Xymon 4.3.31 is close: we need your help to finish it 🔗 link

Hi all,

Seven years after 4.3.30, a new Xymon is nearly ready, and it's a big one:

                         code            tests           docs

241 merged PRs          +5,342 -1,546   +13,266 -2,092  6,497

9 still open            +267 -104       +981 -5         157

Roughly five years of Xymon development, packed into less than one: the

biggest Xymon update since 4.3.0.

Help us get it over the line:

- Got time for just one review? Take #349 or #428: they're the ones

holding the release back.

   https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/349

   https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/428

- Review a 4.3.31 PR. Most of them just wait for a second look:

https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/issues?q=is%3Apr+state%3Aopen+milestone%3A4.3.31

- Or go shopping in the other open PRs. Something for every taste, and

reviewing is free: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pulls

- Build it on your system.

- Run it next to your setup and tell us what changes.

Reply here or open an issue: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon

Thanks!

Bruno

Hi Bruno, hi all.
I cloned main tree yesterday and compiled from source as I always used to do with xymon.

The box is a Slackware64-current, fping 5.5 and rrd 1.11.0 also compiled from source just before xymon. 
The only issue I faced was running make install:

make[1]: ../build/convert-bbservices: Permission denied

That was due to convert-bbservices not being executable. I chmod-ed it an re-run make install and all was fine.
So far now xymon runs smoothly just as it did before. Then I recompiled with SNMP=1 env and got xymon-snmpcollect executable.
I'm planning to start basic SNMP monitoring without devmon on my home network with a few devices: openwrt switches and access points, pfsense firewall, slackware server (it runs xymon and file and media server).
I will let you know how xymon's snmp works in my environment.

I'm not sure if I could soon upgrade also the production server at work, running the 4.3.30 release. It would require a pretty big OS refresh first (also Slackware there) and I don't have so much time, since sysadmin is not my role anymore. We started playing with Grafana, but xymon still rocks!

See you soon !!!

Mario De Chenno

Il giorno gio, 08/10/2026 alle 06.46 +0200, Bruno Manzoni via Xymon ha scritto:

Hi all,

Seven years after 4.3.30, a new Xymon is nearly ready, and it's a big one:

                         code            tests           docs

241 merged PRs          +5,342 -1,546   +13,266 -2,092  6,497

9 still open            +267 -104       +981 -5         157

Roughly five years of Xymon development, packed into less than one: the

biggest Xymon update since 4.3.0.

Help us get it over the line:

- Got time for just one review? Take #349 or #428: they're the ones

holding the release back.

   https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/349

   https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/428

- Review a 4.3.31 PR. Most of them just wait for a second look:

https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/issues?q=is%3Apr+state%3Aopen+milestone%3A4.3.31

- Or go shopping in the other open PRs. Something for every taste, and

reviewing is free: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pulls

- Build it on your system.

- Run it next to your setup and tell us what changes.

Reply here or open an issue: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon

Thanks!

Bruno

xymon@xymon.com

Hi Bruno

I'm testing "4.3.31-root" on RHELv9.8. When I run ./configure I get an error due to ypmatch not being installed:

What userid will be running Xymon [xymon] ?

~/xymon-4.3.31-root/configure.server: line 223: ypmatch: command not found
FAILURE: The user xymon does not exist. Create user and try again.

I would guess the ypmatch command STDERR could simply be discarded with "2>/dev/null", as it is already done with getent.

This is probably only cosmetic, and I don't think this is actually going to cause a problem, except that the compilation fails because the xymon user doesn't exist, but that's something I probably should have already done. If I use the configure command line from the spec file, which sets a bunch of variables, I don't see the error message.

I also noticed that the same line in configure.server appears to have an inconsistency in the use of XYMONUSER:

                USERDATA=`getent passwd $XYMONUSER 2>/dev/null || ypmatch "${XYMONUSER}" passwd || grep "^${XYMONUSER}:" /etc/passwd`

I believe best practice would be to quote "$XYMONUSER" in all three instances, so I'm not sure why it wasn't quoted in the first command.

