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-downtimed - system downtime monitoring and reporting tool
-=========================================================
-
-Copyright (c) 2009-2013 EPIPE Communications. All rights reserved.
-
-This software is licensed under the terms and conditions of the FreeBSD
-License which is also known as the Simplified BSD License. You should have
-received a copy of that license along with this software.
-
-Software web site:
-
- http://dist.epipe.com/downtimed/
-
-Development version is available at Launchpad:
-
- https://launchpad.net/downtimed
-
-Main development branch of downtimed is available with Bazaar VCS:
-
- bzr branch lp:downtimed
-
-Author's e-mail address for reporting bugs, sending contributions etc:
-
- opensource@epipe.com
-
-
-Portability
-===========
-
-Currently supported operating systems:
- - Recent versions of FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
- - Modern GNU/Linux distributions
- - Mac OS X/Darwin
- - GNU/Hurd
- - Solaris / OpenSolaris / OpenIndiana
-
-The software probably works on other modern *BSD variants with zero or
-little modifications.
-
-The only really non-portable part of the program is the getboottime()
-function which uses an operating system specific interface for finding
-the exact moment when the kernel started again. The function can be
-easily altered to add support for additional operating systems. The
-author would appreciate receiving any such patches to be integrated in
-the main distribution.
-
-Also for the sake of convenience the program uses some functions which
-are available only in modern operating systems. These include for example
-asprintf(3), vasprintf(3), snprintf(3), err(3) and errx(3).
-
-
-History
-=======
-
-The author of this software had a Xen based virtual private server
-(VPS) running FreeBSD operating system. Occasionally the owner of the
-physical non-virtual machine would turn off the VPS to do some system
-administration tasks on the host operating system, which the author did
-not have access to. The author wanted to have some sort of record of when,
-why and how long the VPS had been down. The standard FreeBSD system did
-not provide such a facility.
-
-After some looking around it seemed that there was only programs for
-monitoring uptime but not downtime. Also most of these programs were
-complicated and were intended to be run on a remote host and thus they
-would be actually monitoring the system availability through the network
-instead of the actual downtime of the FreeBSD operating system running
-on the VPS. Also they would require an another server for monitoring
-the primary server.
-
-Therefore downtimed was needed.
-
-
-Features
-========
-
-downtimed was made to monitor operating system downtime, shutdowns and
-crashes on the monitored host itself and to keep a record of such events.
-
-downtimed(8) is a daemon process which is intended to be started
-automatically from system boot scripts every time when the operating
-system of a server starts. First the daemon logs its findings about the
-previous downtime to a specified logging destination as well as in a
-database file which can be displayed with downtimes(1) command.
-
-Thereafter the downtimed(8) daemon just keeps waiting in the background
-and periodically updates a time stamp file on the disk. The time stamp
-is used to determine the approximate time when the system was last up
-and running. In case of a graceful system shutdown it records a stamp
-to another file on the disk. These files are used for reporting the next
-time the daemon starts.
-
-downtimes(1) is a command-line tool which can be used to inspect previous
-downtime records recorded in the downtime database file.
-
-
-Installation
-============
-
-Installation should be preferably done through a port or a package
-which is tailored to your specific operating system.
-
-If one does not exist or if you yourself are making such a port or a
-package, the basic GNU autotools based installation should be as follows:
-
- ./configure
- make
- make install
-
-The above does NOT install any startup scripts which are REQUIRED for
-proper function of downtimed. See the following chapter.
-
-The program also needs a persistent data directory for the time stamp
-and the downtime database files. It should be created on *BSD and
-MacOS X as follows:
-
- mkdir /var/db/downtimed
-
-...or on GNU/Linux, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, GNU/Hurd or Solaris as follows:
-
- mkdir /var/lib/downtimed
-
-Note that you can determine the default data directory location on
-your system by issuing "downtimed -v" command or you can specify a
-different directory with the "-d" option. Set the directory permissions
-as appropriate in your environment. If you are installing a port or
-package tailored for your system, this step is most likely taken care
-for you automatically.
