BBALPHAMSG truncated 🔗 link

I'm currently in the progress of upgrading/replacing my old hobbit version 4.2.0 to 4.3.4
I have installed on a brand new server and I'm just testing if everything is ok.

My SMS alert script seems to work ok, but the BBALPHAMSG variable seems to be truncated to around 12-16 characters, leaving the status messages incomplete.
I can easily add $DOWNSECS and/or $DOWNSECSMSG and they are added to the message which then is longer of cause.

The exact same script works on my old server, and by manually setting the variables I can send any text I like.

Anyone seen this behavior ?

----
Running on FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE

From /var/log/xymon/alert.log:
2011-11-29 22:12:29 Paging script /usr/local/www/xymon/server/ext/kannel-sms.sh terminated by signal 60 (not sure if signal 60 is ok)
----

Best regards
Gorm

On 11/29/11 16:21, Gorm J. Siiger wrote:

Best regards
Gorm

Hi Gorm... I seem to be seeing the same thing here with v4.3.4

In my alerts.cfg file I have the FORMAT set to "SMS" like so:

--[snip]--
SCRIPT $xymon-sms-alert user-51522e88c0f2@xymon.invalid \
  TIME=$smsalerthours DURATION>5m FORMAT=SMS REPEAT=$never \
  COLOR=red RECOVERED STOP
--[snip]--

(with $never and the other variables defined above in alerts.cfg)

I wrote a custom alert script xymon-SMS-alert.sh  in which (for debugging
purposes) I write out some of the environment variables to a log file for each
alert sent.

In that script I also see that I had written a line to pull something specific
from the BBALPHAMSG for use in my email-to-SMS text message (not sure now
though what that might have been)

This line from my xymon-SMS-alert.sh was pulling everything starting at the
10th _space_ in the BBALPHAMSG, and then grabbing the first string before the
colon in the string that was left over:

--[snip]--
SMSTXT=`echo "$BBALPHAMSG" | cut -d' ' -f10- | cut -d':' -f1`
--[snip]--


Below are several examples of what BBALPHAMSG is being set to, which appear to
me to be truncated and/or missing information.  Each of them only has  3
strings separated by _spaces_ so my SMSTXT variable above ALWAYS evaluates to
null because it is first looking for everything after the 10th space. :)

--[snip]--
BBALPHAMSG=dhcp.example.org:conn red [52433

BBALPHAMSG=zimbra.example.org:memory RECOVERE

BBALPHAMSG=mvfilemaker.example.org:disk DISABLE
--[snip]--


To me it does appear that the SMS format seems to truncate the BBALPHAMSG
variable as shown above.

P.S. It is also possible that my SMSTXT variable was evaluating BBALPHAMSG
when the FORMAT was set to TEXT or SCRIPT during initial testing - both of
which would contain more information - and I had simply left it in there so
now I will have to test that theory too. :)


-- 
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity, LLC
XXX-XXX-XXXX Office
http://www.revpol.com/

Yes, thats exactely what I see - there must be some kind of message
evaluation in the FORMAT=SMS which fails.

Thanks for testing :)

-- 
Best regards
Gorm

On 11/30/11 12:57, Gorm J. Siiger wrote:

Well, it was entirely coincidental that I was looking into my SMS messages at
about the exact time you wrote your message. I had just installed a new SMS
app on my phone yesterday and was paying more attention to the content of the
SMS messages I was receiving which led me to investigate my script. :)

Cheers!

-- 
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity, LLC
http://www.revpol.com/

On 29-11-2011 22:21, Gorm J. Siiger wrote:

Does the attached patch solve it ? Against 4.3.6.


Regards,
Henrik

On 12/06/11 09:32, Henrik Størner wrote:

Hi Henrik.  Thanks for the quick patch butI am not sure that his completely
fixed the issue.  For example, it appears that the first line now looks OK:

I run a printenv > /tmp/SMS>log in my alert script, and BBALPHAMSG looks like:

BBALPHAMSG=host.example.com:cpu yellow [800718]
&yellow Load is HIG


^^^^^--- Is that 2nd line to supposed to be there or is this an IFS issue on
my end?  Either way, it appears just like that with the second line starting
with the & and it also appears to be truncated at the 2nd "H" in HIGH


What is the format of the BBALPHAMSG supposed to look like (eg: the format and
list of fields) when FORMAT=SMS so I know what I am looking for as we move
forward?

Thanks!

--
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity, LLC
http://www.revpol.com/

Henrik... I think I spoke too soon... on recovery,  BBALPHAMSG looks like:

--[snip]--
BBALPHAMSG=host.example.com:cpu RECOVERE
--[snip]--

This is patched 4.3.6

-- 
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity, LLC
http://www.revpol.com/

On 06-12-2011 22:49, Bill Arlofski wrote:

The SMS format should be like this:

HOSTNAME:TESTNAME COLOR [ACK-COOKIE]

followed by any lines in the status message that begin with "&red", 
"&yellow" or "&purple".

It would be interesting to see the full status message. Could you run 
this command while some of the alerts happen:

   xymoncmd xymond_channel --channnel=page cat >/var/tmp/alertfeed.txt

and then pick out one or more of the problem alert messages and send to me ?


Thanks,
Henrik

On 12/06/11 17:03, Henrik Størner wrote:

Requested information sent to private email.

--
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity, LLC
http://www.revpol.com/

On 07-12-2011 22:02, Bill Arlofski wrote:

   xymoncmd xymond_channel --channnel=page cat>/var/tmp/alertfeed.txt

Very helpful, thanks. This patch should put the final touches on fixing 
this bug.


Regards,
Henrik

On 12/07/11 16:46, Henrik Størner wrote:

Hi Henrik, just a quick question.

Do I need to apply this patch to xymond/do_alert.c along with the smaller
patch that you posted on Dec 6 2011, or just this new one?

In other words, will you be backing the previous patch out, or is it also
required as part of a complete fix for this truncating of BBALPHAMSG issue?

I will patch accordingly, then test and report back as soon as I hear from you.

Thanks!

--
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity, LLC
http://www.revpol.com/

On Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:29:12 -0500, Bill Arlofski
<user-0b8af203a56e@xymon.invalid>

wrote:

The new one goes on top of the previous one, so no backing out any
patches.


Regards,
Henrik

On 12/08/11 09:32, user-ce4a2c883f75@xymon.invalid wrote:

This appears to have fixed it. Since I applied it, I have not seen a single
issue with the BBALPHAMSG being truncated including the additional lines that
start with &COLOR .....

Thanks!

-- 
Bill Arlofski
Reverse Polarity, LLC
http://www.revpol.com/

This problem can be corrected by editing the do_alerts.c file, and rebuilding the xymond_alert executable.

diff do_alert.c do_alert.c.orig
527c527
<                                       snprintf(bbalphamsg, msglen+1, "BBALPHAMSG=%s", p);
---

                                      snprintf(bbalphamsg, msglen, "BBALPHAMSG=%s", p);

Bob Dobbs


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On 20-12-2011 19:41, Lose, James wrote:

Yep, this problem was fixed in the 4.3.7 release.


Regards,
Henrik