MIRMON(1)             User Contributed Perl Documentation            MIRMON(1)



NAME
       mirmon - monitor the state of mirrors

SYNOPSIS
         mirmon [-v] [-q] [-t timeout] [-c conf] [-get all│update│url url]

OPTIONS
       -v  Be verbose ; mirmon normally only reports errors and changes in the
           mirror list.

       -q  Be quiet.

       -t timeout
           Set the timeout ; the default is 300.

       -get all │ update │ url <url>
           With all, probe all sites.  With update, probe a selection of the
           sites ; see option "max_poll" below.  With url, probe only the
           given url, which must appear in the mirror-list.

       -c name
           Use config file name. The default list is

             ./mirmon.conf $HOME/.mirmon.conf /etc/mirmon.conf

USAGE
       The program is intended to be run by cron every hour.

         42 * * * * perl /path/to/mirmon -get update

       It quietly probes a subset of the sites in a given list, writes the
       results in the ’state’ file and generates a web page with the results.
       The subset contains the sites that are new, bad and/or not probed for a
       specified time.

       When no ’get’ option is specified, the program just generates a new web
       page from the last known state.

       The program checks the mirrors by running a (user specified) program on
       a pipe. A (user specified) number of probes is run in parallel using
       nonblocking IO. When something can be read from the pipe, it switches
       the pipe to blocking IO and reads one line from the pipe. Then it
       flushes and closes the pipe. No attempt is made to kill the probe.

       The probe should return something that looks like

         1043625600 ...

       that is, a line of text starting with a timestamp. The exit status of
       the probe is ignored.

CONFIG FILE
       location

       A config file can be specified with the -c option.  If -c is not used,
       the program looks for a config file in

       * ./mirmon.conf
       * $HOME/.mirmon.conf
       * /etc/mirmon.conf

       syntax

       A config file looks like this :

         +--------------------------------------------------
         │# lines that start with ’#’ are comment
         │# blank lines are ignored too
         │# tabs are replaced by a space
         │
         │# the config entries are ’key’ and ’value’ pairs
         │# a ’key’ begins in column 1
         │# the ’value’ is the rest of the line
         │somekey  A_val B_val ...
         │otherkey X_val Y_val ...
         │
         │# indented lines are glued
         │# the next three lines mean ’somekey part1 part2 part3’
         │somekey part1
         │  part2
         │  part3
         │
         │# lines starting with a ’+’ are concatenated
         │# the next three lines mean ’somekey part1part2part3’
         │somekey part1
         │+ part2
         │+ part3
         │
         │# lines starting with a ’.’ are glued too
         │# don’t use a ’.’ on a line by itself
         │# ’somekey’ gets the value "part1\n part2\n part3"
         │somekey part1
         │. part2
         │. part3
         +--------------------------------------------------

       required entries


       project_name name
           Specify a short plaintext name for the project.

             project_name Apache
             project_name CTAN

       project_url url
           Specify an url pointing to the ’home’ of the project.

             project_url http://www.apache.org/

       mirror_list file-name
           Specify the file containing the mirrors to probe.

             mirror_list /path/to/mirror-list

           If your mirror list is generated by a program, use

             mirror_list /path/to/program arg1 ... │

           Two formats are supported :

           * plain : lines like
                 us http://www.tux.org/ [email] ...
                 nl http://apache.cs.uu.nl/dist/ [email] ...
                 nl rsync://archive.cs.uu.nl/apache-dist/ [email] ...

           * apache : lines like those in the apache mirrors.list
                 ftp  us ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/net/apache/dist/ user@tux.org ...
                 http nl http://apache.cs.uu.nl/dist/ user@cs.uu.nl ...

           Note that in style ’plain’ the third item is reserved for an
           optional email address : the site’s contact address.

           Specify the required format with option "list_style" (see below).
           The default style is ’plain’.

       web_page file-name
           Specify where the html report page is written.

       icons directory-name
           Specify the directory where the icons can be found, relative to the
           web_page, or relative to the DOCUMENTROOT of the web server.

           If/when the web_page lives in directory ".../mirmon/" and the icons
           live in directory ".../mirmon/icons/", specify

             icons icons

           If/when the icons live in "/path/to/DOCUMENTROOT/icons/mirmon/",
           specify

             icons /icons/mirmon

       probe program + arguments
           Specify the program+args to probe the mirrors. Example:

             probe /usr/bin/wget -q -O - -T %TIMEOUT% -t 1 %URL%TIME.txt

           Before the program is started, %TIMEOUT% and %URL% are substituted
           with the proper timeout and url values.