-
-
-Startup scripts
-===============
-
-It seems that every different operating system and distribution has
-invented their own ways of starting system daemons during the boot
-process. That is a major pain in the ass.
-
-The downtimed distribution includes the following operating system and
-distribution specific startup script samples. They are located in the
-"startup-scripts" directory. It is assumed that system administrators
-or port/package maintainers will implement and configure the required
-startup scripts.
-
-Arch Linux
-----------
-Arch Linux startup script is included as archlinux-startup.sh. It should
-be installed as /etc/rc.d/downtimed and added to the DAEMONS setting in
-/etc/rc.conf.
-
-Debian
-------
-A startup script for GNU/Debian and related distributions is included as
-debian-startup.sh. It should be installed as /etc/init.d/downtimed.
-Running the command "update-rc.d downtimed defaults" enables starting the
-service at the system startup.
-
-FreeBSD
--------
-A sample startup script for FreeBSD is included as freebsd-startup.sh.
-It should be installed as /usr/local/etc/rc.d/downtimed. Add:
- downtimed_enable="YES"
-...in one of the following files to enable boot time startup:
- /etc/rc.conf
- /etc/rc.conf.local
- /etc/rc.conf.d/downtimed
-Add the following if you want to configure downtimed(8) command line
-options:
- downtimed_flags="<set as needed>"
-
-Mac OS X
---------
-Mac OS X/Darwin launchd(8) configuration file com.epipe.downtimed.plist is
-also included. This file should be installed to /Library/LaunchDaemons.
-
-OpenIndiana / OpenSolaris / Solaris
------------------------------------
-SMF (Service Management Facility) manifest for OpenIndiana, OpenSolaris
-and Solaris 10 & 11 is in downtimed.smf.xml. It is not usable on Solaris
-9 and older as they need a SysV style init script instead.
-
-openSUSE
---------
-A startup script for openSUSE is included as opensuse-startup.sh. It
-should be installed as /etc/init.d/downtimed. Running the command
-"innserv /etc/init.d/downtimed" enables starting the service at the
-system startup.
-
-Red Hat based distributions (RHEL, Fedora, SL, Oracle, CentOS, etc.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-A startup script for Red Hat related distributions is included as
-redhat-startup.sh. It should be installed as /etc/rc.d/init.d/downtimed.
-Running the command "chkconfig --add downtimed" enables starting the
-service at the system startup.
-
-Ubuntu
-------
-A startup script for GNU/Linux distributions using upstart(8) to bring
-up system daemons, such as the Ubuntu distribution, is included in
-upstart-startup.conf. It should be installed as /etc/init/downtimed.conf.
-
-
-These startup scripts are not installed by default.
-
-This program is not really useful unless there is a proper startup script
-in place. Refer to your operating system or distribution manual on how
-to create and manage daemon startup scripts.
-
-
-Usage documentation
-===================
-
-Have a look at downtimed(8) manual page:
-
- man downtimed
-
-... as well as the downtimes(1) manual page:
-
- man downtimes
-
-Alternatively you can find a PDF version of the manual pages at:
-
- http://dist.epipe.com/downtimed/
-
-
-Contributions
-=============
-
-If you port this software to a new operating system, find bugs or
-implement new features, it would be nice if you could send your patches
-to the author either through Launchpad or by e-mail. See the top of this
-document for contact information.
-
-
-Acknowledgements
-================
-
-The following people have contributed patches or other improvements to
-this software:
-
-Henrik Ahlgren <pablo@seestieto.com>
- - Mac OS X patches
-
-Mats Erik Andersson <openbsd@gisladisker.se>
- - OpenBSD, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD and other patches
-
-Federico Lucifredi <flucifredi@acm.org>
- - openSUSE startup script
-
-Jason Melton <jason.melton@gmail.com>
- - Arch Linux startup script
-
-Douglas Thrift <douglas@douglasthrift.net>
- - FreeBSD 9 compatibility fix
-
-Others who I may have forgotten. (Sorry!)
-
-Thank You!
-
-/* eof */