Thread: Email monitoring

Email monitoring

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
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  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://postgres.enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +


Re: Email monitoring

From
Andrew Sullivan
Date:
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:17:58AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> 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.

What is the problem you are trying to solve?  

A



Re: Email monitoring

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:17:58AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> 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".

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://postgres.enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +


Re: Email monitoring

From
Andrew Sullivan
Date:
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:26:03AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > 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".

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



Re: Email monitoring

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:26:03AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > 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".
> 
> 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.

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

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://postgres.enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +


Re: Email monitoring

From
"Marc G. Fournier"
Date:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>> On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:17:58AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>> 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.
>>
>> 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".

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



Re: Email monitoring

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> 
> > Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> >> On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:17:58AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >>> 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.
> >>
> >> 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".
> 
> 'k, well, all this would do is test if mail was blocked to you, but not 
> necessarily to everyone else ...

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

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://postgres.enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +


Re: Email monitoring

From
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
Date:
Hello,

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:17:58 -0400 (EDT) Bruce Momjian wrote:

> 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.

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


Re: Email monitoring

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:17:58 -0400 (EDT) Bruce Momjian wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> 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.

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

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://postgres.enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +


Re: Email monitoring

From
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
Date:
On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:44:50 -0400 (EDT) Bruce Momjian wrote:

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

Who will do the report?


Bye

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


Re: Email monitoring

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:44:50 -0400 (EDT) Bruce Momjian wrote:
> 
> > I assumed a failure would be reported to the new pgsql-emergency email
> > list.
> 
> Who will do the report?

A script would send out the email on failure.

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://postgres.enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +


Re: Email monitoring

From
Stefan Kaltenbrunner
Date:
Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
>> On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:44:50 -0400 (EDT) Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>
>>> I assumed a failure would be reported to the new pgsql-emergency email
>>> list.
>> Who will do the report?
> 
> 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


Re: Email monitoring

From
Stefan Kaltenbrunner
Date:
Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:26:03AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>> 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".
> 
> 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.

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


Stefan


Re: Email monitoring

From
"Dave Page"
Date:
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 3:36 PM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:26:03AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > 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".
>
> 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
>

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


Re: Email monitoring

From
Bruce Momjian
Date:
Dave Page wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 3:36 PM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca> wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:26:03AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > > 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".
> >
> > 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
> >
> 
> We already have perfectly good monitors for most of that, sending
> alerts outside of the postgresql.org mail infrastructure.

Oh, OK.

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://postgres.enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +


Re: Email monitoring

From
Andrew Sullivan
Date:
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 04:51:38PM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> 
> We already have perfectly good monitors for most of that, sending
> 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