Your display could include some or all of these columns, depending on the tests Big Brother is performing on each monitored machine. In addition to the columns listed here, there will be an additional column for each external, user-defined test you perform. The Administrator can define the tests to perform on each host.
This is the status of the ping (connectivity) test.
This is the status of the CPU test. The CPU test requires the Big Brother client; the status is based on the five-minute load average as reported in the second column by the uptime command. The administrator can change the thresholds for this test.
This is the status of the disk check. The disk test requires the Big Brother client. By default, the indicator turns yellow when the disk is 90% full and red at 95%. The administrator can change these thresholds.
This is the status of the DNS server on that machine. The test is basically an nslookup with the server name and IP address as arguments. The dig column may appear instead of this one.
This is the status of the DNS server on that machine, determined using the dig command. The dns column may appear instead of this one.
This is the status of the FTP check.
This is the status of the HTTP check. This test returns OK if the server is there and does not return a string containing the word Error. Password-protected pages are not supported.
This is the status of the event log check. This test requires the Big Brother client. By default, only NOTICE and WARNING conditions are reported. A NOTICE condition reports a red status and sends a notification; a WARNING reports a yellow status. How long the status lasts is determined by the MSGEXPIRE setting in bbdef-client.sh. You can define the messages to look for using the etc/bb-msgstab file.
This is the status of the nntp test. It indicates whether the news server is alive and well.
This is the status of the pop mail check. This test checks that the pop3 mail server is alive and well.
This is the status of the processes check. This test requires the Big Brother client. It makes sure that the processes defined in the bb-proctab file exist on the local machine. If a process does not exist, and it has been defined in bb-proctab, then the code is either yellow or red and a notification is sent if appropriate. Big Brother uses the ps command to get a current process listing.
This is the status of the SMTP check. This test indicates whether the SMTP process (usually sendmail) is alive and well.