== What this is ==

Nagios-mode is an Emacs mode for editing Nagios configuration
files. Nagios is monitoring software that is configured via plain-text
(*.cfg) files. Those configuration files have a C-like syntax, and a
bunch of special keywords. Witin Emacs, nagios-mode will apply syntax
highlighting to them, possibly alerting you to the fact that you have
done something wrong, and making your buffers look pretty in any case.


== How to install it ==

Stick nagios-mode.el somewhere, and add that place to your Emacs load
path. For example,

  (setq load-path
    (append (list "~/.home/emacs/modes/nagios-mode/")
      load-path))

is how I do it. With that in your load path, you just have to add
nagios-mode to your auto-load list,

  (autoload 'nagios-mode "nagios-mode" nil t)

And tell Emacs to use it automatically when editing *.cfg files,

  (setq auto-mode-alist
    (append (list '("\\.cfg$" . nagios-mode))
      auto-mode-alist))

which works great so long as you don't edit any other *.cfg files that
have a different syntax.


== How it works ==

The macros and object definitions are parsed from the Nagios source
code. Object definitions are found within xdata/xodtemplate.h, while
the macros are cleverly hidden within include/macros.h. Once they have
been parsed, they are cut and pasted in to nagios-mode.el.

The directives are a bit tricker. They too are parsed from the Nagios
source (xdata/xodtemplate.c), but not all of the names map nicely to
internal C variables, so there's no explicit list of them. Instead we
try to piece together the valid names based on what Nagios's config
parser is looking for. It's possible that some have been overlooked.

The helper scripts for this can be found in the "utils" directory.


== Bugs et cetera ==

Send all bug reports, feature requests, and unprompted criticism to
michael@orlitzky.com.