Subject: Email monitoring

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:17:58 -0400 (EDT)

Should we set up a dummy email list that I can send to in an automated
way every hour?  If I don't get a reply in X minutes I can send out an
alert to people.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <[email-masked]>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://postgres.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:24:56 -0400

> way every hour?  If I don't get a reply in X minutes I can send out an

What is the problem you are trying to solve?  

A

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:26:03 -0400 (EDT)

> What is the problem you are trying to solve?  

Email is blocked but there is no notification except "Hey, I haven't
gotten email in a while".

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From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:36:39 -0400

> gotten email in a while".

Adding a completely different address for that is not really a good monitor. 

There are at least these problems possible:

- routing problems
- mail server problems
- list server problems
- machine failure problems
- delivery problems

These each need different monitors, I suggest.  Let's work on those.

A

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:41:43 -0400 (EDT)

> These each need different monitors, I suggest.  Let's work on those.

OK, but I have no idea how to monitor those, just email send/receive.

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From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:41:53 -0300 (ADT)

> gotten email in a while".

'k, well, all this would do is test if mail was blocked to you, but not 
necessarily to everyone else ...

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:43:01 -0400 (EDT)

> necessarily to everyone else ...

True, but I thought that would help.  Historically, I thought most
failures were for all users.

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From: Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:43:42 +0100

Hello,

> way every hour?  If I don't get a reply in X minutes I can send out an

That could be (if needed) easier done with the existing monitoring
system. But i'm all for a working mailinglist solution instead some
workarounds to check a non-functional setup.

Bruce: if you setup such a system you (but nobody else) knows about a
problem. What use will be this system, if you are offline, away or just
sleeping? So we need some more people sending mails periodically and
check the result. This will result in a lot overhead and i assume in
some false (and some true) positives.

Kind regards

-- 
				Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group
European PostgreSQL User Group - Board of Directors

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:44:50 -0400 (EDT)

> some false (and some true) positives.

I assumed a failure would be reported to the new pgsql-emergency email
list.

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From: Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:47:14 +0100

> I assumed a failure would be reported to the new pgsql-emergency email

Who will do the report?

Bye

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:48:57 -0400 (EDT)

> > I assumed a failure would be reported to the new pgsql-emergency email

A script would send out the email on failure.

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From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:43:48 +0100

> A script would send out the email on failure.

we already have a quite advanced and capable monitoring solution that 
can (and is) easily do this and much more - I totally fail to see why we 
need to add another ad-hoc solution that will not be able to detect a 
large number of problems ...

Stefan

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From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:45:10 +0100

> These each need different monitors, I suggest.  Let's work on those.

we actually do have monitoring for most if not all of the above 
mentioned things and more ...

Stefan

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From: "Dave Page" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:51:38 +0000

> - machine failure problems

We already have perfectly good monitors for most of that, sending
alerts outside of the postgresql.org mail infrastructure.

-- 
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK Ltd: http://www.enterprisedb.com
PostgreSQL UK 2008 Conference: http://www.postgresql.org.uk

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:59:00 -0400 (EDT)

> alerts outside of the postgresql.org mail infrastructure.

Oh, OK.

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From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:28:51 -0400

> alerts outside of the postgresql.org mail infrastructure.

This is what I thought.  I want to avoid adding monitors for things that are
already monitored at a lower level, because it just means more alerts with
no additional benefit.

A