Writing NetSaint Plugins


Plugin Development

One of the nice features of NetSaint is that it is designed to use external programs (called "plugins") to check the status of monitored hosts/services. This makes it easy for you to write your own plugins to monitor any type of service you like.

With What Shall I Write It?

NetSaint plugins can be compiled C/C++ programs, PERL scripts, shell scripts, or anything you like. NetSaint simply doesn't care.

What Are The Guidelines For Plugins?

Writing plugins is fairly simple, although there are a few guidelines you should follow. A current copy of the plugin development guidelines can be found at http://netsaintplug.sourceforge.net/doc/t1.html

Where Can I Find Examples?

You can download the source code for various plugins from the downloads page at http://www.netsaint.org or directly from the SourceForge project at http://netsaintplug.sourceforge.net. Look at the plugins in the latest distribution for examples on returning the proper status level (exit code), text output, handling timeouts, etc.

I Just Developed A New Plugin - Where Do I Submit It?

New plugins (and modifications of existing plugins) should be submitted to the netsaintplug-devel mailing list. Details on subscribing to the list can be found at http://www.netsaint.org/mailinglist.html. Before you start writing a new plugin you may want to check with folks on the mailing list to make sure you aren't reinventing the wheel or duplicating efforts.