[Nagiosplug-devel] discussion of general plugin framework

[sean finney]

hey folks,

this is an issue we've been slowly circling around, and the tether
between us and the issue is getting smaller and smaller, so i might
as well bring it out in the open for a full discussion.

so what do we want out of this not-quite-existing API?  here's a brain
dump of what i can think of:

functionality:
	- common way to run commands and get output, with the options to
		- seperate and/or ignore stderr
		- grab all output into large blob
		- grab all output split line by line
		- not grab output but pass handles to fd's (or
		  fd-containing structs)
	- common way to perform network based operations, with options to
		- connect via various protocols
		- specify input
		- expect output
		- match output against strings or regular expressions
		- specify an arbitrarily complex pattern of input/ouput
		  events in a connection
	- snmp related stuff:
		- provide as easy of an interface as possible for
		  issueing snmp based checks
		- support v2c BULK requests
		- support v3 authentication
		- provide resulting OID arcs as data objects
		- provide a way to issue callback funcs on larger oid arcs?
		- provide a means to specify index, name, and values for
		  members of tables.
		- common CLI options
	- general
		- common CLI options
		- wrapper to getopt to specify plugin-specific options

language support:
	- C: development headers and dynamic libraries
	- Perl: Nagios::Plugin class/namespace?
	- shell/python/other?

documentation:
	- relevant API-related updates to the developer guidelines
	- list of deprecated functions, cmdline options
	- an authoritative list of the official and unofficial plugins?


of the stuff that i've mentioned, much of the work is already done in
some form or another.  i'm sure i've missed some things, and i've
probably injected some subjective opinions into others.  so please
consider this is more of a discussion to get a final idea of the big
picture, and feel free to amend the above list appropriately...


	sean
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