Provided by: xymon-client_4.3.25-1_amd64 
NAME
xymon - Xymon client communication program
SYNOPSIS
xymon [options] RECIPIENT message
DESCRIPTION
xymon(1) is the client program used to communicate with a Xymon server. It is frequently used by Xymon client systems to send in status messages and pager alerts on local tests. In Xymon, the xymon program is also used for administrative purposes, e.g. to rename or delete hosts, or to disable hosts that are down for longer periods of time.
OPTIONS AND PARAMETERS
--debug
Enable debugging. This prints out details about how the connection to the Xymon server is being
established.
--proxy=http://PROXYSERVER:PROXYPORT/
When sending the status messages via HTTP, use this server as an HTTP proxy instead of connecting
directly to the Xymon server.
--timeout=N
Specifies the timeout for connecting to the Xymon server, in seconds. The default is 5 seconds.
--response
The xymon utility normally knows when to expect a response from the server, so this option is not
required. However, it will cause any response from the server to be displayed.
--merge
Merge the command line message text with the data provided on standard input, and send the result
to the Xymon server. The message text provided on the command line becomes the first line of the
merged message.
RECIPIENT
The RECIPIENT parameter defines which server receives the message. If RECIPIENT is given as
"0.0.0.0", then the message is sent to all of the servers listed in the XYMSERVERS environment
variable.
Usually, a client will use "$XYMSRV" for the RECIPIENT parameter, as this is defined for the
client scripts to automatically contain the correct value.
The RECIPIENT parameter may be a URL for a webserver that has the xymoncgimsg.cgi or similar
script installed. This tunnels the Xymon messages to the Xymon server using standard HTTP
protocol. The xymoncgimsg.cgi(8) CGI tool (included in Xymon) must be installed on the webserver
for the HTTP transport to work.
MESSAGE
The message parameter is the message to be sent across to the Xymon server. Messages must be
enclosed in quotes, but by doing so they can span multiple lines. The maximum size of a message is
defined by the maximum allowed length of your shell's command-line, and is typically 8-32 KB.
If you need to send longer status messages, you can specify "@" as the message: xymon will then
read the status message from its stdin.
XYMON MESSAGE SYNTAX
This section lists the most commonly used messages in the Xymon protocol.
Each message must begin with one of the Xymon commands. Where a HOSTNAME is specified, it must have any
dots in the hostname changed to commas if the Xymon FQDN setting is enabled (which is the default). So
the host "www.foo.com", for example, would report as "www,foo,com".
status[+LIFETIME][/group:GROUP] HOSTNAME.TESTNAME COLOR <additional text>
This sends in a status message for a single test (column) on a single host. TESTNAME is the name
of the column where this test will show up; any name is valid except that using dots in the
testname will not work. COLOR must be one of the valid colors: "green", "yellow", "red" or
"clear". The colors "blue" and "purple" - although valid colors - should not be sent in a status
message, as these are handled specially by the Xymon server. As a special case (for supporting
older clients), "client" can be used as the name of the color. This causes the status message to
be handled by Xymon as a "client" data message, and the TESTNAME parameter is used as the
"collector id".
The "additional text" normally includes a local timestamp and a summary of the test result on the
first line. Any lines following the first one are free-form, and can include any information that
may be useful to diagnose the problem being reported.
The LIFETIME defines how long this status is valid after being received by the Xymon server. The
default is 30 minutes, but you can set any period you like. E.g. for a custom test that runs once
an hour, you will want to set this to at least 60 minutes - otherwise the status will go purple
after 30 minutes. It is a good idea to set the LIFETIME to slightly longer than the interval
between your tests, to allow for variations in the time it takes your test to complete. The
LIFETIME is in minutes, unless you add an "h" (hours), "d" (days) or "w" (weeks) immediately after
the number, e.g. "status+5h" for a status that is valid for 5 hours.