Ongoing...

I used the spec file to build a package and installed it onto another RHEL9 host. After installation, the only issue I have noticed is that SELinux was preventing CGI scripts from working correctly. I believe the Terabithia RPM package installs a "xymon.pp" file for SELinux to appropriately label the CGI scripts with "httpd_sys_script_exec_t", and also to allow CGI scripts to initiate network connections (required for connecting to localhost:1984).

Apart from that, it all appears to be running correctly, and I'll continue to play with it for a while.

Cheers

Jeremy

On Mon, 12 Oct 2026 at 00:03, Bruno Manzoni via Xymon <xymon@xymon.com> wrote:

Hi Mario,

Thanks! Reproduced: if the tree loses its execute bits, configure restores them on its own scripts but not on build/convert-bbservices. That script only converts a 2005 format, so we're removing it. The PR needs a review before it can merge, and it's a two-line diff, so if you have five minutes, I'd love it to be yours: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/626

And please report back on SNMP, it's still experimental.

Cheers,
Bruno

Le 11.10.2026 à 11:09, hopbyhop.net via Xymon a écrit :

Hi Bruno, hi all.
I cloned main tree yesterday and compiled from source as I always used to do with xymon.

The box is a Slackware64-current, fping 5.5 and rrd 1.11.0 also compiled from source just before xymon. 
The only issue I faced was running make install:

make[1]: ../build/convert-bbservices: Permission denied

That was due to convert-bbservices not being executable. I chmod-ed it an re-run make install and all was fine.
So far now xymon runs smoothly just as it did before. Then I recompiled with SNMP=1 env and got xymon-snmpcollect executable.
I'm planning to start basic SNMP monitoring without devmon on my home network with a few devices: openwrt switches and access points, pfsense firewall, slackware server (it runs xymon and file and media server).
I will let you know how xymon's snmp works in my environment.

I'm not sure if I could soon upgrade also the production server at work, running the 4.3.30 release. It would require a pretty big OS refresh first (also Slackware there) and I don't have so much time, since sysadmin is not my role anymore. We started playing with Grafana, but xymon still rocks!

See you soon !!!

Mario De Chenno

Il giorno gio, 08/10/2026 alle 06.46 +0200, Bruno Manzoni via Xymon ha scritto:

Hi all,

Seven years after 4.3.30, a new Xymon is nearly ready, and it's a big one:

                         code            tests           docs

241 merged PRs          +5,342 -1,546   +13,266 -2,092  6,497

9 still open            +267 -104       +981 -5         157

Roughly five years of Xymon development, packed into less than one: the

biggest Xymon update since 4.3.0.

Help us get it over the line:

- Got time for just one review? Take #349 or #428: they're the ones

holding the release back.

   https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/349

   https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/428

- Review a 4.3.31 PR. Most of them just wait for a second look:

https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/issues?q=is%3Apr+state%3Aopen+milestone%3A4.3.31

- Or go shopping in the other open PRs. Something for every taste, and

reviewing is free: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pulls

- Build it on your system.

- Run it next to your setup and tell us what changes.

Reply here or open an issue: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon

Thanks!

Bruno

xymon@xymon.com

Thanks Bruno. PR reviewed and approved.

I noticed that in include/version.h VERSION is still set to 4.3.30. Should this be bumped to 4.3.31-RC or something like that?

I have to admit that I don't really understand much about Github and CI/CD and dev workflows, so I may be complaining about the wrong thing. It might also be possible that I'm testing an older version of Xymon! I suspect this is not the case, because I downloaded the one tagged 4.3.31-root, and the xymon.spec file shows "Version: 4.3.31".

So it might be the case that it's not appropriate to change VERSION at this time.

Similarly, should the RELEASENOTES be updated? Currently it starts with 4.3.30 and goes backward. But again, this might be the last thing to be updated after testing is complete?

