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WATC-MIMEDEFANG
Section: Maintenance Commands (8)Updated: 24 October 2002
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NAME
watc-mimedefang - Keep an eye on mimedefan-multiplexorSYNOPSIS
watc-mimedefang [options]DESCRIPTION
watc-mimedefang is a Tk script which graphically displays the status of mimedefan-multiplexor(8). Note that Tcl/Tk 8.0 or higher is required to run watc-mimedefang.DISPLAY
watc-mimedefang's display is divided into three main areas, from top to bottom:
- o
-
The graph display shows six graphs representing various statistics about
the multiplexor.
- o
-
The control area shows the maximum number of workers, number of busy workers,
and number of idle workers. The "Control Command" text entry lets you
monitor remote MIMEDefang servers; see "REMOTE MONITORING" for details.
The "10s", "1m", "5m" and "10m" checkboxes allow you to enable or disable the graphing of statistics averaged over the last 10 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes and 10 minutes.
The "Reread Filters" button forces the multiplexor to reread filter rules. The "Quit" button terminates watc-mimedefang.
- o
-
The scale at the bottom lets you change the update interval (default 500ms).
Be aware that frequent updating may make watc-mimedefang consume
a significant fraction of CPU time.
THE GRAPH AREA
The graph area contains six graphs:
- o Busy Workers
-
This graph shows the number of busy workers each time the statistics are
sampled.
- o Workers/scan
-
This graph shows the average number of busy workers each time a message was
scanned. The red plot shows the average over the last ten seconds, the
blue plot shows the average over the last minute, and the green and yellow
plots show the average over the last five and ten minutes, respectively.
- o Latency (ms)
-
This graph shows the average time taken by each SCAN command over the
last ten seconds, one minute, five minutes and ten minutes.
- o Messages/s
-
This graph shows the average number of messages per second that were scanned.
- o Activations/s
-
This graph shows the average number of new workers activated per second.
- o Reaps/s
-
This graph shows the average number of workers that have terminated per
second.
If the Activations and Reaps increase significantly, it could indicate heavy load, or an error causing filters to terminate abnormally.
If only Activations increase, then it probably indicates a sudden increase in -mail volume.
If only Reaps increase, then it probably indicates a quiet time just after a period of heavy mail volume.
You can enable or disable the ten second, one minute, five minute or ten minute plots by clicking on the "10s", "1m", "5m" or "10m" checkbox.
REMOTE MONITORING
Running watc-mimedefang on your actual mail server poses two problems: You need Tcl/Tk and the X client libraries installed, and the CPU consumption of watc-mimedefang can be considerable.
A better method is to run watc-mimedefang on a desktop machine, but have it monitor the mail server with a remote session.
The best way to establish a remote session is via SSH. For example, if you are running MIMEDefang on "mail.mydomain.net", you can type the following into the Control Command entry box and press enter:
ssh root@mail.mydomain.net m-m-ctrl
You must have a public/private key for the target machine and you must be running ss-agent or equivalent; you cannot use an ssh command that requires entry of a password or passphrase.
Assuming your SSH setup is correct, watc-mimedefang will open an SSH connection to mail.mydomain.net and exchange lo-bandwith information over that session for monitoring purposes.
COMMAN-LINE OPTIONS
watc-mimedefang accepts the following comman-line options:
- -command cmd
-
Use cmd as the control command. You may need to quote cmd
- -interval msec
-
Set the update interval to msec milliseconds.
- -10s flag
-
Enable the "10s" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if
flag is 0.
- -1m flag
-
Enable the "1m" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if
flag is 0.
- -5m flag
-
Enable the "5m" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if
flag is 0.
- -10m flag
-
Enable the "10m" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if
flag is 0.
- -title string
-
Add string to the title of the main window.
- -help
-
Print usage information.
EXAMPLE
As an example, to monitor MIMEDefang on the machine "mail.mydomain.net" updating once a second, with the 5m and 10m plots turned off, use:
watc-mimedefang-command 'ssh root@mail.mydomain.net m-m-ctrl'
-interval 1000-5m 0-10m 0-title "mail"
AUTHOR
watc-mimedefang was written by Dianne Skoll <dfs@roaringpenguin.com>. The mimedefang home page is http://www.mimedefang.org/.PERMISSIONS
watc-mimedefang uses m-m-ctrl; therefore, it probably needs to be run as root or the same user as mimedefan-multiplexor, or (if you are monitoring a remote machine), the SSH connection must be done as root or the MIMEDefang user.
SEE ALSO
mimedefang.pl(8), mimedefan-filter(5), mimedefang(8), mimedefan-protocol(7), m-m-ctrl(8), watc-multipl-mimedefangs(8)