           Here it is assumed that each hour the root server writes a times-
           tamp in /path/to/archive/TIME.txt, for instance with a crontab
           entry like

             42 * * * * perl -e ’print time, "\n"’ > /path/to/archive/TIME.txt

           Mirmon reads one line of output from the probe and interprets the
           first word on that line as a timestamp ; for example :

             1043625600
             1043625600 Mon Jan 27 00:00:00 2003
             1043625600 www.apache.org Mon Jan 27 00:00:00 2003

           Mirmon is distributed with a program "probe" that handles ftp, http
           and rsync urls.

       state file-name
           Specify where the file containing the state is written.

           The program reads this file on startup and writes the file when
           mirrors are probed (-get is specified).

       countries file-name
           Specify the file containing the country codes; The file should con-
           tain lines like

             us - United States
             nl - Netherlands

           The mirmon package contains a recent ISO list.

           Fake domains like Backup, Master are allowed, and are listed first
           in the report ; lowercase-first fake domains (like backup) are
           listed last.

       optional entries


       max_probes number
           Optionally specify the number of parallel probes (default 25).

       timeout seconds
           Optionally specify the timeout for the probes (default 300).

           After the last probe is started, the program waits for <timeout> +
           10 seconds, cleans up and exits.

       project_logo logo
           Optionally specify (the SRC of the IMG of) a logo to be placed top
           right on the page.

             project_logo /icons/apache.gif
             project_logo http://www.apache.org/icons/...

       htm_head html
           Optionally specify some HTML to be placed before </HEAD>.

             htm_head
               <link REL=StyleSheet HREF="/style.css" TYPE="text/css">

       htm_top html
           Optionally specify some HTML to be placed near the top of the page.

             htm_top testing 1, 2, 3

       htm_foot html
           Optionally specify HTML to be placed near the bottom of the page.

             htm_foot
               <HR>
               <A HREF="..."><IMG SRC="..." BORDER=0></A>
               <HR>

       put_histo top│bottom│nowhere
           Optionally specify where the age histogram must be placed.  The
           default is ’top’.

       min_poll time-spec
           For ’min_poll’ see next item. A time-spec is a number followed by a
           unit ’s’ (seconds), or ’m’ (minutes), or ’h’ (hours), or ’d’
           (days).  For example ’3d’ (three days) or ’36h’ (36 hours).

       max_poll time-spec
           Optionally specify the maximum probe interval. When the program is
           called with option ’-get update’, all sites are probed which are :

           * new
               the site appears in the list, but there is no known state

           * bad
               the last probe of the site was unsuccessful

           * old
               the last probe was more than ’max_poll’ ago.

           Sites are not probed if the last probe was less than ’min_poll’
           ago.  So, if you specify

             min_poll 4h
             max_poll 12h

           the ’reachable’ sites are probed twice daily and the ’unreachable’
           sites are probed at most six times a day.

           The default ’min_poll’ is ’1h’ (1 hour).  The default ’max_poll’ is
           ’4h’ (4 hours).

       min_sync time-spec
           Optionally specify how often the mirrors are required to make an
           update.

           The default ’min_sync’ is ’1d’ (1 day).

       max_sync time-spec
           Optionally specify the maximum allowable sync interval.

           Sites exceeding the limit will be considered ’old’.  The default
           ’max_sync’ is ’2d’ (2 days).

       always_get region ...
           Optionally specify a list of regions that must be probed always.

             always_get Master Tier1

           This is intended for fake regions like Master etc.

       no_randomize
           Mirmon tries to balance the probe load over the hourly mirmon runs.
           If the current run has a below average number of mirrors to probe,
           mirmon probes a few extra, randomly chosen mirrors, picked from the
           runs that have the highest load.

           If you don’t want this behaviour, use no_randomize.

       no_add_slash
           If the url part of a line in the mirror_list doesn’t end in a slash
           (’/’), mirmon adds a slash and issues a warning unless it is in
           quiet mode.

           If you don’t want this behaviour, use no_add_slash.

       list_style plain│apache
           Optionally specify the format (’plain’ or ’apache’) of the mir-
           ror-list.

           See the description of ’mirror_list’ above.  The default list_style
           is ’plain’.

       site_url site url
           Optionally specify a substitute url for a site.

           When access to a site is restricted (in Australia, for instance),
           another (sometimes secret) url can be used to probe the site.  The
           <site> of an url is the part between ’://’ and the first ’/’.

       env key value
           Optionally specify an environment variable.

       include file-name
           Optionally specify a file to include.

