1WATCH-MIMEDEFANG(8)         System Manager's Manual        WATCH-MIMEDEFANG(8)
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NAME

6       watch-mimedefang - Keep an eye on mimedefang-multiplexor
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SYNOPSIS

9       watch-mimedefang [options]
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DESCRIPTION

13       watch-mimedefang  is  a Tk script which graphically displays the status
14       of mimedefang-multiplexor(8).  Note that Tcl/Tk 8.0 or  higher  is  re‐
15       quired to run watch-mimedefang.
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DISPLAY

19       watch-mimedefang's  display  is divided into three main areas, from top
20       to bottom:
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23       o      The graph display shows six graphs representing various  statis‐
24              tics about the multiplexor.
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27       o      The  control area shows the maximum number of workers, number of
28              busy workers, and number of idle workers.  The "Control Command"
29              text  entry lets you monitor remote MIMEDefang servers; see "RE‐
30              MOTE MONITORING" for details.
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32              The "10s", "1m", "5m" and "10m" checkboxes allow you  to  enable
33              or  disable the graphing of statistics averaged over the last 10
34              seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes and 10 minutes.
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36              The "Reread Filters" button forces  the  multiplexor  to  reread
37              filter rules.  The "Quit" button terminates watch-mimedefang.
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40       o      The scale at the bottom lets you change the update interval (de‐
41              fault 500ms).  Be aware that frequent updating may  make  watch-
42              mimedefang consume a significant fraction of CPU time.
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THE GRAPH AREA

46       The graph area contains six graphs:
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49       o Busy Workers
50              This  graph  shows the number of busy workers each time the sta‐
51              tistics are sampled.
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54       o Workers/scan
55              This graph shows the average number of busy workers each time  a
56              message  was  scanned.   The red plot shows the average over the
57              last ten seconds, the blue plot shows the average over the  last
58              minute, and the green and yellow plots show the average over the
59              last five and ten minutes, respectively.
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62       o Latency (ms)
63              This graph shows the average time taken  by  each  SCAN  command
64              over the last ten seconds, one minute, five minutes and ten min‐
65              utes.
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68       o Messages/s
69              This graph shows the average number of messages per second  that
70              were scanned.
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73       o Activations/s
74              This graph shows the average number of new workers activated per
75              second.
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78       o Reaps/s
79              This graph shows the average number of workers that have  termi‐
80              nated per second.
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82              If  the  Activations  and Reaps increase significantly, it could
83              indicate heavy load, or an error causing  filters  to  terminate
84              abnormally.
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86              If  only Activations increase, then it probably indicates a sud‐
87              den increase in e-mail volume.
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89              If only Reaps increase, then it probably indicates a quiet  time
90              just after a period of heavy mail volume.
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93       You  can  enable  or disable the ten second, one minute, five minute or
94       ten minute plots by clicking on the "10s", "1m", "5m" or  "10m"  check‐
95       box.
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REMOTE MONITORING

99       Running watch-mimedefang on your actual mail server poses two problems:
100       You need Tcl/Tk and the X client libraries installed, and the CPU  con‐
101       sumption of watch-mimedefang can be considerable.
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103       A  better  method  is to run watch-mimedefang on a desktop machine, but
104       have it monitor the mail server with a remote session.
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106       The best way to establish a remote session is via SSH.  For example, if
107       you  are  running  MIMEDefang  on "mail.mydomain.net", you can type the
108       following into the Control Command entry box and press enter:
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110            ssh root@mail.mydomain.net md-mx-ctrl
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112       You must have a public/private key for the target machine and you  must
113       be  running ssh-agent or equivalent; you cannot use an ssh command that
114       requires entry of a password or passphrase.
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116       Assuming your SSH setup is correct, watch-mimedefang will open  an  SSH
117       connection  to  mail.mydomain.net and exchange low-bandwith information
118       over that session for monitoring purposes.
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COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS

122       watch-mimedefang accepts the following command-line options:
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125       -command cmd
126              Use cmd as the control command.  You may need to quote cmd
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129       -interval msec
130              Set the update interval to msec milliseconds.
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133       -10s flag
134              Enable the "10s" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if  flag
135              is 0.
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138       -1m flag
139              Enable  the  "1m" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if flag
140              is 0.
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143       -5m flag
144              Enable the "5m" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it  if  flag
145              is 0.
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148       -10m flag
149              Enable  the "10m" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if flag
150              is 0.
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153       -title string
154              Add string to the title of the main window.
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157       -help  Print usage information.
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EXAMPLE

161       As an example, to monitor MIMEDefang on the machine "mail.mydomain.net"
162       updating once a second, with the 5m and 10m plots turned off, use:
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164           watch-mimedefang -command 'ssh root@mail.mydomain.net md-mx-ctrl' \
165                            -interval 1000 -5m 0 -10m 0 -title "mail"
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AUTHOR

169       watch-mimedefang  was written by Dianne Skoll <dfs@roaringpenguin.com>.
170       The mimedefang home page is https://www.mimedefang.org/.
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PERMISSIONS

174       watch-mimedefang uses md-mx-ctrl; therefore, it probably  needs  to  be
175       run  as root or the same user as mimedefang-multiplexor, or (if you are
176       monitoring a remote machine), the SSH connection must be done  as  root
177       or the MIMEDefang user.
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SEE ALSO

182       mimedefang.pl(8),  mimedefang-filter(5), mimedefang(8), mimedefang-pro‐
183       tocol(7), md-mx-ctrl(8), watch-multiple-mimedefangs(8)
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1894th Berkeley Distribution       24 October 2002            WATCH-MIMEDEFANG(8)
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