J

On Mon, 12 Oct 2026 at 22:01, Bruno Manzoni via Xymon <xymon@xymon.com> wrote:

Hi Jeremy

Thanks for testing 4.3.31, and for the report.

1 You're right about ypmatch: on a system without NIS tools, configure printed "ypmatch: command not found" whenever getent did not find the user, and configure.client has the same line. Both now discard ypmatch's errors as they do getent's, and quote the user name for getent like the other two lookups. That's pull request #645, for 4.3.31: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/645 

The FAILURE itself was correct: configure needs the xymon user to exist before it runs, so creating it first was the right fix on your side.

->If that works for you, you can review and approve this PR, and it will be on the rpm package automatically.

2 On SELinux: the spec in the source tarball (rpm/xymon.spec) does no SELinux labelling or policy. That's packaging, handled in the xymon-monitoring/xymon-rpm repository, so i started to work on your findings there:  will be pushed without a review as possible normally in a few minutes (I did not enforce double human review for now): Nothing to do in your side. 

3. Also I did update the docs with specific RPM/Rhel info...: Nothing to do in your side. (so shop other feature!)

Cheers
Bruno

Le 12.10.2026 à 08:35, Jeremy Laidman a écrit :

Hi Bruno

I'm testing "4.3.31-root" on RHELv9.8. When I run ./configure I get an error due to ypmatch not being installed:

What userid will be running Xymon [xymon] ?

~/xymon-4.3.31-root/configure.server: line 223: ypmatch: command not found
FAILURE: The user xymon does not exist. Create user and try again.

I would guess the ypmatch command STDERR could simply be discarded with "2>/dev/null", as it is already done with getent.

This is probably only cosmetic, and I don't think this is actually going to cause a problem, except that the compilation fails because the xymon user doesn't exist, but that's something I probably should have already done. If I use the configure command line from the spec file, which sets a bunch of variables, I don't see the error message.

I also noticed that the same line in configure.server appears to have an inconsistency in the use of XYMONUSER:

                USERDATA=`getent passwd $XYMONUSER 2>/dev/null || ypmatch "${XYMONUSER}" passwd || grep "^${XYMONUSER}:" /etc/passwd`

I believe best practice would be to quote "$XYMONUSER" in all three instances, so I'm not sure why it wasn't quoted in the first command.

Ongoing...

I used the spec file to build a package and installed it onto another RHEL9 host. After installation, the only issue I have noticed is that SELinux was preventing CGI scripts from working correctly. I believe the Terabithia RPM package installs a "xymon.pp" file for SELinux to appropriately label the CGI scripts with "httpd_sys_script_exec_t", and also to allow CGI scripts to initiate network connections (required for connecting to localhost:1984).

Apart from that, it all appears to be running correctly, and I'll continue to play with it for a while.

Cheers

Jeremy

On Mon, 12 Oct 2026 at 00:03, Bruno Manzoni via Xymon <xymon@xymon.com> wrote:

Hi Mario,

Thanks! Reproduced: if the tree loses its execute bits, configure restores them on its own scripts but not on build/convert-bbservices. That script only converts a 2005 format, so we're removing it. The PR needs a review before it can merge, and it's a two-line diff, so if you have five minutes, I'd love it to be yours: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/626

And please report back on SNMP, it's still experimental.

Cheers,
Bruno

Le 11.10.2026 à 11:09, hopbyhop.net via Xymon a écrit :

Hi Bruno, hi all.
I cloned main tree yesterday and compiled from source as I always used to do with xymon.

The box is a Slackware64-current, fping 5.5 and rrd 1.11.0 also compiled from source just before xymon. 
The only issue I faced was running make install:

make[1]: ../build/convert-bbservices: Permission denied

That was due to convert-bbservices not being executable. I chmod-ed it an re-run make install and all was fine.
So far now xymon runs smoothly just as it did before. Then I recompiled with SNMP=1 env and got xymon-snmpcollect executable.
I'm planning to start basic SNMP monitoring without devmon on my home network with a few devices: openwrt switches and access points, pfsense firewall, slackware server (it runs xymon and file and media server).
I will let you know how xymon's snmp works in my environment.

