[collectd] A first version of an `exec' plugin

[Florian Forster]

Hello everybody,

before going on vacation last week, I wrote a first attempt at an
`exec'-plugin. The plugin will fork a child, change the UID to something
not zero (i. e. not root) and exec some program or script. A thread
reads from the child and submits the values to the daemon. When the
program terminates, the thread cleans up and terminates as well.

Since an extra thread is handling the executed program, it does not
block the daemon. In may in fact run as long as it wants and submit
values again and again, because the daemon ensures it's not executed
twice. If anyone knows a good reason, why a program would run for more
than 10 seconds and should still be executed every 10 seconds, please
let me know.

Since this fork/setuid/exec-bussiness is kind of messy and imposes quite
some secutiry-risks, I'd be very happy if some people would dare to look
over the code or simply try it in a sandbox somewhere.

In general, most of the features I wanted to have for version 4 are
implemented. I could really do with some people testing it and sending
in bugs..

Regards,
-octo
-- 
Florian octo Forster
Hacker in training
GnuPG: 0x91523C3D
http://verplant.org/
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