Update notifier.

On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 10:24:43PM -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 09:08:48AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> > But please, for $DEITY's sake, don't bloat what is a simple and
> > straightforward applet with all of the detritus necessary to support network
> > monitoring.  Just use the tools designed for the job.
> 
> There is something to be said for implementing this once, and bundling it
> with the OS, rather than requiring that everyone who wants this
> functionality build it themselves.

That presumes that everyone wants it bundled in the same way, of course. 
We've already seen three different ways of wanting the information presented
(GUI vs e-mail vs Nagios), I don't doubt there'll be others.

> Also, while a simple shell script pipeline goes a very long way for getting
> something done, a robust application can provide a platform for more
> sophisticated user interfaces which make the functionality accessible to a
> wider audience.

I'd say that Nagios is probably the #1 contender on that front.  It's got
web and console GUIs, as well as pluggable alerts.

Why do I get the feeling I've just talked myself into implementing an update
checker plugin for Nagios?

- Matt