[snips-users] alarming on printer queue

[Daniel MacKay <daniel at bonmot ca>]

Howdy!

snips has a builtin for alarming when the mail queue grows, that is, 
a variable which reports from the output of mailq.

I need to alarm when the PRINTER queue grows - that is, items in 
/var/spool/printer/.

My plan was to:
 - write a standalone program which delivers a variable which is
   the number of xf* files in /var/spool/printer/
 - modify hostmon.client to call my new program

This way, if a new hostmon.client comes out, the mods to hook up my 
printer code will be minimal.

Questions
~~~~~~~~~
 - Has anyone done this and wants to share code?
 - Am I on the right track with the small external program?  Or is there
   a Right Way to add extra goodies to hostmon?
 - Can I just add a variable to the output of hostmon, and add a parameter to
   hostmon-confg??  Or will other things break?

Thanks! -dan
--
Daniel MacKay
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
+1 902.499.0488