xml configs
list Galen Johnson
Hey Henrik, I know this would be a rather significant change but have you considered switching hobbit to use xml based config files? I'm actually working on an external module that will use an xml config file and thinking about the schema, etc it occurred to me that hobbit would lend itself nicely to xml configs. Just curious... =G=
list Greg L Hubbard
I vote against this. I LIKE easily understood text files, since I configure Hobbit with a text editor. If there were to be an configuration GUI some day that took over all Hobbit configuration tasks, then I would cease to care how the files are stored. GLH
▸
-----Original Message-----
From: Galen Johnson [mailto:user-87f955643e3d@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 10:08 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] xml configs
Hey Henrik,
I know this would be a rather significant change but have you considered
switching hobbit to use xml based config files? I'm actually working on
an external module that will use an xml config file and thinking about
the schema, etc it occurred to me that hobbit would lend itself nicely
to xml configs.
Just curious...
=G=
list David Pullman
▸
Hubbard, Greg L wrote:
I vote against this. I LIKE easily understood text files, since I configure Hobbit with a text editor. If there were to be an configuration GUI some day that took over all Hobbit configuration tasks, then I would cease to care how the files are stored. GLH -----Original Message----- From: Galen Johnson [mailto:user-87f955643e3d@xymon.invalid] Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 10:08 AM To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid Subject: [hobbit] xml configs Hey Henrik, I know this would be a rather significant change but have you considered switching hobbit to use xml based config files? I'm actually working on an external module that will use an xml config file and thinking about the schema, etc it occurred to me that hobbit would lend itself nicely to xml configs. Just curious... =G=
We use scripts to build config files, especially bb-hosts and all of it's included files. I'd need a bunch of cycles to move that to xml, if only because I haven't (yet) done a lot with xml in scripting. A gui would not help me at all. We automate everything we can with perl. --David
list Larry Sherman
I 2nd the vote against. Can't stand xml config files. One vendor I work with, Wombat Financial, gives you the option to use .cf or .xml, but this adds it's own level of unnecessary complexity... KIS...please.
▸
-----Original Message-----
From: Hubbard, Greg L [mailto:user-d970b5e56ec9@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 11:24 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: RE: [hobbit] xml configs
I vote against this. I LIKE easily understood text files, since I
configure Hobbit with a text editor. If there were to be an
configuration GUI some day that took over all Hobbit configuration
tasks, then I would cease to care how the files are stored.
GLH
-----Original Message-----
From: Galen Johnson [mailto:user-87f955643e3d@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 10:08 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] xml configs
Hey Henrik,
I know this would be a rather significant change but have you considered
switching hobbit to use xml based config files? I'm actually working on
an external module that will use an xml config file and thinking about
the schema, etc it occurred to me that hobbit would lend itself nicely
to xml configs.
Just curious...
=G=
*******************************************************************
• This e-mail is intended only for the addressee named above.
As this e-mail may contain confidential or privileged information,
if you are not the named addressee, you are not authorized
to retain, read, copy or disseminate this message or any part of
it.
*******************************************************************
*
list Tod Hansmann
I'm with Greg for his reasons, and the fact (yes, fact) that xml is stupidly slow to parse compared to the alternative (no tags). If you don't need the conformity xml brings (i.e. standard format across multiple unknown systems), then xml isn't advantageous, regardless of how much hobbit's config files would be easily put into xml. No offense meant, of course, Galen. I think you're correct that it does make an easy conversion to an xml schema. It just doesn't make sense to make it less readable with such a performance hit. (I'd still like to see Henrik's take on the idea, though.) Tod Hansmann Network Engineer
▸
-----Original Message-----
From: Hubbard, Greg L [mailto:user-d970b5e56ec9@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 9:24 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: RE: [hobbit] xml configs
I vote against this. I LIKE easily understood text files, since I
configure Hobbit with a text editor. If there were to be an
configuration GUI some day that took over all Hobbit configuration
tasks, then I would cease to care how the files are stored.
GLH
-----Original Message-----
From: Galen Johnson [mailto:user-87f955643e3d@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 10:08 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] xml configs
Hey Henrik,
I know this would be a rather significant change but have you considered
switching hobbit to use xml based config files? I'm actually working on
an external module that will use an xml config file and thinking about
the schema, etc it occurred to me that hobbit would lend itself nicely
to xml configs.
Just curious...
=G=
list Ralph Mitchell
▸
On 5/21/07, David Pullman <user-dadeec876109@xymon.invalid> wrote:
We use scripts to build config files, especially bb-hosts and all of it's included files. I'd need a bunch of cycles to move that to xml, if only because I haven't (yet) done a lot with xml in scripting. A gui would not help me at all. We automate everything we can with perl.
I don't do perl *or* xml, so that would be a NO vote from me too. Ralph Mitchell
list Dave Haertig
I'm well versed in XML and complex XLST transformations and PERL, I do this all the time, but I still prefer to leave Hobbit's config files the way they are. I see no benefit in moving them to XML, except to support some yet-to-be-developed GUI configuration tool. Which I wouldn't use anyway ... I'm a command line type of guy. But if the Hobbit config is delivered in XML files in the future, I won't whine about it. I'll just vi the XML and be on my merry way.
▸
-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Mitchell [mailto:user-00a5e44c48c0@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 10:04 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: Re: [hobbit] xml configs
On 5/21/07, David Pullman <user-dadeec876109@xymon.invalid> wrote:We use scripts to build config files, especially bb-hosts and all of it's included files. I'd need a bunch of cycles to move that to xml, if only because I haven't (yet) done a lot with xml in scripting. A gui would not help me at all. We automate everything we can with perl.