I'm not sure if I could soon upgrade also the production server at work, running the 4.3.30 release. It would require a pretty big OS refresh first (also Slackware there) and I don't have so much time, since sysadmin is not my role anymore. We started playing with Grafana, but xymon still rocks!

See you soon !!!

Mario De Chenno

Il giorno gio, 08/10/2026 alle 06.46 +0200, Bruno Manzoni via Xymon ha scritto:

Hi all,

Seven years after 4.3.30, a new Xymon is nearly ready, and it's a big one:

                         code            tests           docs

241 merged PRs          +5,342 -1,546   +13,266 -2,092  6,497

9 still open            +267 -104       +981 -5         157

Roughly five years of Xymon development, packed into less than one: the

biggest Xymon update since 4.3.0.

Help us get it over the line:

- Got time for just one review? Take #349 or #428: they're the ones

holding the release back.

   https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/349

   https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/428

- Review a 4.3.31 PR. Most of them just wait for a second look:

https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/issues?q=is%3Apr+state%3Aopen+milestone%3A4.3.31

- Or go shopping in the other open PRs. Something for every taste, and

reviewing is free: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pulls

- Build it on your system.

- Run it next to your setup and tell us what changes.

Reply here or open an issue: https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon

Thanks!

Bruno

xymon@xymon.com

I figured out what I need: I was thinking more to make it easier for everyone.

Thanks for the shortcut to avoid answering all questions at every attempt.

Another thing I noticed is that the "make clean" command is not actually cleaning up everything: moving from x86_64 to aarch64, I had to delete all .a files, together with the .lo ones

Nicola

Il giorno lun 19 ott 2026 alle ore 16:04 Roland Rosenfeld <user-237a1e03bc39@xymon.invalid> ha scritto:

Hi Nicola!

On Mon, 19 Oct 2026, Nicola wrote:

> * an hint on how to checkout (if at all possible) PRs without the gh
>   CLI

I usually use the github web GUI.  If I need a patch (for example from
PR 668), just append ".patch" to the PR URL and you get one:
https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/668.patch
Okay, that's not a perfect GIT workflow, but for my use case (adding
them to the Debian source package using quilt) it's what I need.

> I will continue reviewing to the best of my possibilities, but I
> think addressing the above could ease the path for new contributors.

I fear that there are as many different workflows as contributors :-)

On Mo, 19 Okt 2026, Nicola wrote:

> Now answering to myself.
> I see there is no mention anywhere on how to install the pcre2 packages on
> debian (a git grep apt.*pcre2 shows nothing useful).
> Is it worth adding it along with the yum docs?

That depends who you address with this.  I as a Debian developer don't
need this info ;-)
On Debian installing pcre2 build libraries can be done with
 apt install libpcre2-dev

Maybe you should have a lookg at .github/workflows/build.yml, which
gives hints how to install build dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
          sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
            build-essential \
            libc-ares-dev \
            libldap-dev \
            libpcre2-dev \
            librrd-dev \
            libssl-dev \
            libtirpc-dev

as well as for building:

env USEXYMONPING=y \
          ENABLESSL=y \
          ENABLELDAP=y \
          ENABLELDAPSSL=y \
          XYMONUSER=xymon \
          XYMONTOPDIR=/usr/lib/xymon \
          XYMONVAR=/var/lib/xymon \
          XYMONHOSTURL=/xymon \
          CGIDIR=/usr/lib/xymon/cgi-bin \
          XYMONCGIURL=/xymon-cgi \
          SECURECGIDIR=/usr/lib/xymon/cgi-secure \
          SECUREXYMONCGIURL=/xymon-seccgi \
          HTTPDGID=www-data \
          XYMONLOGDIR=/var/log/xymon \
          XYMONHOSTNAME=localhost \
          XYMONHOSTIP=127.0.0.1 \
          MANROOT=/usr/share/man \
          INSTALLBINDIR=/usr/lib/xymon/server/bin \
          INSTALLETCDIR=/etc/xymon \
          INSTALLWEBDIR=/etc/xymon/web \
          INSTALLEXTDIR=/usr/lib/xymon/server/ext \
          INSTALLTMPDIR=/var/lib/xymon/tmp \
          INSTALLWWWDIR=/var/lib/xymon/www \
          ./configure --server
make

