This is not quite release-ready, but after presenting at the Perl Mongers
meeting, I was kind of forced to at least share the current state of things.
Apparently I'm not the only one who doesn't like Nagios and other bloated
server monitoring solutions.
So here it is: Test::Network, also known as tezt.
How to create a network monitoring system in 3 simple steps:
1. Install tezt
For now, just copy TAP and Test somewhere in your Perl library folders,
or set PERL5LIB to reflect wherever you put them.
2. Create a directory with .t files in them
Every .t file should be a Perl unit test script; see "perldoc Test::Network"
for an example (in the SYNOPSIS).
It's a good idea to test the test suite manually with "prove $dir" before
creating the cron job :)
3. Create a cron job
MAILTO=someone@example.org
*/5 * * * * /path/to/diffprove -j 10 /path/to/test-suite
The -j argument to "prove" specifies the number of concurrent jobs.
If you want to run some tests on a different interval, or only during office
hours, etc, just create a separate directory and a separate cron job:
0 9-17 * * * /path/to/diffprove -j 10 /path/to/other-test-suite
diffprove will send email when things change. It's a somewhat simplistic
approach to network monitoring but it does everything I need.