Provided by: mirmon_2.9-1_all bug

NAME

       mirmon - monitor the state of mirrors

SYNOPSIS

         mirmon [ -v ] [ -q ] [ -t timeout ] [ -get opt ] [ -c conf ]

OPTIONS

       -v  Be verbose ; mirmon normally only reports errors and changes in the mirror list.

       -q  Be quiet.

       -t timeout
           Set the timeout ; the default is 300.

       -get all | update
           With all, probe all sites ; with update, probe a selection of the sites ; see option
           "max_poll" below.

       -c name
           Use config file name. The default list is

             ./mirmon.conf $HOME/.mirmon.conf /etc/mirmon.conf

USAGE

       The program is intended to be run by cron every hour.

         42 * * * * perl /path/to/mirmon -get update

       It quietly probes a subset of the sites in a given list, writes the results in the 'state'
       file and generates a web page with the results. The subset contains the sites that are
       new, bad and/or not probed for a specified time.

       When no 'get' option is specified, the program just generates a new web page from the last
       known state.

       The program checks the mirrors by running a (user specified) program on a pipe. A (user
       specified) number of probes is run in parallel using nonblocking IO. When something can be
       read from the pipe, it switches the pipe to blocking IO and reads one line from the pipe.
       Then it flushes and closes the pipe. No attempt is made to kill the probe.

       The probe should return something that looks like

         1043625600 ...

       that is, a line of text starting with a timestamp. The exit status of the probe is
       ignored.

CONFIG FILE

   location
       A config file can be specified with the -c option.  If -c is not used, the program looks
       for a config file in

       •   ./mirmon.conf$HOME/.mirmon.conf/etc/mirmon.conf

   syntax
       A config file looks like this :

         +--------------------------------------------------
         |# lines that start with '#' are comment
         |# blank lines are ignored too
         |# tabs are replaced by a space
         |
         |# the config entries are 'key' and 'value' pairs
         |# a 'key' begins in column 1
         |# the 'value' is the rest of the line
         |somekey  A_val B_val ...
         |otherkey X_val Y_val ...
         |
         |# indented lines are glued
         |# the next three lines mean 'somekey part1 part2 part3'
         |somekey part1
         |  part2
         |  part3
         |
         |# lines starting with a '+' are concatenated
         |# the next three lines mean 'somekey part1part2part3'
         |somekey part1
         |+ part2
         |+ part3
         |
         |# lines starting with a '.' are glued too
         |# don't use a '.' on a line by itself
         |# 'somekey' gets the value "part1\n part2\n part3"
         |somekey part1
         |. part2
         |. part3
         +--------------------------------------------------

   required entries
       project_name name
           Specify a short plaintext name for the project.

             project_name Apache
             project_name CTAN

       project_url url
           Specify an url pointing to the 'home' of the project.

             project_url http://www.apache.org/

       mirror_list file-name
           Specify the file containing the mirrors to probe.

             mirror_list /path/to/mirror-list

           If your mirror list is generated by a program, use

             mirror_list /path/to/program arg1 ... |

           Two formats are supported :

           •   plain : lines like

                 us http://www.tux.org/ [email] ...
                 nl http://apache.cs.uu.nl/dist/ [email] ...
                 nl rsync://archive.cs.uu.nl/apache-dist/ [email] ...

           •   apache : lines like those in the apache mirrors.list

                 ftp  us ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/net/apache/dist/ user@tux.org ...
                 http nl http://apache.cs.uu.nl/dist/ user@cs.uu.nl ...

           Note that in style 'plain' the third item is reserved for an optional email address :
           the site's contact address.

           Specify the required format with option "list_style" (see below).  The default style
           is 'plain'.

       web_page file-name
           Specify where the html report page is written.

       icons directory-name
           Specify the directory where the icons can be found, relative to the web_page, or
           relative to the DOCUMENTROOT of the web server.

           If/when the web_page lives in directory ".../mirmon/" and the icons live in directory
           ".../mirmon/icons/", specify

             icons icons

           If/when the icons live in "/path/to/DOCUMENTROOT/icons/mirmon/", specify

             icons /icons/mirmon

       probe program + arguments
           Specify the program+args to probe the mirrors. Example:

             probe /usr/bin/wget -q -O - -T %TIMEOUT% -t 1 %URL%TIME.txt

           Before the program is started, %TIMEOUT% and %URL% are substituted with the proper
           timeout and url values.