The GROUP option is used to direct alerts from the status to a specific group. It is currently
used for status generated from the Xymon clients' data, e.g. to direct alerts for a "procs" status
to different people, depending on exactly which process is down.
notify HOSTNAME.TESTNAME <message text>
This triggers an informational message to be sent to those who receive alerts for this
HOSTNAME+TESTNAME combination, according to the rules defined in alerts.cfg(5) This is used by the
enadis.cgi(1) tool to notify people about hosts being disabled or enabled, but can also serve as a
general way of notifying server administrators.
data HOSTNAME.DATANAME<newline><additional text>
The "data" message allows tools to send data about a host, without it appearing as a column on the
Xymon webpages. This is used, for example, to report statistics about a host, e.g. vmstat data,
which does not in itself represent something that has a red, yellow or green identity. It is used
by RRD bottom-feeder modules, among others. In Xymon, data messages are by default processed only
by the xymond_rrd(8) module. If you want to handle data-messages using an external application,
you may want to enable the xymond_filestore(8) module for data-messages, to store data-messages in
a format compatible with how the Big Brother daemon does.
disable HOSTNAME.TESTNAME DURATION <additional text>
Disables a specific test for DURATION minutes. This will cause the status of this test to be
listed as "blue" on the Xymon server, and no alerts for this host/test will be generated. If
DURATION is given as a number followed by s/m/h/d, it is interpreted as being in
seconds/minutes/hours/days respectively. To disable a test until it becomes OK, use "-1" as the
DURATION. To disable all tests for a host, use an asterisk "*" for TESTNAME.
enable HOSTNAME.TESTNAME
Re-enables a test that had been disabled.
query HOSTNAME.TESTNAME
Query the Xymon server for the latest status reported for this particular test. If the host/test
status is known, the response is the first line of the status report - the current color will be
the first word on the line. Additional lines of text that might be present on the status message
cannot be retrieved.
This allows any Xymon client to determine the status of a particular test, whether it is one
pertaining to the host where the client is running, some other host, or perhaps the result of a
combined test from multiple hosts managed by combostatus(1) This will typically be useful to Xymon
client extension scripts, that need to determine the status of other hosts, for example, to decide
if an automatic recovery action should be initiated.
config FILENAME
Retrieve one of the Xymon configuration files from the server. This command allows a client to
pull files from the $XYMONHOME/etc/ directory on the server, allowing for semi-automatic updates
of the client configuration. Since the configuration files are designed to have a common file for
the configuration of all hosts in the system - and this is in fact the recommended way of
configuring your clients - this makes it easier to keep the configuration files synchronized.
drop HOSTNAME
Removes all data stored about the host HOSTNAME. It is assumed that you have already deleted the
host from the hosts.cfg configuration file.
drop HOSTNAME TESTNAME
Remove data about a single test (column).
rename OLDHOSTNAME NEWHOSTNAME
Rename all data for a host that has had its name changed. You should do this after changing the
hostname in the hosts.cfg configuration file.
rename HOSTNAME OLDTESTNAME NEWTESTNAME
Rename data about a single test (column).
xymondlog HOSTNAME.TESTNAME
Retrieve the Xymon status-log for a single test. The first line of the response contains a series
of fields separated by a pipe-sign:
hostname The name of the host
testname The name of the test
color Status color (green, yellow, red, blue, clear, purple)
testflags For network tests, the flags indicating details about the test (used by xymongen).
lastchange Unix timestamp when the status color last changed.
logtime Unix timestamp when the log message was received.
validtime Unix timestamp when the log message is no longer valid (it goes purple at this time).
acktime Either -1 or Unix timestamp when an active acknowledgement expires.
disabletime Either -1 or Unix timestamp when the status is no longer disabled.
sender IP address where the status was received from.
cookie Either -1 or the cookie value used to acknowledge an alert.
ackmsg Empty or the acknowledgment message sent when the status was acknowledged. Newline, pipe-
signs and backslashes are escaped with a backslash, C-style.
dismsg Empty or the message sent when the status was disabled. Newline, pipe-signs and
backslashes are escaped with a backslash, C-style.
After the first line comes the full status log in plain text format.
xymondxlog HOSTNAME.TESTNAME
Retrieves an XML string containing the status log as with the "xymondlog" command.
xymondboard [CRITERIA] [fields=FIELDLIST]
Retrieves a summary of the status of all known tests available to the Xymon daemon.
By default - if no CRITERIA is provided - it returns one line for all status messages that are
found in Xymon. You can filter the response by selection specific page, host, test, color or
various other fields. The PAGEPATH, NETWORK, HOSTNAME, TESTNAME, and *MSG parameters are
interpreted perl-compatible regular expressions; the COLOR parameter accepts multiple colors
separated by commas; the *TIME values accept unix epoch timestamps. Other variables identified in
xymon-xmh(5) may also be used.
