Re: Ideas for splithost, hostname, multiemail in Logwatch 8.0

Mike Tremaine wrote:
> I sat down [finally] and looked through these commandline switches to 
> try and bring some order to it. Here is what I see
> 
> --splithost creates a loop for each detected host in the logs.
> 
> --multiemail can only work with split host and allows you to send each 
> part of the splithosts report to different addresses.
> 
> --hostname is sort of messed up logwatch pulls hostname from a POSIX 
> call but you can define it. And if you use the secret --hostlimit 
> command it will only make a report for hostname.
> 
> So that is 4 piece to the host report puzzle.
> 
> Here is my rough draft please comment.
> 
> Remove all the above.
> 
> Make --hostlimits [none, splithosts, splitemails, limithost:??]
> 
> none is default and logwatch does it's thing as normal.
> 
> splithost trips the old splithost feature.
> 
> splitemail is splithost with multiemails.
> 
> limithost is hostlimit but I'd like to have it define the host(s) to 
> limit the report to. I though maybe a special character like ":" could 
> be add followed by the hostname you want. Then I thought why not allow a 
> list? So would it be easier to add another config option to list the 
> hostname(s) or is keeping the config options to a minimum the based 
> approach?
> 
> I think [and I might be wrong] that --hostlimits 
> "limithost:server1,server2" is a valid option command and I could 
> obvious split on : and then split for , and get the targets. An empty 
> limithost would obviusly be for the hostname provide by the POSIX call.
> 
> -Mike
> 

Hi Mike,

I'm not sure I see the need for the option layering.

What is the purpose of --hostlimits none ?  Since this is the default 
behavior, it is equivalent to not specifying the option at all.  Is this 
to allow overriding a config file setting ?

It seems like there's an unnecessary overlap of functionality with 
--output mail and --limithost splitemail.  Wouldn't this be equivalent 
to --output mail --splithost ?  Since one must pre-configure email 
addresses for per-host emails, this seems redundant.

It think *how* the reports are split should be distinct from *where* the 
reports go (email, file, screen), and distinct from email address 
specification.

I would suggest something along the lines of :

--splithost
   per-host reports.

--splithost --output mail
   same as above, but mail separate reports as configured in the config
   file.

--splithost --output mail --mailto "host1:email1 host2:email2"
   same as above, but uses specified per-host email addresses.

--hostlist host1,host2,host3
   unsplit reports on only hosts host1, host2, and host3
   and --hostlist is a new option.

--splithost --hostlist host1,host2,host3
   same as above, but split by host.

Lists can be comma or whitespace separated (protected with quotes as 
necessary for the shell, as I've shown above in the examples).

As a personally preferance, I think --reportbyhost is clearer than 
--splithost, but I won't --splithairs.

MrC