           Here it is assumed that each hour the root server writes a timestamp in
           /path/to/archive/TIME.txt, for instance with a crontab entry like

             42 * * * * perl -e 'print time, "\n"' > /path/to/archive/TIME.txt

           Mirmon reads one line of output from the probe and interprets the first word on that
           line as a timestamp ; for example :

             1043625600
             1043625600 Mon Jan 27 00:00:00 2003
             1043625600 www.apache.org Mon Jan 27 00:00:00 2003

           Mirmon is distributed with a program "probe" that handles ftp, http and rsync urls.

       state file-name
           Specify where the file containing the state is written.

           The program reads this file on startup and writes the file when mirrors are probed
           (-get is specified).

       countries file-name
           Specify the file containing the country codes; The file should contain lines like

             us - United States
             nl - Netherlands

           The mirmon package contains a recent ISO list.

           Fake domains like Backup, Master are allowed, and are listed first in the report ;
           lowercase-first fake domains (like backup) are listed last.

   optional entries
       max_probes number
           Optionally specify the number of parallel probes (default 25).

       timeout seconds
           Optionally specify the timeout for the probes (default 300).

           After the last probe is started, the program waits for <timeout> + 10 seconds, cleans
           up and exits.

       project_logo logo
           Optionally specify (the SRC of the IMG of) a logo to be placed top right on the page.

             project_logo /icons/apache.gif
             project_logo http://www.apache.org/icons/...

       htm_head html
           Optionally specify some HTML to be placed before </HEAD>.

             htm_head
               <link REL=StyleSheet HREF="/style.css" TYPE="text/css">

       htm_top html
           Optionally specify some HTML to be placed near the top of the page.

             htm_top testing 1, 2, 3

       htm_foot html
           Optionally specify HTML to be placed near the bottom of the page.

             htm_foot
               <HR>
               <A HREF="..."><IMG SRC="..." BORDER=0></A>
               <HR>

       put_histo top|bottom|nowhere
           Optionally specify where the age histogram must be placed.  The default is 'top'.

       min_poll time-spec
           For 'min_poll' see next item. A time-spec is a number followed by a unit 's'
           (seconds), or 'm' (minutes), or 'h' (hours), or 'd' (days).  For example '3d' (three
           days) or '36h' (36 hours).

       max_poll time-spec
           Optionally specify the maximum probe interval. When the program is called with option
           '-get update', all sites are probed which are :

           •   new

               the site appears in the list, but there is no known state

           •   bad

               the last probe of the site was unsuccessful

           •   old

               the last probe was more than 'max_poll' ago.

           Sites are not probed if the last probe was less than 'min_poll' ago.  So, if you
           specify

             min_poll 4h
             max_poll 12h

           the 'reachable' sites are probed twice daily and the 'unreachable' sites are probed at
           most six times a day.

           The default 'min_poll' is '1h' (1 hour).  The default 'max_poll' is '4h' (4 hours).

       min_sync time-spec
           Optionally specify how often the mirrors are required to make an update.

           The default 'min_sync' is '1d' (1 day).

       max_sync time-spec
           Optionally specify the maximum allowable sync interval.

           Sites exceeding the limit will be considered 'old'.  The default 'max_sync' is '2d' (2
           days).

       always_get region ...
           Optionally specify a list of regions that must be probed always.

             always_get Master Tier1

           This is intended for fake regions like Master etc.

       no_randomize
           Mirmon tries to balance the probe load over the hourly mirmon runs.  If the current
           run has a below average number of mirrors to probe, mirmon probes a few extra,
           randomly chosen mirrors, picked from the runs that have the highest load.

           If you don't want this behaviour, use no_randomize.

       no_add_slash
           If the url part of a line in the mirror_list doesn't end in a slash ('/'), mirmon adds
           a slash and issues a warning unless it is in quiet mode.

           If you don't want this behaviour, use no_add_slash.

       list_style plain|apache
           Optionally specify the format ('plain' or 'apache') of the mirror-list.

           See the description of 'mirror_list' above.  The default list_style is 'plain'.

       site_url site url
           Optionally specify a substitute url for a site.

           When access to a site is restricted (in Australia, for instance), another (sometimes
           secret) url can be used to probe the site.  The <site> of an url is the part between
           '://' and the first '/'.

       env key value
           Optionally specify an environment variable.

       include file-name
           Optionally specify a file to include.

