README

failint
-------
This is a tool to check a fai configuration space for common mistakes.
Its inspired by
http://gitorious.org/fai-cd-configs/fai-cd-configs/blobs/master/files/home/fai/failint.sh/SERVERFAI
but is written in perl and aims at a more flexible structure
(e.g. checks are implemented as shell scripts and can therefore be in any
language).

Usage:
------
# ./failint
Will check configuration files in /srv/fai/config

# ./failint /path/to/config
Will check configuration files in /path/to/config

Interpreting output
-------------------
Similar to Debians lintian the scripts categorizes problems in the configuration
space in errors (E), warnings (W) and infos (I).
Each line is similar to the following:

<E|W|I>: <file>:<lineno> <message>

Errors:
~~~~~~~
A check is meant to spit an error if the check can say with a very
high certainty that the found issue will make the installation fail.
An example for such a check is a check that checks if the 'class' is missing.

Warnings:
~~~~~~~~~
A check is meant to spit a warning if the can say with some certainty that
the issue in question COULD be a mistake and its hard to determine if it really
is (without reading the admins minds).
An example for such a check is a check that tests for the executable flag
on scripts. It could be an error, because the script will not be executed,
but it could also be intentional, because the admin disabled it, by removing
the +x flag.

Infos:
~~~~~~
Infos are similar to warnings, but they are for cases where the check could
very likely detect false positives. Therefore these messages are suppressed
by default. Use the '-i' switch to show them.

Implementing Checks
-------------------
Checks are shell scripts in the checks directory. Each executable script
is executed and its output is beeing checked for certain patterns. See
Failint/Checks/Log.pm for details how the output has to look like.
This module can be used when implementing checks in perl.
See the already implemented modules for examples.