Heartbeating using check_logfiles?

Service Monitoring
1

We try to implement heartbeat monitoring in log files. I.e. an application is expected to write specific strings regularely into a log file and I want to get an alert if the string is missing for a defined time.

First attempt: define a service using check_logfiles and submit the pattern using option “–criticalpattern”, but negate the pattern. We experienced that we got a lot of false alerts, i.e. an alert was generated, although the pattern was there.
Second attempt: “–criticalpattern” is set to “.*” and then define a “–criticalexception”, which contains the pattern. We are not sure if this could work. Further I do not know the difference between “–criticalexception” & “–okpattern=” and which one could be used in this situation.

Did anybody successfully implemented such monitoring?

2

https://labs.consol.de/de/nagios/check_logfiles/index.html

* --criticalexception=<regexp> / –warningexception=<regexp> Ausnahmen, die keinen Fehler bedeuten.

* --okpattern=<regexp> Muster, welches die Fehlerzähler zurücksetzt.
there is a reset so all the before are ignored

I would use a check_fileage on the file, so you know that the file is been modified or not. check logfiles with –criticalpattern=".*" --criticalexception=“your heartbeat line” should work

3

This method seems to be fine. Not sure, why my colleague said it would not work, maybe somthing in Icinga was fixed in the mean time.