Because host filtration is done before test filtration, it's more efficient (with very large data
sets) to use PAGEPATH, HOSTNAME, NETWORK, and other XMH_ filters when possible, before globally
filtering with COLOR, *MSG, *TIME, or TESTNAME.
You can filter on, for example, both a hostname and a testname.
page=PAGEPATH Include only tests from hosts found on the PAGEPATH page in the hosts.cfg file.
net=NETWORK Include only tests from hosts with this NET: tag
ip=IPAddress Include only tests from hosts with this IP address. This is a regex, not CIDR.
host=HOSTNAME Include only tests from the host HOSTNAME
test=TESTNAME Include only tests with the testname TESTNAME
color=COLORNAME Include only tests where the status color is COLORNAME
tag=TAGNAME Include only hosts with a certain tag specified in the hosts.cfg(5) line. Note that
only items known to xymon components are included here; arbitrary text is not included
XMH_string=VALUE Include only hosts with a xymon-xmh(5) variable matching this value
Advanced Filtering
msg=MESSAGE Include only tests with full content matching MESSAGE. Use "\s" to escape spaces (or
other PCRE strings)
ackmsg=MESSAGE Include only tests with acknowledgement(s) MESSAGE. Use "\s" to escape spaces (or
other PCRE strings)
dismsg=MESSAGE Include only tests that have been disabled with strings matching MESSAGE. Use "\s"
to escape spaces (or other PCRE strings). (It is most efficient to pair this with color=blue.)
Timestamp Filters
Certain fields (explained below) can be filtered with unix timestamps and with the following
inequalities: >= > <= < = !=
These filters are: lastchange, logtime, validtime, acktime, disabletime
The response is one line for each status that matches the CRITERIA, or all statuses if no criteria
is specified. The line is composed of a number of fields, separated by a pipe-sign. You can select
which fields to retrieve by listing them in the FIELDLIST. The following fields are available:
hostname The name of the host
testname The name of the test
color Status color (green, yellow, red, blue, clear, purple)
flags For network tests, the flags indicating details about the test (used by xymongen).
lastchange Unix timestamp when the status color last changed.
logtime Unix timestamp when the log message was received.
validtime Unix timestamp when the log message is no longer valid (it goes purple at this time).
acktime Either -1 or Unix timestamp when an active acknowledgement expires.
disabletime Either -1 or Unix timestamp when the status is no longer disabled.
sender IP address where the status was received from.
cookie Either -1 or the cookie value used to acknowledge an alert.
line1 First line of status log.
ackmsg Empty (if no acknowledgement is active), or the text of the acknowledge message.
dismsg Empty (if the status is currently enabled), or the text of the disable message.
msg The full text of the current status message.
client Shows "Y" if there is client data available, "N" if not.
clntstamp Timestamp when the last client message was received, in Unix "epoch" format.
acklist List of the current acknowledgements for a test. This is a text string with multiple
fields, delimited by a colon character. There are 5 fields: Timestamp for when the ack was
generated and when it expires; the the "ack level"; the user who sent the ack; and the
acknowledgement text.
flapinfo Tells if the status is flapping. 5 fields, delimited by "/": A "0" if the status is not
flapping and "1" if it is flapping; timestamp when the latest status change was recorded and when
the first statuschange was recorded; and the two colors that the status is flapping between.
stats Number of status-changes that have been recorded for this status since xymond was started.
modifiers Lists all active modifiers for this status (i.e. updates sent using a "modify" command).
XMH_* The XMH-tags refer to the Xymon hosts.cfg(5) configuration settings. A full list of these
can be found in the xymon-xmh(5) man-page.
The ackmsg, dismsg and msg fields have certain characters encoded: Newline is "\n", TAB is "\t",
carriage return is "\r", a pipe-sign is "\p", and a backslash is "\\".
If the "fields" parameter is omitted, a default set of
hostname,testname,color,flags,lastchange,logtime,validtime,acktime,disabletime,sender,cookie,line1
is used.
xymondxboard
Retrieves an XML string with the summary of all status logs as for the "xymondboard" command.
hostinfo [CRITERIA]
Retrieves the current configuration of a host (i.e. the hosts.cfg(5) definition). CRITERIA selects
which host(s) to report, and is identical to the CRITERIA in the xymondboard command.