(to the other questions I don't have answers).

Greetings
Roland

xymon@xymon.com
To unsubscribe send an email to xymon-leave@xymon.com

I read the PR description, but I am not sure what "client analysis" means: what would be missing from the web rendering?

Is it log grepping for example?

Nicola

Il giorno mar 20 ott 2026 alle ore 06:24 Bruno Manzoni via Xymon <xymon@xymon.com> ha scritto:

Hi Nicola

Thanks for reviewing, and welcome aboard. Taking your points in order:

1. Checking out a PR without gh:

git fetch origin pull/585/head:pr-585
    git checkout pr-585

Roland's .patch trick works too. Note that I rebased all the open PRs on
current main yesterday, so if you already have pr-585, fetch it again:

git fetch origin pull/585/head
    git checkout -B pr-585 FETCH_HEAD

2. Docker: there's nothing in the main repo yet, but my fork has an
experimental setup on the cmake/bootstrap branch. It builds the tree
inside a distro image and installs it there. To try it on a PR:

git remote add bonomani https://github.com/bonomani/xymon.git
    git fetch bonomani cmake/bootstrap
    git checkout pr-585
    git checkout bonomani/cmake/bootstrap -- docker ci
    docker build -f docker/Dockerfile --build-arg BASE_IMAGE=debian:12 --build-arg BUILD_TOOL=make -t xymon-pr585 .

To run the test suite in that image:

docker run --rm xymon-pr585 bash -c 'cd /src && XYMON_VARIANT=server ./tests/testsuite'

And to start the installed Xymon and query it (for #585, the last line
should print 0):

docker run --rm xymon-pr585 bash -c '
      set -e
      cp -a /tmp/xymon-stage/var/. /var/
      mkdir -p /var/log/xymon
      chown -R xymon:xymon /var/lib/xymon /var/log/xymon
      su xymon -s /bin/sh -c "/var/lib/xymon/server/bin/xymon.sh start"
      X=/var/lib/xymon/server/bin/xymon
      for i in $(seq 30); do $X 127.0.0.1 ping && break; sleep 1; done
      $X 127.0.0.1 "config hosts.cfg" | tr -cd "\000" | wc -c'

I tested all of this on #585 with Debian 12, on amd64 and arm64: 118
tests pass, Xymon starts, and the reply has no NUL bytes. "git reset
--hard" takes you back to the plain PR afterwards.

3. Dependencies: you're right that the docs are behind: install.html
still lists the old pcre-devel. #672 fixes that, with a current command
for Debian and other common systems. On Debian it's:

apt-get install build-essential libc-ares-dev libldap-dev libpcre2-dev librrd-dev libssl-dev libtirpc-dev

It's a draft until #138 and #349 merge, but a review is very welcome:
https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/672

And no, there's no separate base branch: main switched to PCRE2 after
4.3.30, so libpcre2-dev was all you were missing.

4. Verifying #585: the bug is NUL bytes in xymond's reply to
"config hosts.cfg". Every host listed after the bad line loses alerts and
client analysis, while the web page still shows it. Two things trigger
it:
  - an empty "optional directory" line, every time;
  - an "include" of a missing file, but only when the line has trailing
    whitespace.

