Ext tests/scripts 🔗 link

We have several custom tests we use from our BB server to check
applications. In BB it was possible to add these into the /ext directory and
then call them from /etc/bb-bbexttab. Is there a provision for this type of
thing in Hobbit?


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On Mon, Feb 14, 2005 at 04:15:00PM -0500, user-fd47fec4b039@xymon.invalid wrote:

Set them up as tasks in hobbitlaunch.cfg .

NB: The environment variables provided by Hobbit to a script is not 
quite the same as that which BB provides. Some BB extensions use
environment variables for some commands, e.g $GREP instead of grep.
Hobbit does not set this up by default, so you should check what 
your scripts expect, and if necessary add the extra environment
variables to hobbitserver.cfg (or change the script).


Henrik

On Mon, 2005-02-14 at 22:59 +0100, Henrik Stoerner wrote:

Just wondering if there is a reason for this?

Personally, whenever writing ext scripts, I always made an effort to
call all the various utilities like sed/grep/etc as ${SED}/${GREP}/etc.
This, I figured saved everyone from editing the ext script for each
platform they needed to run it on (assuming it is either being shared on
deadcat, or else being used across multiple OS's.... Even different
releases of linux use different paths.

It would seem a shame to need to make all these scripts *more*
specific...

PS, I haven't yet had a chance to install hobbit, so perhaps I am
missing something really obvious... It sounds great, and once it is
released, I'm sure I will install and use it.

Regards,
Adam

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On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 09:32:02AM, Adam Goryachev wrote:

I would assume it would be owner's responsibility to make their script,
be it shell/perl or something else, as portable as possible. Assuming,
you rather depend on the environment for your script to work, switching
from BB environment to HOBBIT environment you get a lot more performance
and flexibility gain compare to the lose of enviroment variables.

Such a small loss for such a huge gain, you do the math. Now if you
still want your scripts to work just follow what Henrik said and add
those variables to hobbitserver.cfg file.

Thanks

-- 

Asif Iqbal
PGP Key: 0xE62693C5 KeyServer: pgp.mit.edu
"...it said: Install Windows XP or better...so I installed Solaris..."

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 09:32:02AM +1100, Adam Goryachev wrote:

Sure is.

Finding the commands to go with those environment variables is tricky,
since some implementations hide the useful ones in odd
places. E.g. have you ever tried getting the wrong "id" command on
Solaris ? The useful one is /usr/xpg4/bin/id, not /bin/id (which
doesn't know about all those options I take for granted because I'm
spoilt by GNU software).

Just an example ... don't get me started on /usr/ccs/bin or
/usr/ucb/bin or the horrors in /opt :-(

Since Hobbit doesn't use those commands *at all* - the only shell
scripts in Hobbit are the wrappers to set up environments for the CGI
scripts - it would be a lot of effort with no benefit to Hobbit.

And really, most of the BB extensions really are client-side scripts.
They'll run just fine as extensions to the BB client. Hobbit is a
server-side replacement (yes, I know there are thoughts and plans and
even some code for a Hobbit client, but that's some time into the
future), so the number of scripts that are bitten by this is fairly
small, I think.

Just add the needed ones to hobbitserver.cfg - it might be as simple
as 

  SED=sed
  GREP=grep
  AWK=awk
  CAT=cat
  TR=tr

to make them work and just use whatever is in the PATH.


Regards,
Henrik

On Tue, 2005-02-15 at 00:09 +0100, Henrik Stoerner wrote:

Yes, going from Linux to solaris was..... fun <?> same for linux ->
*BSD, though maybe not so bad. I very much missed by GNU software :)

Yep....

Yep, I begin to see...

This I suppose is the real reason.... ie, it doesn't matter *most* of
the time....

Are these defined once for all ext scripts, or once for each ext script?
Can they be sourced (. /foo.bar)?
It would be interesting if we could take these file location definitions
from BB, but maybe even that small amount of data is copyright/license
infringing/something...

Perhaps all those ext scripts I wrote should start with something like:
if [ ! -x ${GREP} ]
then
	if [ ! -x grep ]
	then
		COLOR=red
		LINE="grep binary not found and env variable GREP not executable
(${GREP})"
	else
		GREP=grep
	fi
fi

or something similar....

Mostly, as you said, this will affect the clients more.... so, for now,
I will just keep quiet.

Regards,
Adam

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On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 10:44:37AM +1100, Adam Goryachev wrote:

Hobbit has a "master program" called "hobbitlaunch" which takes care
of running the various tasks at scheduled intervals. It also sets up
all of the environment variables defined in the configuration file
hobbitserver.cfg - bbgen (which is part of Hobbit) still uses quite a
few. So if we decide to add these command variables to the setup, then
the scripts can generally assume that they are defined.

I did actually try running the standard BB client from hobbitlaunch,
i.e. without any of the setup that is normally done by bbdef.sh and
friends. There were about 75 variables that had to be defined.

Please don't, I do appreciate your input. I have my own ideas about
how to use Hobbit, but there's an immense body of experience in the BB
community that Hobbit can benefit from. If this project is going to
succeed, then I need all of the bright ideas I can get - so the
feedback here is essential.


Regards,
Henrik

I'd like to throw in a vote for platform specific definitions as well.

As the maintainer of over 40 scripts, it is a nice feature in BB to allow me to rely on pre defined
variables so I don't need to work out which grep I need to use, and be fairly confident a variable will be available.

Personally, I don't like to rely on what my path will return, it is challenging to keep path statements consistent.
For security reasons, I always call binaries with the full path if I can.  (Some systems may have /usr/local/bin first, others don't).

I'm okay with hobbit not defining $GREP and friends out of the box, but the ability to do it for each platform would be very nice.

I've been bitten by the stupid default binaries on Solaris as well.  Some of us do not have the ability to easily add software to systems (company policies, change control, laws, etc).

Most of my shell scripts check for pre defined variables, if not set, it defines what it thinks it should use and posts a yellow warning complaining about it.

One of the great features of hobbit is the ability to use any BB deadcat script...

I agree this is mainly a client side issue, but something to keep in mind... ;)


Craig

ps. I agree with the knowledge thought, it looks like hobbit will attract some talented followers!
--
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To get all my server side 'ext' scripts to work consistently, all I did was copy bbdef.sh and bbsys.sh to Hobbit and added the same few lines to each 'ext' script.  Something like:

if [ -f $MY_BBDEF ]; then
  . $MY_BBDEF
else
  echo "Need $MY_BBDEF to run!"
  exit 1
fi

I made a few edits to bbdef.sh and bbdef.sh calls bbsys.sh, problem solved.  Took about 5 minutes.  bbsys.sh has all those binaries you are looking for. 
~David

Craig Cook wrote:

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 09:25:35AM -0500, Craig Cook wrote:

[snip]

OK, I give in :-)

I posted a script this morning that sniffs out the settings commonly
used by BB scripts - SED, GREP, AWK, CUT and so on - and I'll include
that in the default setup so hobbitserver.cfg provides these to all
scripts. 

Yes, this will be fun.


Regards,
Henrik