(simple network top) is a console utility, in the spirit of top, that polls
a list of hosts at a regular interval to determine if they are online,
displaying the results in a formatted table. This list is read on load
from a config file, sntoprc, located (by default) in ~/ or /etc. The
polling is done via ICMP Optionally, the results can be used to generate an
html page or ellicit the execution of a file. Interactive run-time
commands exist: - quit - reload config file - toggle html page generation -
force a refresh - daemon mode: make sntop capable of running in the
background. note, it wont automatically fork into the background. - poll
and display results once, then exit - toggle the use of ncurses color for
pretty formatting - use 'ping' in lieu of 'fping'. note, ping (in
particular on DOWN hosts) is slower than fping -- the performance of sntop
will suffer. - generate html output of results - secure mode. command
keys are disabled. SIGINT must be used to terminate the program. this
allows sntop to run nicely on spare terminals galore. something like the
following in can facilitate that: - output html to <file> instead of
sntop.html - read conf data from <file> instead of ~/.sntoprc. note, sntop
will still try to read from /etc/sntoprc if <file> fails. if both fail,
sntop will exit. - refresh every <time> seconds instead of 180 - alarm
mode: execute <file> when a site first goes DOWN - log mode: execute <file>
whenever the status of a site changes - Number of bytes of ping data to
send - display version information and exit - display command-syntax help
and exit In alarm or log mode a file is executed on the occurence of change
in status of a given host. sntop will fork and exec the specified file,
passing as arguments information about the event. those arguments are: the
'display' name (first sntop collumn) of the machine, ie "MyBox" the
explicit hostname or IP address of the machine, ie "snaggle" or
"192.168.55.12" the new status of the machine, "UP" or "DOWN," this would
obviously always be DOWN for alarm mode Note, DOWN hosts will be logged in
both modes upon load (ie, if they are down when sntop loads, <file> is
executed). No action is taken in any modes for hosts that originate as UP
-- thus, the default status is UP. We execute an external file to remain
in the UNIX tradition -- small, simple programs that do one thing damn
well. Thus, a logging option is not even provided -- a two-line shell
script will do fine, there. However, the possibilities are powerful:
administrator paging, for instance. See for an example script. default
config file location if a user's config is not found, this system-wide one
is read the man page sample alarm-execute script the sntop executable An
example config file, sntoprc.EXAMPLE, is included in the standard
distribution. However, the config file syntax is simple. Entries are
RETURN terminated. Trailing whitespace is ignored. '#' signifies a
comment and can be used inline. By default, upto 32 characters will be
read, per line. All entries should be a single word, except comments. The
syntax: Example: will first attempt to read the config file from (or
another location specified by -f). If that fails, the system config file
will be read from /etc/sntoprc. If both fail, sntop will exit. was written
by Robert M. Love <rml@tech9.net> and Christopher M. Rivera
<cmrivera@ufl.edu>. Send us bug reports, suggestions, and hardware. top
(1), ping (1), fping (1)
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