To see it, compare main and the PR:

xymon 127.0.0.1 "config hosts.cfg" | od -c | grep '\\0'

On main you should get NUL bytes, and the hosts after that line are
missing from the reply. With #585 there are no NULs and every host is
there. The shipped hosts.cfg ends with an "optional directory" line, so a
fresh install like the Docker one above already shows the difference. If
you used a "directory" line pointing to a missing directory, that's the
one path the PR didn't test, so a report on it would be very welcome.

5. make clean: confirmed. It doesn't clean the bundled c-ares under
xymonnet/c-ares, so the x86_64 objects survive. Use "make distclean" when
you change architecture. #138 removes the bundled copy and builds against
the system c-ares, so the problem goes away when it merges. It's waiting
for review if you want another one:
https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/138

Cheers

Bruno

Le 19.10.26 à 19:25, Nicola via Xymon a écrit :

I figured out what I need: I was thinking more to make it easier for everyone.

Thanks for the shortcut to avoid answering all questions at every attempt.

Another thing I noticed is that the "make clean" command is not actually cleaning up everything: moving from x86_64 to aarch64, I had to delete all .a files, together with the .lo ones

Nicola

Il giorno lun 19 ott 2026 alle ore 16:04 Roland Rosenfeld <user-237a1e03bc39@xymon.invalid> ha scritto:

Hi Nicola!

On Mon, 19 Oct 2026, Nicola wrote:

> * an hint on how to checkout (if at all possible) PRs without the gh
>   CLI

I usually use the github web GUI.  If I need a patch (for example from
PR 668), just append ".patch" to the PR URL and you get one:
https://github.com/xymon-monitoring/xymon/pull/668.patch
Okay, that's not a perfect GIT workflow, but for my use case (adding
them to the Debian source package using quilt) it's what I need.

> I will continue reviewing to the best of my possibilities, but I
> think addressing the above could ease the path for new contributors.

I fear that there are as many different workflows as contributors :-)

On Mo, 19 Okt 2026, Nicola wrote:

> Now answering to myself.
> I see there is no mention anywhere on how to install the pcre2 packages on
> debian (a git grep apt.*pcre2 shows nothing useful).
> Is it worth adding it along with the yum docs?

That depends who you address with this.  I as a Debian developer don't
need this info ;-)
On Debian installing pcre2 build libraries can be done with
 apt install libpcre2-dev

Maybe you should have a lookg at .github/workflows/build.yml, which
gives hints how to install build dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
          sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
            build-essential \
            libc-ares-dev \
            libldap-dev \
            libpcre2-dev \
            librrd-dev \
            libssl-dev \
            libtirpc-dev

as well as for building:

env USEXYMONPING=y \
          ENABLESSL=y \
          ENABLELDAP=y \
          ENABLELDAPSSL=y \
          XYMONUSER=xymon \
          XYMONTOPDIR=/usr/lib/xymon \
          XYMONVAR=/var/lib/xymon \
          XYMONHOSTURL=/xymon \
          CGIDIR=/usr/lib/xymon/cgi-bin \
          XYMONCGIURL=/xymon-cgi \
          SECURECGIDIR=/usr/lib/xymon/cgi-secure \
          SECUREXYMONCGIURL=/xymon-seccgi \
          HTTPDGID=www-data \
          XYMONLOGDIR=/var/log/xymon \
          XYMONHOSTNAME=localhost \
          XYMONHOSTIP=127.0.0.1 \
          MANROOT=/usr/share/man \
          INSTALLBINDIR=/usr/lib/xymon/server/bin \
          INSTALLETCDIR=/etc/xymon \
          INSTALLWEBDIR=/etc/xymon/web \
          INSTALLEXTDIR=/usr/lib/xymon/server/ext \
          INSTALLTMPDIR=/var/lib/xymon/tmp \
          INSTALLWWWDIR=/var/lib/xymon/www \
          ./configure --server
make

(to the other questions I don't have answers).

Greetings
Roland

xymon@xymon.com
To unsubscribe send an email to xymon-leave@xymon.com

xymon@xymon.com
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To unsubscribe send an email to xymon-leave@xymon.com