        cd src
        ./vsimd -i -c ../cfg/sample.cfg

THE webgen SAMPLE UTILITY

        Options:

        -o      Specifies output file. Required.
        -t      Specifies alternate monitoring interval in seconds. The
                default is 10 seconds.

        Example:

        cd src
        ./vsimd -c ../cfg/sample.cfg | ../tools/webgen -o /var/www/index.html

        /var/www is supposed to be the root of your web server
        document tree.

Enjoy,
Everton
2001/03/30