Apache Server Status plugin

[PaulPeterson]

We have a specific need here to be able to see what our apache servers are up to, however installing and compiling a snmp plugin will not work for our specific deployment. I was enquiring as the the addition of a plugin which would parse apache's server-status page.

Thanks,

Paul

[dougm_hyperic]

This certainly would be possible, it just wouldn't have as many
metrics as the SNMP based plugin. Do you or anybody happen to have a
script already that parses the server-status page? I believe
mod_info has a flag to output xml, does mod_status have this too? In
any case, I can take a look at this sometime next week.

On Jul 20, 2006, at 12:34 PM, Paul Peterson wrote:

> We have a specific need here to be able to see what our apache
> servers are up to, however installing and compiling a snmp plugin
> will not work for our specific deployment. I was enquiring as the
> the addition of a plugin which would parse apache's server-status
> page.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Paul

[PaulPeterson]

I have not written any scripts for this parsing. I believe that mod_status does, however I have not had a chance to confirm that. I think this would be a great edition to hyperic, it will have less metrics, however not having to install an snmp module might be worth it. Thanks again.

[PaulPeterson]

I was just curious if you had a change to look into this plugin? I am quite eger to see how this works compared to the snmp module.

[dougm_hyperic]

I haven't looked at it in depth, other than verifying there is no xml
output mode, so we'd have the hassle of parsing the HTML.

I found a Nagios checker you could use as-is within HQ:
http://www.mail-archive.com/nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net/
msg03047.html

Setup as a Script service:
http://support.hyperic.com/confluence/display/DOCSHQ27/Script+Plugin

Such a script could be modified to expose more metrics to HQ by
creating an XML plugin also described in the doc link above.

What are the key metrics from mod_status you'd like to view from HQ?

On Aug 2, 2006, at 10:22 AM, Paul Peterson wrote:

> I was just curious if you had a change to look into this plugin? I
> am quite eger to see how this works compared to the snmp module.

[PaulPeterson]

As far as key metrics go, I would be interested in things like CPU usage, uptime, requests per second, requests processing, total access, and total traffic. I have looked at the nagios plugin and it does to much of what I want including the scoreboard, which would be rather nice. I was just thinking this might make a nice HQ plugin. I am not sure about getting the nagios plugin working, I have limited experience with the process.

[dougm_hyperic]

After looking closer, using "/server-status?auto" provides output
that is easy to parse.

I just checked in a simple script here:
http://svn.hyperic.org/trunk/plugins/scripts/mod_status.pl?
root=Hyperic+HQ&view=log

Outputs the following metrics:
./plugins/scripts/mod_status.pl localhost 8977
Total Accesses=31
Total kBytes=78
CPULoad=.000206505
Uptime=9685
ReqPerSec=.00320083
BytesPerSec=8.24698
BytesPerReq=2576.52
BusyServers=1
IdleServers=1
Starting=0
Sending=1
Keepalive=0
Waiting=1
DNS=0
Closing=0
Free=2046
Reading=0
Finishing=0
Logging=0

The main issue here is that the existing Apache plugin is wired to
use SNMP, we'd need a different server type to contain these metrics.
So rather than seeing "Apache 2.0" or "Apache 1.3" and their VHost
services as you do now, the plugin would discover a different type
name, say "Apache httpd" with these metrics and no VHost services.
How does that sound?

[dougm_hyperic]

I have created an enhancement request for this:

http://jira.hyperic.com/browse/HHQ-151

And started working on it last week:
http://svn.hyperic.org/trunk/plugins/apache/?root=Hyperic+HQ

Just need to hook up auto-discovery to report the new server type
that collects mod_status metrics if mod_snmp is not installed.

[PaulPeterson]

I was curious what the status of this plugin is? It would be nice to test it out in our current deployment.

[dougm_hyperic]

There is a new server type in 2.7.4 called "Apache httpd" which
provides the metrics from mod_status without requiring mod_snmp to be
installed.
However, it isn't yet hooked up to auto-discovery, so the snmp-based
server types ("Apache 1.3" and "Apache 2.0") will continue to be auto-
discovered regardless of if they have mod_snmp installed.
In the meantime you'd choose not to import the Apache 2.0|1.3
discovered resources and create "Apache httpd" server instances
manually.

On Sep 28, 2006, at 8:40 AM, Paul Peterson wrote:

> I was curious what the status of this plugin is? It would be nice
> to test it out in our current deployment.

[PaulPeterson]

What version of enterprise is equal to 2.7.4?

[admin]

Hi Paul,

There is a 2.7.4 version of the enterprise subscription available.
Please communicate with our support team if you are considering
upgrading your current setup. Thanks.

Charles

[PaulPeterson]

I wasn't under the impression there had already been an update for enterprise to 2.7. I was curious if there could be an email reminder when new version/features are released.

-Paul

[PaulPeterson]

Are there any plans to backport the apache http module into a 2.6 release? I am on the fence about upgrading to 2.7.

-Paul