The Road Ahead...
Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 3:37 pm
Although I have set a poll which nobody will ever vote on I thought I'd put forward my ideas for the current road map for FreeNATS.
I keep getting tempted with stopping with everything working (like now), releasing a stable beta and then branching off for development but this would be hassle. I also anticipate a higher load in bug fixes and minor UI requests needed once it's put onto the VMWare directory as release (rather than pre-release as it is now).
More Tests
I have working test scripts for MySQL, SMTP and IMAP (including POP3, POP3S, IMAPS) with lots of lovely options (the MySQL test for example will be able to test times and/or rows returned for connection, optional database select and optional query).
This requires quite a major change to the underlying test script to accommodate more parameters than the one-per-test currently supported. Though I originally had the mad idea of encoding a single parameter ie "host=hostname,user=XX" this would either involve a serious coding overhead (probably more than supporting multiple parameters) and a complex UI (unless the UI is also complex and supporting encoding).
Node-Side Tests
I have sort of working the first part of node gathering tests. In brief overview this will be a PHP script sitting on a (Linux) node that is either polled by FreeNATS (the node script being available via Apache) and data "pulled" in or "posted" to FreeNATS by the node itself running the script (via CRON for example).
This will include tests such as disk space, load average and network load.
API
The plan is to open-up FreeNATS as much as possible for easy add-on development, primarily through a data API and trigger-scripts.
The data API will accept set queries and return data formatted in XML/CSV or as JavaScript arrays (optionally calling a JavaScript function in the page once data load is complete) and will allow total third-party custom use of FreeNATS data.
The trigger scripts will be server-resident PHP scripts that can be registered to be called on specific events (such as alerts being raised). There will be an API of sorts via set incoming variables and probably the ability to do actions within FreeNATS itself.
SNMP
Though I do kind of dream of SNMP it is not currently something actually planned for implementation. I think FreeNATS is at the lower end of the market to put it politely and enterprise environments using SNMP can probably be bothered to use enterprise tools.
I also have nothing I actually want to monitor which I use SNMP on. I suppose if someone sent me a load of free top-notch networking kit then I would suddenly have that need and all doubt would evaporate.
Win32
Hmm... another lofty idea. The truth is I'm not sure why the core system won't work in Win32 other than the shebang lines (you would have to php -q tester.sh for each node), oh and the test-threaded but the install and upgrade scripts certainly won't.
I think the truth is, more than anything, I hate BAT, Powershell, Administration Command Prompt, Recovery Console and anything else MSy and command-line/install related.
Also I would need to test it in a variety of environments etc etc.
It seems the vast majority of people run the VM which of course itself works under Win32. On Unix it's not too much trouble to slot FreeNATS in within a working OS. You probably have PHP. If you're using a web server already it'll be Apache. If it's not Apache FreeNATS will probably just work with it as it'll appear identical to Apache.
On Win32 the last thing it would do is "just run" even if all the software/scripts themselves were updated.
So a lofty yet unlikely idea.
Everyone is please welcome to contribute to the debate and make suggestions either here or with the feedback link on the website.
I keep getting tempted with stopping with everything working (like now), releasing a stable beta and then branching off for development but this would be hassle. I also anticipate a higher load in bug fixes and minor UI requests needed once it's put onto the VMWare directory as release (rather than pre-release as it is now).
More Tests
I have working test scripts for MySQL, SMTP and IMAP (including POP3, POP3S, IMAPS) with lots of lovely options (the MySQL test for example will be able to test times and/or rows returned for connection, optional database select and optional query).
This requires quite a major change to the underlying test script to accommodate more parameters than the one-per-test currently supported. Though I originally had the mad idea of encoding a single parameter ie "host=hostname,user=XX" this would either involve a serious coding overhead (probably more than supporting multiple parameters) and a complex UI (unless the UI is also complex and supporting encoding).
Node-Side Tests
I have sort of working the first part of node gathering tests. In brief overview this will be a PHP script sitting on a (Linux) node that is either polled by FreeNATS (the node script being available via Apache) and data "pulled" in or "posted" to FreeNATS by the node itself running the script (via CRON for example).
This will include tests such as disk space, load average and network load.
API
The plan is to open-up FreeNATS as much as possible for easy add-on development, primarily through a data API and trigger-scripts.
The data API will accept set queries and return data formatted in XML/CSV or as JavaScript arrays (optionally calling a JavaScript function in the page once data load is complete) and will allow total third-party custom use of FreeNATS data.
The trigger scripts will be server-resident PHP scripts that can be registered to be called on specific events (such as alerts being raised). There will be an API of sorts via set incoming variables and probably the ability to do actions within FreeNATS itself.
SNMP
Though I do kind of dream of SNMP it is not currently something actually planned for implementation. I think FreeNATS is at the lower end of the market to put it politely and enterprise environments using SNMP can probably be bothered to use enterprise tools.
I also have nothing I actually want to monitor which I use SNMP on. I suppose if someone sent me a load of free top-notch networking kit then I would suddenly have that need and all doubt would evaporate.
Win32
Hmm... another lofty idea. The truth is I'm not sure why the core system won't work in Win32 other than the shebang lines (you would have to php -q tester.sh for each node), oh and the test-threaded but the install and upgrade scripts certainly won't.
I think the truth is, more than anything, I hate BAT, Powershell, Administration Command Prompt, Recovery Console and anything else MSy and command-line/install related.
Also I would need to test it in a variety of environments etc etc.
It seems the vast majority of people run the VM which of course itself works under Win32. On Unix it's not too much trouble to slot FreeNATS in within a working OS. You probably have PHP. If you're using a web server already it'll be Apache. If it's not Apache FreeNATS will probably just work with it as it'll appear identical to Apache.
On Win32 the last thing it would do is "just run" even if all the software/scripts themselves were updated.
So a lofty yet unlikely idea.
Everyone is please welcome to contribute to the debate and make suggestions either here or with the feedback link on the website.