I don't do perl *or* xml, so that would be a NO vote from me too. Ralph Mitchell
list Henrik Størner
▸
On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 11:08:12AM -0400, Galen Johnson wrote:
I know this would be a rather significant change but have you considered switching hobbit to use xml based config files?
No, I haven't considered this. To make me do such a conversion, however, I would have to see some genuine benefit in doing so. And right now, I don't see any - even though I spent a couple of days last week learning a lot about XML. Just to be able to tick off the "XML configurable ?" checkbox doesn't count much in my world :-) Regards, Henrik
list Galen Johnson
WOW...well, this was an unexpected hot button. To me, XML is as easy as the current config but looks more structured and seems like it would be more easily expandible. I just vi whatever file I need anyway so GUI's make no difference to me, either. I find it interesting to note that not a single response has been in favor. At most, a non-committal, luke-warm "makes no diff" is the "most" favorable I've seen. It has been an interesting discussion, though. =G=
▸
-----Original Message-----
From: Galen Johnson [mailto:user-87f955643e3d@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 11:08 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] xml configs
Hey Henrik,
I know this would be a rather significant change but have you considered switching hobbit to use xml based config files? I'm actually working on an external module that will use an xml config file and thinking about the schema, etc it occurred to me that hobbit would lend itself nicely to xml configs.
Just curious...
=G=
list Dave Haertig
Nothing against XML in general. But my feeling is that it's of most use when data needs to be shared by different applications maintained by different people. Or if you're using some generic off-the-shelf tool to accomplish a task and that tool needs XML. I doubt there are too many apps out there (any at all?) that have a need to parse a hobbit config file. The things that come to mind as possibilities have already been covered by Hobbit built-ins, like bbhostgrep. And even if that one weren't available, I could hack out a quick shell script to get the info faster than I could review the XML schema and implement structured parsing of an XML config file. And I'm better than average with XML/XSLT. My Hobbit client scripts are 99% custom things I've written. Many access XML files for various reasons (typically using XSLT). But that's because these client scripts share bits and pieces of the data with a wide diversity of other apps. Were it only the Hobbit client that needed the data, XML/XSLT would be way overkill.
▸
-----Original Message-----
From: Galen Johnson [mailto:user-87f955643e3d@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 12:21 PM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: RE: [hobbit] xml configs
WOW...well, this was an unexpected hot button. To me, XML is as easy as
the current config but looks more structured and seems like it would be
more easily expandible.
I just vi whatever file I need anyway so GUI's make no difference to me,
either. I find it interesting to note that not a single response has
been in favor. At most, a non-committal, luke-warm "makes no diff" is
the "most" favorable I've seen.
It has been an interesting discussion, though.
=G=
-----Original Message-----
From: Galen Johnson [mailto:user-87f955643e3d@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 11:08 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] xml configs
Hey Henrik,
I know this would be a rather significant change but have you considered
switching hobbit to use xml based config files? I'm actually working on
an external module that will use an xml config file and thinking about
the schema, etc it occurred to me that hobbit would lend itself nicely
to xml configs.
Just curious...
=G=
list Henrik Størner
▸
On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 07:24:58PM +0200, Henrik Stoerner wrote:
On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 11:08:12AM -0400, Galen Johnson wrote:I know this would be a rather significant change but have you > considered switching hobbit to use xml based config files?No, I haven't considered this. To make me do such a conversion, however, I would have to see some genuine benefit in doing so. And right now, I don't see any - even though I spent a couple of days last week learning a lot about XML. Just to be able to tick off the "XML configurable ?" checkbox doesn't count much in my world :-)
Just remembered one point that I would like to make: I am not against using XML in Hobbit, on the contrary it could make a lot of sense for Hobbit to provide more of the data it has in XML form. There is already the "hobbitdxboard" command that gives you the current status in XML, and other kind of data could well be provided by Hobbit via XML, e.g. so some 3rd party application can query Hobbit for the configuration of a monitored host. Using XML for this is a no-brainer - making data available in a standardized form is exactly why XML exists. I'm working on making the bb-hosts file be needed only on the central Hobbit server, so when you have multiple Hobbit servers running network tests, you need not distribute or maintain the bb-hosts file on multiple servers. Among other things, this requires that an application can query the Hobbit server for the configuration of one or more hosts; and I can see several reasons to make this interface available in some XML form - even if Hobbit itself might not use the XML version of the data. Regards, Henrik
list Buchan Milne
▸
On Monday, 21 May 2007, Haertig, David F (Dave) wrote:
Nothing against XML in general. But my feeling is that it's of most use when data needs to be shared by different applications maintained by different people. Or if you're using some generic off-the-shelf tool to accomplish a task and that tool needs XML. I doubt there are too many apps out there (any at all?) that have a need to parse a hobbit config file. The things that come to mind as possibilities have already been covered by Hobbit built-ins, like bbhostgrep.
We have one, an event generator (SCRIPT in hobbit-alerts) for a middleware system that our enterprise uses for integrating other monitoring systems into CA Unicenter, which we need to parse bb-nkview.cfg ... But, the parsing of bb-nkview.cfg would be obsolete if we could match on the fact that it is a critical system in hobbit-alerts.cfg. Now, I wouldn't mind a decent way to generate configurations (from our in-house configuration management tool/database ... which has a way to go before we can consider making it available ...). Regards, Buchan -- Buchan Milne ISP Systems Specialist - Monitoring/Authentication Team Leader B.Eng,RHCE(803004789010797),LPIC-2(LPI000074592)