           The specified file is processed ’in situ’. After the specified file
           is read and processed, config processing is resumed in the file
           where the "include" was encountered.  The include depth is unlim-
           ited. However, it is a fatal error to include a file twice under
           the same name.

       show
           When the config processor encounters the ’show’ command, it dumps
           the content of the current config to standout, if option "-v" is
           specified. This is intented for debugging.

       exit
           When the config processor encounters the ’exit’ command, it termi-
           nates the program. This is intented for debugging.

STATE FILE FORMAT
       The state file consists of lines; one line per site.  Each line con-
       sists of white space separated fields.  The seven fields are :

       * field 1 : url
           The url as given in the mirror list.

       * field 2 : age
           The mirror’s timestamp found by the last successful probe, or
           ’undef’ if no probe was ever successful.

       * field 3 : status last probe
           The status of the last probe, or ’undef’ if the mirror was never
           probed.

       * field 4 : time last successful probe
           The timestamp of the last successful probe or ’undef’ if the mirror
           was never successfully probed.

       * field 5 : probe history
           The probe history is a list of ’s’ (for success) and ’f’ (for fail-
           ure) characters indicating the result of the probe. New results are
           appended whenever the mirror is probed.

       * field 6 : state history
           The state history consists of a timestamp, a ’-’ char, and a list
           of chars indicating a past status: ’s’ (fresh), ’b’ (oldish), ’f’
           (old), ’z’ (bad) or ’x’ (skip).  The timestamp indicates when the
           state history was last updated.  The current status of the mirror
           is determined by the mirror’s age and a few configuration parame-
           ters (min_sync, max_sync, max_poll).  The state history is updated
           when the mirror is probed.  If the last update of the history was
           less than 24 hours ago, the last status is replaced by the current
           status.  If the last update of the history was more than 24 hours
           ago, the current status is appended to the history.  One or more
           ’skip’s is inserted, if the timestamp is two or more days old (when
           mirmon hasn’t run for more than two days).

       * field 7 : last probe
           The timestamp of the last probe, or ’undef’ if the mirror was never
           probed.

INSTALLATION
       general


       * Note: The (empty) state file must exist before mirmon runs.
       * The mirmon repository is here :
             https://svn.science.uu.nl/repos/project.mirmon/trunk/

       * The mirmon tarball is here :
             http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~penni101/mirmon/mirmon.tar.gz

       installation suggestions

       To install and configure mirmon, take the following steps :

       * First, make the webdir :
           cd DOCUMENTROOT
           mkdir mirmon

         For DOCUMENTROOT, substitute the full pathname of the document root
         of your webserver.

       * Check out the mirmon repository :
           cd /usr/local/src
           svn checkout REPO mirmon

         where

           REPO = https://svn.science.uu.nl/repos/project.mirmon/trunk/

         or download the package and unpack it.

       * Chdir to directory mirmon :
           cd mirmon

       * Create the (empty) state file :
           touch state.txt

       * Install the icons in the webdir :
           mkdir DOCUMENTROOT/mirmon/icons
           cp icons/* DOCUMENTROOT/mirmon/icons

       * Create a mirror list "mirror_list" ;
         Use your favorite editor, or genererate the list from an existing
         database.

           nl http://archive.cs.uu.nl/your-project/ contact@cs.uu.nl
           uk http://mirrors.this.org/your-project/ mirrors@this.org
           us http://mirrors.that.org/your-project/ mirrors@that.org

         The email addresses are optional.

       * Create a mirmon config file "mirmon.conf" with your favorite editor.
           # lines must start in the first column ; no leading white space
           project_name ....
           project_url  ....
           mirror_list mirror_list
           state state.txt
           countries countries.list
           web_page DOCUMENTROOT/mirmon/index.html
           icons /mirmon/icons
           probe /usr/bin/wget -q -O - -T %TIMEOUT% -t 1 %URL%TIME.txt

         This assumes the project’s timestamp is in file "TIME.txt".

       * If you have rsync urls, change the probe line to :
           probe perl /usr/local/src/mirmon/probe -t %TIMEOUT% %URL%TIME.txt

       * Run mirmon :
           perl mirmon -v -get all

         The mirmon report should now be in ’DOCUMENTROOT/mirmon/index.html’

           http://www.your.project.org/mirmon/

       * If/when, at a later date, you want to upgrade mirmon :
           cd /usr/local/src/mirmon
           svn status -u
           svn up

SEE ALSO
       mirmon.pm(3)


AUTHOR
         (c) 2003-2016 Henk P. Penning
         Faculty of Science, Utrecht University
         http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~penni101/ -- penning@uu.nl
         mirmon-2.11 - Sat Jul 23 09:12:31 2016 ; henkp



perl v5.8.8                       2016-07-23                         MIRMON(1)
