Return a critical status if it takes longer than <seconds> to connect to the IMAP server. Default is 30 seconds.
See also: --capture-critical <messages>
Also known as: -c <seconds>
Abort with critical status if it takes longer than <seconds> to connect to the IMAP server. Default is 60 seconds.
The difference between timeout and critical is that, with the default settings, if it takes 45 seconds to
connect to the server then the connection will succeed but the plugin will return CRITICAL because it took longer
than 30 seconds.
Also known as: -t <seconds>
How many times to try searching for a matching message before giving up. If you set this to 0 then
messages will not be searched at all. Setting this to 1 means the plugin only tries once. Etc.
Default is 10 times.
Use this option to filter the messages. Default is not to filter. You may (must) use this option
multiple times in order to create any valid IMAP search criteria. See the examples and see also
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2060.txt (look for section 6.4.4, the SEARCH command)
This is the way to find messages matching a given subject:
-s SUBJECT -s "a given subject"
You can use the following technique for any header, including Subject. To find "Header-Name: some value":
-s HEADER -s Header-Name -s "some value"
Modern IMAP servers that support rfc5032 extensions allow you to search for messages
older or younger than a number of seconds. So to find messages received in the past hour,
you can do:
-s YOUNGER -s 3600
Or to find messages received more than 5 minutes ago, you can do:
This option causes all messages in the specified mailbox to be downloaded from the server
and searched locally. See --download-max if you only want to download a few messages.
Currently only the following RFC 2060 search criteria are supported:
TEXT, BODY, SUBJECT, HEADER, NOT, OR, SENTBEFORE, SENTON, SENTSINCE.
Requires Email::Simple to be installed. It is available on CPAN.
This option may be particularly useful to you if your mail server is slow to index
messages (like Exchange 2003), causing the plugin not to find them with IMAP SEARCH
even though they are in the inbox.
It's also useful if you're searching for messages that have been on the server for a
specified amount of time, like some minutes or hours, because the standard IMAP search
function only allows whole dates. For this, use the standard search keywords but you
can specify either just a date like in RFC 2060 or a date and a time.
If you use SENTBEFORE, SENTON, or SENTSINCE, you must have Date::Manip installed
on your system.
This option will trigger a CRITICAL status if the number of messages found by the search criteria
is below the given number. Use in conjunction with --search.
This parameter defaults to 1 so that if no messages are found, the plugin will exit with a CRITICAL status.
If you want the original behavior where the plugin exits with a WARNING status when no messages are found,
set this parameter to 0.
This option will trigger a CRITICAL status if the number of messages found by the search criteria
is above the given number. Use in conjunction with --search.
This parameter defaults to -1 meaning it's disabled. If you set it to 10, the plugin will exit with
CRITICAL if it finds 11 messages. If you set it to 1, the plugin will exit with CRITICAL if it finds
any more than 1 message. If you set it to 0, the plugin will exit with CRITICAL if it finds any messages
at all. If you set it to -1 it will be disabled.
This option will trigger a WARNING status if the number of messages found by the search criteria
is below the given number. Use in conjunction with --search.
This parameter defaults to 1 so that if no messages are found, the plugin will exit with a WARNING status.
If you want to suppress the original behavior where the plugin exits with a WARNING status when no messages are found,
set this parameter to 0. When this parameter is 0, it means that you expect the mailbox not to have any messages.
This option will trigger a WARNING status if the number of messages found by the search criteria
is above the given number. Use in conjunction with --search.
This parameter defaults to -1 meaning it's disabled. If you set it to 10, the plugin will exit with
WARNING if it finds 11 messages. If you set it to 1, the plugin will exit with WARNING if it finds
any more than 1 message. If you set it to 0, the plugin will exit with WARNING if it finds any messages
at all. If you set it to -1 it will be disabled.
In addition to specifying search arguments to filter the emails in the IMAP account, you can specify
a "capture-max" regexp argument and the eligible emails (found with search arguments)
will be compared to each other and the OK line will have the highest captured value.
The regexp is expected to capture a numeric value.
In addition to specifying search arguments to filter the emails in the IMAP account, you can specify
a "capture-min" regexp argument and the eligible emails (found with search arguments)
will be compared to each other and the OK line will have the lowest captured value.
The regexp is expected to capture a numeric value.
Use the delete option to delete messages that matched the search criteria. This is useful for
preventing the mailbox from filling up with automated messages (from the check_smtp_send plugin, for example).
THE DELETE OPTION IS TURNED *ON* BY DEFAULT, in order to preserve compatibility with an earlier version.
Use the nodelete option to turn off the delete option.
If you use both the capture-max and delete arguments, you can also use the nodelete-captured argument to specify that the email
with the highest captured value should not be deleted. This leaves it available for comparison the next time this plugin runs.
