SYNOPSIS
failmon [ V ] [d facility] {l|c|h|1} [p port] [ target]
DESCRIPTION
Failmon connects to a runing failsh(l) on the system target (on the
localhost if the target parameter is missing), and displays the data
the failsh chooses to send. There are three display modes, default is a
curses based interface, but options exist that give failmon a command
line interface or ask for HTML‐formatted output. If the host argument
is not specified, failmon contacts the address the nodename resolves
to. If the nodename does not resolve to an IP address on the intended
host, the host argument should be included. If failmon is called as
failmon.cgi, it acts as if it was called with the option ‐h, i.e. it
will display the state information as an HTML page.
OPTIONS
p port
use port number port to connect to the failsh instead of the
default 1848. The option m of failsh can set a different moni‐
toring port.
l run in command line mode. This mode is very primitive, whenever
one presses return, it dumps the state to standard output. There
are currently no other commands.
dfacility
add debugging for facility facility to the debug flags.
c start up using the curses interface.
h Dump the state information as HTML‐text on standard output.
1 Just wait for one state update from the shell, display it as
text and exit.
V display failover version and exit.
CURSES INTERFACE COMMANDS
The curses interface understands the following commands, which will be
quite natural to lynx(1) users
h Display the list of hosts.
c Toggle display of last connect or last call in the hosts list,
switches to list of hosts as a side effect.
l, cursor_left
Display the list of services present on the host.
s, cursor_right
Display the details about the currently selected service from
the service list.
<tab> switch back and forth between host display and either the ser‐
vice list or the service detail screen. This is useful, since
not all information about a host is available on the service
screen.
q Quit.
EXAMPLE
The default installation runs the failsh so that it listens on port
1848 for monitor connections. That is precisely the default port the
failmon connects to. Starting failmon with no arguments therefore gives
the curses interface to the failsh on the local host. Adding a host‐
name argument directs failmon to query that host for monitor informa‐
tion.
Running failmon h from a cron job or CGI script gives a simple web
interface for the failsh on the local host.
TIME VALUES
All time data encodings in this version of failsh use relative times
encoded as timeticks, i.e. hundredths of seconds, stored in a 32bit
unsigned integer. Times displayed in failmon and elsewhere were origi‐
nally transmitted as a time span, and the receiver does not get any
information about the notion of time the remote system has. The advan‐
tage is that time intervals (usually displayed in columns titled "time
ago" in the monitor) do not suffer in precision from inadequately syn‐
chronized system clocks. Furthermore, all time automatically use the
local time and time zone of the monitor. A disadvantage however is that
the timetick value will wrap around after as few as 497 days, or even
earlier (after 248 days) in cases where a signed integer is used to
process the value. However, if a service can run uninterrupted for 248
days, it can be considere highly available without the help of the
failover utilities.
BUGS
Scrolling the lists in the curses interface is not implemented for all
lists. If you have many services, partners or hosts in you system, you
may have to use the HTML or commandline interface.
VERSION
This page documents failmon as it appears in version 0.5.16 of the
failover utilities.
SEE ALSO
failc(1), faild(8), faildebug(8), faildump(1), failsh(8), failstat(1)
AUTHOR
Andreas F. Muller <andreas.mueller@othello.ch>
Failover Utilities 03/12/04 FAILMON(L)
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