           The specified file is processed 'in situ'. After the specified file is read and
           processed, config processing is resumed in the file where the "include" was
           encountered.  The include depth is unlimited. However, it is a fatal error to include
           a file twice under the same name.

       show
           When the config processor encounters the 'show' command, it dumps the content of the
           current config to standout, if option "-v" is specified. This is intented for
           debugging.

       exit
           When the config processor encounters the 'exit' command, it terminates the program.
           This is intented for debugging.

STATE FILE FORMAT

       The state file consists of lines; one line per site.  Each line consists of white space
       separated fields.  The seven fields are :

       •   field 1 : url

           The url as given in the mirror list.

       •   field 2 : age

           The mirror's timestamp found by the last successful probe, or 'undef' if no probe was
           ever successful.

       •   field 3 : status last probe

           The status of the last probe, or 'undef' if the mirror was never probed.

       •   field 4 : time last successful probe

           The timestamp of the last successful probe or 'undef' if the mirror was never
           successfully probed.

       •   field 5 : probe history

           The probe history is a list of 's' (for success) and 'f' (for failure) characters
           indicating the result of the probe. New results are appended whenever the mirror is
           probed.

       •   field 6 : state history

           The state history consists of a timestamp, a '-' char, and a list of chars indicating
           a past status: 's' (fresh), 'b' (oldish), 'f' (old), 'z' (bad) or 'x' (skip).  The
           timestamp indicates when the state history was last updated.  The current status of
           the mirror is determined by the mirror's age and a few configuration parameters
           (min_sync, max_sync, max_poll).  The state history is updated when the mirror is
           probed.  If the last update of the history was less than 24 hours ago, the last status
           is replaced by the current status.  If the last update of the history was more than 24
           hours ago, the current status is appended to the history.  One or more 'skip's is
           inserted, if the timestamp is two or more days old (when mirmon hasn't run for more
           than two days).

       •   field 7 : last probe

           The timestamp of the last probe, or 'undef' if the mirror was never probed.

INSTALLATION

   general
       •   Note: The (empty) state file must exist before mirmon runs.

       •   The mirmon repository is here :

             https://svn.science.uu.nl/repos/project.mirmon/trunk/

       •   The mirmon tarball is here :

             http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~penni101/mirmon/mirmon.tar.gz

   installation suggestions
       To install and configure mirmon, take the following steps :

       • First, make the webdir :

           cd DOCUMENTROOT
           mkdir mirmon

         For DOCUMENTROOT, substitute the full pathname of the document root of your webserver.

       • Check out the mirmon repository :

           cd /usr/local/src
           svn checkout REPO mirmon

         where

           REPO = https://svn.science.uu.nl/repos/project.mirmon/trunk/

         or download the package and unpack it.

       • Chdir to directory mirmon :

           cd mirmon

       • Create the (empty) state file :

           touch state.txt

       • Install the icons in the webdir :

           mkdir DOCUMENTROOT/mirmon/icons
           cp icons/* DOCUMENTROOT/mirmon/icons

       • Create a mirror list "mirror_list" ;

         Use your favorite editor, or genererate the list from an existing database.

           nl http://archive.cs.uu.nl/your-project/ contact@cs.uu.nl
           uk http://mirrors.this.org/your-project/ mirrors@this.org
           us http://mirrors.that.org/your-project/ mirrors@that.org

         The email addresses are optional.

       • Create a mirmon config file "mirmon.conf" with your favorite editor.

           # lines must start in the first column ; no leading white space
           project_name ....
           project_url  ....
           mirror_list mirror_list
           state state.txt
           countries countries.list
           web_page DOCUMENTROOT/mirmon/index.html
           icons /mirmon/icons
           probe /usr/bin/wget -q -O - -T %TIMEOUT% -t 1 %URL%TIME.txt

         This assumes the project's timestamp is in file "TIME.txt".

       • If you have rsync urls, change the probe line to :

           probe perl /usr/local/src/mirmon/probe -t %TIMEOUT% %URL%TIME.txt

       • Run mirmon :

           perl mirmon -v -get all

         The mirmon report should now be in 'DOCUMENTROOT/mirmon/index.html'

           http://www.your.project.org/mirmon/

       • If/when, at a later date, you want to upgrade mirmon :

           cd /usr/local/src/mirmon
           svn status -u
           svn up

SEE ALSO

       mirmon.pm(3)

AUTHOR

         (c) 2003-2013 Henk P. Penning
         Faculty of Science, Utrecht University
         http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~penni101/ -- penning@uu.nl
         mirmon-2.9 - Tue Aug 13 06:48:23 2013 ; henkp