If you do not use the delete option, this option has no effect.
Use this to verify the server SSL certificate against a local .pem file. You'll need to
specify the path to the .pem file as the parameter.
You can use the imap_ssl_cert utility included in this distribution to connect to your IMAP
server and save its SSL certificates into your .pem file. Usage is like this:
Enable (or disable) processing of IMAP search parameters. Requires Text::Template and Date::Manip.
Use this option to apply special processing to IMAP search parameters that allows you to use the
results of arbitrary computations as the parameter values. For example, you can use this feature
to search for message received up to 4 hours ago.
Modern IMAP servers that support rfc5032 extensions allow searching with the YOUNGER and OLDER
criteria so a message received up to 4 hours ago is -s YOUNGER -s 14400. But if your mail server
doesn't support that, you could use the --template option to get similar functionality.
When you enable the --template option, each parameter you pass to the -s option is parsed by
Text::Template. See the Text::Template manual for more information, but in general any expression
written in Perl will work.
A convenience function called rfc2822dateHeader is provided to you so you can easily compute properly
formatted dates for use as search parameters. The rfc2822date function can take one or two
parameters itself: the date to format and an optional offset. To use the current time as a
search parameter, you can write this:
The output of {rfc2822dateHeader("now")} looks like this: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:44:03 -0700 and
is suitable for use with a date header, like HEADER Delivery-Date.
To use a time in the past relative to the current time or day, you can use a second convenience function
called rfc2822date and write this:
The output of {rfc2822date("now","-1 day")} looks like this: 29-Sep-2009 and is suitable for use
with BEFORE, ON, SENTBEFORE, SENTON, SENTSINCE, and SINCE.
I have seen some email clients use a different format in the Date field,
like September 17, 2009 9:46:51 AM PDT. To specify an arbitrary format like this one, write this:
You can use BEFORE, ON, SENTBEFORE, SENTON, SENTSINCE, or SINCE to search for messages that arrived
on, before, or after a given day but not on, before, or after a specific time on that day.
To search for messages that arrived on, before, or after a specific time you have to use the
Delivery-Date or another date field, like with -s HEADER -s Delivery-Date in the example above.
See the Date::Manip manual for more information on the allowed expressions for date and delta strings.
Suppose your mailbox has some emails from an automated script and that a message
from this script typically looks like this (abbreviated):
To: mailuser _æ_ server.net
From: autoscript _æ_ server.net
Subject: Results of Autoscript
Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 08:30:40 -0800
Message-ID: <auto-000000992528 _æ_ server.net>
Homeruns 5
And further suppose that you are interested in reporting the message that has the
highest number of home runs, and also to leave this message in the mailbox for future
checks, but remove the other matching messages with lesser values:
This plugin does NOT use Nagios DEFAULT_SOCKET_TIMEOUT (provided by utils.pm as $TIMEOUT) because
the path to utils.pm must be specified completely in this program and forces users to edit the source
code if their install location is different (if they realize this is the problem). You can view
the default timeout for this module by using the --verbose and --version options together. The
short form is -vV.
Other than that, it attempts to follow published guidelines for Nagios plugins.
Wed Nov 9 09:53:32 PST 2005
+ added delete/nodelete option. deleting found messages is still default behavior.
+ added capture-max option
+ added nodelete-captured option
+ added mailbox option
+ added eval/alarm block to implement -c option
+ now using an inline PluginReport package to generate the report
+ copyright notice and GNU GPL
+ version 0.2
Thu Apr 20 14:00:00 CET 2006 (by Johan Nilsson <johann (at) axis.com>)
+ version 0.2.1
+ added support for multiple polls of imap-server, with specified intervals
Tue Apr 24 21:17:53 PDT 2007
+ now there is an alternate version (same but without embedded perl POD) that is compatible with the new new embedded-perl Nagios feature
+ added patch from Benjamin Ritcey <ben _æ_ ritcey.com> for SSL support on machines that have an SSL-enabled
+ version 0.2.3
Fri Apr 27 18:56:50 PDT 2007
+ fixed problem that "Invalid search parameters" was not printed because of missing newline to flush it
+ warnings and critical errors now try to append error messages received from the IMAP client
+ changed connection error to display timeout only if timeout was the error
+ documentation now mentions every command-line option accepted by the plugin, including abbreviations
+ added abbreviations U for username, P for password, m for mailbox
+ fixed bug that imap-check-interval applied even after the last try (imap-retries) when it was not necessary
+ the IMAP expunge command is not sent unless at least one message is deleted
