Re: Log analysis requirements

[Greg Fenton <greg_fenton@yahoo.com>]

--- Gerard Paul Java <riker@seul.org> wrote:
> 
> I too would like to see a logfile monitoring script, please feel free
> to post it on the list.
> 

Alright, will post what I have when I can.


> However I remain open to your suggestions regarding the logfile
> analysis.  

Well, the first thing would be documentation on the format  :-)

I've looked the code over.  The logging is good enough for readability
purposes, but poses some real challenges for the analysis scripts.

Some code calls standard logging methods (writetcplog, writeothplog)
while others call writelog() with their own messages (and thus, their
own message format).

I have reverse-engineered a number of the line formats in order to
analyze the log for what I need, but for future development it would be
nice to:

  a) Replace calls to writelog() with a "higher-level" call like
     writetcplog()
  b) Have all "higher-level" functions call writelog() to do their
     logging, prefixing their message with a "type" identifier
     (e.g. NORMAL_TCP, RESET_TCP, etc...)

Then we could easily extract the format of each line in the log file
and parse it according to its type.  And we'd only need to document the
output format of these "higher-level" functions.

Right now my only real recourse is to take an existing log file, parse
it and look for errors.

But please, don't take this as a harsh criticism.  I appreciate that
daemon mode was not an original intent.  I also appreciate that the log
format, for the most part, easily parsable.  There are only a couple of
cases that through me for a loop.

Gerard, thank you for your efforts on this tool and for your
contributions to Free Software in general.  Should you need some help
with this project (coding, testing, whatever) please feel free to
contact me directly.

greg_fenton.

=====
Greg Fenton
greg_fenton@yahoo.com

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience
http://launch.yahoo.com