CHECKSERVICE(1)

NAME
checkservice - checks the status of services on (remote) hosts

SYNOPSIS
checkservice [OPTIONS]...

DESCRIPTION
Checkservice will get its information about what to do from the combination of a global configfile and host-specific files. It can scan either one host or all hosts for which those host-specific configfiles are available. Checkservice provides two types of scans that are configurable for every separate service: simple and extended. For an extended service-check plugins are used. These will thoroughly check if the service is REALLY working. If no plugin is available for that service or the configuration for that service is set to do a simple check, Checkservice will perform a test if the port/ports given for that service is/are open. Checkservice provides three types of output:

logfiles
    Write the status of each service in a separate logfile for the specified host.

stdout
    This is meant for the Checkservice php3-script, the format is exactly like the configfile but with the status at then end.

mrtg
    Simple form of output: print a zero if the specified host is up and all the services are working correctly, or a one if one of the services is failing the test or the host is down. This number is followed by the localtime (see also: perlfunc (1p) for the format).

OPTIONS

-t, --targethost=STR
    Specify the host to scan. A configfile for that host must be available in <configdir>/hosts. If STR is '*', all hosts will be scanned for which configfiles are available.

-c, --configdir=PATH
    Specifies configdir, (default: /etc/checkservice).

-l, --logdir=PATH
    Logdirectory where host-specific logs should be kept. If PATH is '-', Checkservice will print to stdout (default).

-m, --mrtg
    Generate only a 0 (host is up & all services are ok) or 1 to stdout, followed by localtime. Using this option, logdir specification will be ignored. NB. The targethost option is compulsory!

-h, --help
    Show this help and exit.

-v, --version=MODE
    Show version (if MODE is 'short', only version number will be printed) and exit.

FILES

/etc/checkservice/config
    Global configfile.

/etc/checkservice/*.mail
    Template mail files, in which the following variables can be used:

    %t time server/service went down.
    %h host that either is unreachable or has a failing service.
    %s service that went down (not available in the host unreachable-template).
    %p portset defined for service.
    The subject is also configurable by adding a 'Subject: .....' line on top of the template, it will be stripped from the mail's contents. Variable substitution is also performed to that Subject-line.

/etc/checkservice/hosts/*
    Host-specific configfiles. Look at checkservice(5) for the format. Note that directory structures are allowed to create a sort of groups (and subgroups, etc).

AUTHOR
This manual page was written by Paul van Tilburg <paul@linvision.com>, for Linvision BV.

REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to paul@linvision.com

COPYRIGHT
This software is copyright © 2000, by Paul van Tilburg You are free to distribute this software under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

SEE ALSO
checkservice(5)