Re: [Exim] Is Exin SNMP Aware?

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Author: Theo E. Schlossnagle
Date:  
To: Kevin Sindhu
CC: Sheldon Hearn, Cliff Savage, exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] Is Exin SNMP Aware?
Kevin Sindhu wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 11:25:38AM +0200, Sheldon Hearn penned:
>>A lot of people really dislike SNMP. Folks who've had to write robust
>>applications that rely on SNMP tend to dislike it even more. I, for
>>one, wouldn't want Exim going anywhere _near_ an SNMP MIB. :-)
>
> I whole heartedly agree. SNMP poses more a risk than what its worth.


I really dislike SNMP. Let's not confuse that with its worth. It is a
standard, a good standard and a VERY commonly used standard.

Now, instead of saying "veto", let's figure out how to do it so it doesn't
impact the lives of those who are SNMP-inclined.

I wrote a while back that it would be REALLY nice to see a modular logging
system in Exim (fingers crossed for v4). If you set up a single loadable
module support that can accept several loggin mechanisms (chains/cascades like
Apache's module hook system) we have a lot of possibilities for FAST,
effecient SNMP support without code changes to Exim at all.

Simple have the log_exim.so modules (that does EXACTLY what exim does now) and
someone can write there own log_shmstats.so module that sticks everything
their heart desired in a shared memory segment. Then they write a nice
shmstats_snmpd provider to bundle with it and everyone is happy.

We have a custom MTA that does somethine very similar.

This is also nice for people who want to stick their exim "mainlog" in a
database for querying which has tremendous value in certain environments. Or
if you wanted to write a distributed cluster logging facility for exim, just
write another module (a parallel implementation of mod_log_spread for Apache).
Wouldn't it be nice to have multiple log minitors running in real time and a
centralized, chronologically ordered logfile for your cluster? An still -- no
changes to Exim!

--
Theo Schlossnagle
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