+ fixed bug that the "no messages" warning was printed even if some messages were found
+ version 0.3
Sun Oct 21 14:08:07 PDT 2007
+ added port info to the "could not connect" error message
+ fixed bug that occurred when using --ssl --port 143 which caused port to remain at the default 993 imap/ssl port
+ added clarity shortcuts --search-subject and --search-header
+ port is no longer a required option. defaults to 143 for regular IMAP and 993 for IMAP/SSL
+ version 0.3.1
Sun Oct 21 20:41:56 PDT 2007
+ reworked ssl support to use IO::Socket::SSL instead of the convenience method Mail::IMAPClient->Ssl (which is not included in the standard Mail::IMAPClient package)
+ removed clarity shortcuts (bad idea, code bloat)
+ version 0.4
Tue Dec 4 07:05:27 PST 2007
+ added version check to _read_line workaround for SSL-related bug in Mail::IMAPClient version 2.2.9 ; newer versions fixed the bug
+ added --usage option because the official nagios plugins have both --help and --usage
+ added --timeout option to match the official nagios plugins
+ fixed some minor pod formatting issues for perldoc
+ version 0.4.1
Sat Dec 15 07:39:59 PST 2007
+ improved compatibility with Nagios embedded perl (ePN)
+ version 0.4.2
Mon Jan 7 21:35:23 PST 2008
+ changed version check for Mail::IMAPClient version 2.2.9 to use string comparison le "2.2.9"
+ fixed bug where script was dying on socket->autoflush when socket does not exist because autoflush was being called before checking the socket object
+ version 0.4.3
Mon Feb 11 19:13:38 PST 2008
+ fixed a bug for embedded perl version, variable "%status" will not stay shared in load_modules
+ version 0.4.4
Mon May 26 08:33:27 PDT 2008
+ fixed a bug for number captured, it now reflects number of messages captured instead of always returning "1"
+ added --capture-min option to complement --capture-max
+ added --search-critical-min to trigger a CRITICAL alert if number of messages found is less than argument, with default 1.
+ fixed warning and critical messages to use "more than" or "less than" instead of the angle brackets, to make them more web friendly
+ version 0.5
Wed Jul 2 14:59:05 PDT 2008
+ fixed a bug for not finding a message after the first try, by reselecting the mailbox before each search
+ version 0.5.1
Sat Dec 13 08:57:29 PST 2008
+ added --download option to allow local searching of messages (useful if your server has an index that handles searching but it takes a while before new emails show up and you want immediate results), supports only the TEXT, BODY, SUBJECT, and HEADER search keys
+ added --download-max option to set a limit on number of messages downloaded with --download
+ version 0.6.0
Wed Sep 30 23:25:33 PDT 2009
+ fixed --download-max option (was incorrectly looking for --download_max). currently both will work, in the future only --download-max will work
+ added --template option to allow arbitrary substitutions for search parameters, and provided three convenience functions for working with dates
+ added date search criteria to the --download option: SENTBEFORE, SENTON, and SENTSINCE which check the Date header and allow hours and minutes in addition to dates (whereas the IMAP standard only allows dates)
+ added --search-critical-max to trigger a CRITICAL alert if number of messages found is more than argument, disabled by default.
+ fixed a bug in --download --search where messages would match even though they failed the search criteria
+ changed behavior of --download-max to look at the most recent messages first (hopefully); the IMAP protocol doesn't guarantee the order that the messages are returned but I observed that many mail servers return them in chronological order; so now --download-max reverses the order to look at the newer messages first
+ added performance data for use with PNP4Nagios!
+ version 0.7.0
Fri Oct 2 15:22:00 PDT 2009
+ added --search-warning-max and --search-warning-min to trigger a WARNING alert if number of messages is more than or less than the specified number.
+ fixed --download option not to fail with CRITICAL if mailbox is empty; now this can be configured with --search-warning-min or --search-critical-min
+ version 0.7.1
Sat Nov 21 18:27:17 PST 2009
+ fixed problem with using --download option on certain mail servers by turning on the IgnoreSizeErrors feature in IMAPClient
+ added --peek option to prevent marking messages as seen
+ version 0.7.2
Tue Jan 5 12:13:53 PST 2010
+ added error message and exit with unknown status when an unrecognized IMAP search criteria is encountered by the --download --search option
Wed May 5 11:14:51 PDT 2010
+ added mailbox list when mailbox is not found and verbose level 3 is on (-vvv)
+ version 0.7.3
Tue Mar 8 18:58:14 AST 2011
+ updated documentation for --search and --template to mention rfc5032 extensions (thanks to Stuart Henderson)
Fri May 6 08:35:09 AST 2011
+ added --hires option to enable use of Time::Hires if available
+ version 0.7.4
Fri Nov 11 01:51:40 AST 2011
+ added --ssl-ca-file option to allow verifying the server certificate against a local .pem file (thanks to Alexandre Bezroutchko)
+ added imap_ssl_cert.pl utility (not in this file) to conveniently save the server's SSL certificates into a local .pem file
+ version 0.7.5
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>;.
