sntop - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

sntop — top-like console network status tool

SYNOPSIS

sntop [options]

DESCRIPTION

sntop (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 ping (1)

Optionally, the results can be used to generate an html page or ellicit the execution of a
file.

Interactive run-time commands exist:

q - quit

r - reload config file

w - toggle html page generation

any other key - force a refresh

COMMAND-LINE PARAMETERS

-d, --daemon - daemon mode: make sntop capable of running in the background. note, it wont
automatically fork into the background.

-o, --once - poll and display results once, then exit

-c, --nocolor - toggle the use of ncurses color for pretty formatting

-p, --ping - use 'ping' in lieu of 'fping'. note, ping (in particular on DOWN hosts) is
slower than fping -- the performance of sntop will suffer.

-w, --html - generate html output of results

-s, --secure - 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 /etc/passwd can facilitate that:

sntop:x:123:123:sntop:/:/usr/local/bin/sntop -s

-e <file>, --wfile=file - output html to <file> instead of sntop.html

-f <file>, --conf=file - 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.

-r <time>, --refresh=time - refresh every <time> seconds instead of 180

-a <file>, --alarm=file - alarm mode: execute <file> when a site first goes DOWN

-l <file>, --log=file - log mode: execute <file> whenever the status of a site changes

-b <bytes>, --byte=bytes - Number of bytes of ping data to send

-v, --version - display version information and exit

-h, --help - display command-syntax help and exit

Command Execution Syntax

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:

<display name of host> <host name/IP> <status>

<display name of host> the 'display' name (first sntop collumn) of the machine, ie "MyBox"

<host name/IP> the explicit hostname or IP address of the machine, ie "snaggle" or
"192.168.55.12"

<status> 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 alarm.sh for an example
script.

Use sntop online using onworks.net services