The response is one line for each host that matches the CRITERIA, or all hosts if no criteria is
specified. The line is composed of a number of fields, separated by a pipe-sign. The first two
fields will always be the hostname and the IP-address. The remaining fields - if any - are the
hosts.cfg tags in no particular order.
download FILENAME
Download a file from the Xymon server's download directory.
client[/COLLECTORID] HOSTNAME.OSTYPE [HOSTCLASS]
Used to send a "client" message to the Xymon server. Client messages are generated by the Xymon
client; when sent to the Xymon server they are matched against the rules in the analysis.cfg(5)
configuration file, and status messages are generated for the client-side tests. The COLLECTORID
is used when sending client-data that are additions to the standard client data. The data will be
concatenated with the normal client data.
clientlog HOSTNAME [section=SECTIONNAME[,SECTIONNAME...]]
Retrieves the current raw client message last sent by HOSTNAME. The optional "section" filter is
used to select specific sections of the client data.
ping Attempts to contact the Xymon server. If successful, the Xymon server version ID is reported.
pullclient
This message is used when fetching client data via the "pull" mechanism implemented by
xymonfetch(8) and msgcache(8) for clients that cannot connect directly to the Xymon server.
ghostlist
Report a list of ghost clients seen by the Xymon server. Ghosts are systems that report data to
the Xymon server, but are not listed in the hosts.cfg file.
schedule [TIMESTAMP COMMAND]
Schedules a command sent to the Xymon server for execution at a later time. E.g. used to schedule
disabling of a host or service at sometime in the future. COMMAND is a complete Xymon command such
as the ones listed above. TIMESTAMP is the Unix epoch time when the command will be executed.
If no parameters are given, the currently scheduled tasks are listed in the response. The
response is one line per scheduled command, with the job-id, the time when the command will be
executed, the IP address from which this was sent, and the full command string.
To cancel a previously scheduled command, "schedule cancel JOBID" can be used. JOBID is a number
provided as the first item in the output from the schedule list.
notes FILENAME
The message text will be stored in $XYMONHOME/notes/FILENAME which is then used as hyperlinks from
hostnames or column names. This requires that the "storenotes" task is enabled in tasks.cfg (it is
disabled by default). FILENAME cannot contain any directory path - these are stripped
automatically.
usermsg ID
These messages will be relayed directly to modules listening on the "user" channel of the Xymon
daemon. This is intended for custom communication between client-side modules and the Xymon
server.
modify HOSTNAME.TESTNAME COLOR SOURCE CAUSE
Modify the color of a specific status, without generating a complete status message. This is for
backend processors (e.g. RRD graphs) that can override the color of a status based on some
criteria determined outside the normal flow of a status. E.g. the normal "conn" status may appear
to be green since it merely checks on whether a host can be ping'ed or not; the RRD handler can
then use a "modify" command to override this is the actual ping responsetime exceeds a given
threshold. (See the "DS" configuration setting in analysis.cfg(5) for how to do this). SOURCE is
some identification of the module that generates the "modify" message - future modifications must
use the same source. There may be several sources that modify the same status (the most severe
status then becomes the actual color of the status). CAUSE is a one-line text string explaining
the reason for overriding the normal status color - it will be displayed on the status webpage.
EXAMPLE
Send a normal status message to the Xymon server, using the standard Xymon protocol on TCP port 1984:
$ $XYMON $XYMSRV "status www,foo,com.http green `date` Web OK"
Send the same status message, but using HTTP protocol via the webserver's xymoncgimsg.cgi script:
$ $XYMON http://bb.foo.com/cgi-bin/xymoncgimsg.cgi "status www,foo,com.http green `date` Web OK"
Use "query" message to determine the color of the "www" test, and restart Apache if it is red:
$ WWW=`$XYMON $XYMSRV "query www,foo,com.www" | awk '{print $1}'`
$ if [ "$WWW" = "red" ]; then /etc/init.d/apache restart; fi
Use "config" message to update a local mytest.cfg file (but only if we get a response):
$ $XYMON $XYMSRV "config mytest.cfg" >/tmp/mytest.cfg.new
$ if [ -s /tmp/mytest.cfg.new ]; then
mv /tmp/mytest.cfg.new $XYMONHOME/etc/mytest.cfg
fi
Send a very large status message that has been built in the file "statusmsg.txt". Instead of providing it
on the command-line, pass it via stdin to the xymon command:
$ cat statusmsg.txt | $XYMON $XYMSRV "@"
SEE ALSO
combostatus(1), hosts.cfg(5), xymonserver.cfg(5), xymon(7)