How can errpt automatically inform me of a problem on the system?

This script was written by bjverzal of the AIX Tek-Tips forum. It is a very useful script that you can set to kick off each time the system boots.

It runs the command errpt, counts the number of errors in the report and saves the number to a file. Then it sleeps for five minutes. When it runs again, it compares the number of errors from the previous time and sends an email to whomever you designate with the full error report (the same output you get when you type errpt -a).

You will have to set up "alert" in the /etc/aliases file so the system knows where to send the email. (Be sure to run newaliases after you make the change to /etc/aliases.)


Here is the script:

#! /bin/ksh
#
# $0 = errmon.sh
#
# Written 11/3/1998 Bill Verzal.
#
# This script will run every [interval] and check the error log
# for new entries. Upon finding them, it will send an email to
# administrators containing a message indicating the change
# in errlog status, as well as the offending lines.
#
if [ "$1" = "-v" ] ; then
set -x
fi
lc="NULL"
tc="$lc"
# lc="last count"
# tc="this count"
#interval=900
interval=300
# Divide interval by 60 to get number of minutes.
me="$0 - Hardware error monitoring"
myname=`hostname`
args="$*"
#mailto="root"
mailto="alert"
true=0
false=1
boj=`date`

echo "$me started.\nThis message goes to $mailto." | mail -s "Errlog monitoring for $myname" $mailto
logger "$0 started"

while [ "$true" != "$false" ] ; do
tc=`errpt -dH,S,U,O | wc -l`
if [ "$lc" = "NULL" ] ; then
lc="$tc"
fi
if [ "$lc" -ne "$tc" ] ; then
foo=`echo "$tc-$lc"|bc`
msg="$foo new errors have been found on $myname"
page_msg="$foo new errors have been found on $myname"
errlogl=`errpt -dH,S,U,O -a`
if [ "$tc" -eq "0" ] ; then
msg="$msg\n Errlog was cleared"
else
logger $msg
msg=" $msg \n Errlog details below:\n $errlogl \n"
echo "$msg" | mail -s "Errlog status change on host $myname" $mailto
fi
fi
lc="$tc"
sleep $interval
done