ssh + watch

using ssh with watch for some basic monitoring? maybe a different ncurses or terminal-requiring binary you want to run often, but not from a directly interactive terminal session?

because ssh x@y watch -n 60 bin doesn't just work (Error opening terminal: unknown.), there's a temptation to use watch -n 60 ssh x@y bin, which does just work. younger me did this in the ultra primitive raid monitoring i set up back in 2006 on the mac pro (i didn't want a daemonized mdadm, just not a fan). the shabby version of watch i installed for mac w/ fink back then has finally ceased functioning, so it was time to figure out:

ssh-tx@y watch -n 60 bin

to force pseudo tty allocation and make watch happy.

it has the added benefit of reducing the auth.log pollution from ssh'ing into raid hosts every 60 seconds to cat /proc/mdstat, as now watch runs on the local host in a long-running ssh session. always the preferred outcome, just not instantaneously worky. i recall wanting to know if fink would work for installing watch, as it was lacking on the mac platform.

i also set up graylog for a modernish alert delivery mechanism, but fixing the old thing is nice too. it has, technically, worked quite well to date, but now that email is everywhere there's a win to be had there.