v1.2.0.11 deb package install size

[wwuck]

After upgrading linuxfabrik-monitoring-plugins package on a debian 12 machine from 2024060401-1 to 1.2.0.11-1 I noticed the package install size has blown out by almost 900%. Is there anything that can be done to reduce this?

Old version 2024060401-1:
APT reports Installed-Size: 406 MB.
Plugin directory size is 421M.

/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins# apt show linuxfabrik-monitoring-plugins
Package: linuxfabrik-monitoring-plugins
Version: 2024060401-1
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: default
Maintainer: info@linuxfabrik.ch
Installed-Size: 406 MB
Homepage: https://github.com/Linuxfabrik/monitoring-plugins
License: The Unlicense
Vendor: Linuxfabrik GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland
Download-Size: unknown
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
APT-Sources: /var/lib/dpkg/status
Description: This Enterprise Class Check Plugin Collection offers a bunch of Nagios-compatible check plugins for Icinga, Naemon, Nagios, OP5, Shinken, Sensu and other monitoring applications. Each plugin is a stand-alone command line tool that provides a specific type of check. Typically, your monitoring software will run these check plugins to determine the current status of hosts and services on your network.

/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins# du -h
72K	./_internal/setuptools-70.0.0.dist-info
8.0K	./_internal/prettytable-3.10.0.dist-info/licenses
56K	./_internal/prettytable-3.10.0.dist-info
44K	./_internal/debtcollector-3.0.0.dist-info
192K	./_internal/psutil
44K	./_internal/os_service_types-1.7.0.dist-info
84K	./_internal/keystoneauth1-5.6.0.dist-info
32K	./_internal/wheel-0.43.0.dist-info
10M	./_internal/cryptography/hazmat/bindings
10M	./_internal/cryptography/hazmat
10M	./_internal/cryptography
92K	./_internal/python_keystoneclient-5.4.0.dist-info
280K	./_internal/charset_normalizer
128K	./_internal/ossl-modules
2.4M	./_internal/lib-dynload
192K	./_internal/wrapt
60K	./_internal/cryptography-42.0.7.dist-info
292K	./_internal/certifi
156K	./_internal/lxml/isoschematron/resources/xsl/iso-schematron-xslt1
172K	./_internal/lxml/isoschematron/resources/xsl
24K	./_internal/lxml/isoschematron/resources/rng
200K	./_internal/lxml/isoschematron/resources
204K	./_internal/lxml/isoschematron
368K	./_internal/lxml/html
9.1M	./_internal/lxml
28K	./_internal/os_service_types/data
32K	./_internal/os_service_types
52K	./_internal/python_swiftclient-4.6.0.dist-info
84K	./_internal/python_novaclient-18.6.0.dist-info
49M	./_internal
1.7M	./notifications/_internal/lib-dynload
24M	./notifications/_internal
33M	./notifications
421M	.

New version 1.2.0.11-1:
APT reports Installed-Size: 3,700 MB.
Plugin directory size is 3.5G.

# apt show linuxfabrik-monitoring-plugins
Package: linuxfabrik-monitoring-plugins
Version: 1.2.0.11-1
Priority: optional
Section: default
Maintainer: info@linuxfabrik.ch
Installed-Size: 3,700 MB
Homepage: https://github.com/Linuxfabrik/monitoring-plugins
License: The Unlicense
Vendor: Linuxfabrik GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland
Download-Size: 1,285 MB
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
APT-Sources: https://repo.linuxfabrik.ch/monitoring-plugins/debian bookworm-release/main amd64 Packages
Description: This Enterprise Class Check Plugin Collection offers a bunch of Nagios-compatible check plugins for Icinga, Naemon, Nagios, OP5, Shinken, Sensu and other monitoring applications. Each plugin is a stand-alone command line tool that provides a specific type of check. Typically, your monitoring software will run these check plugins to determine the current status of hosts and services on your network.

/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins# du -h
308K	./charset_normalizer
200K	./psutil
96K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Australia
52K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Antarctica
16K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Mexico
48K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Indian
144K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Etc
12K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Chile
180K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Pacific
52K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Atlantic
12K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/America/Kentucky
56K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/America/Argentina
16K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/America/North_Dakota
36K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/America/Indiana
692K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/America
8.0K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Arctic
20K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Brazil
260K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Europe
36K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Canada
52K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/US
400K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Asia
220K	./tzdata/zoneinfo/Africa
2.6M	./tzdata/zoneinfo
2.6M	./tzdata
20K	./lib2to3
2.4M	./yaml
23M	./zstandard
8.6M	./lxml
500K	./assets
208K	./wrapt
292K	./certifi
11M	./cryptography/hazmat/bindings
11M	./cryptography/hazmat
11M	./cryptography
3.5G	.

[slalomsk8er]

Reducing size would be great as it's an absolute no go for systems like raspberry pi (used for digital signage), where the storage is very limited. Currently I have to deploy the python version, which is a lot smaller.

[markuslf]

Yes, the size of the compiled plugins bothers us too. Since I'm working on the next version anyway, I'll take a look at that as well.

[markuslf]

In the next release, we will no longer deliver the plugins in compiled form. Instead, the RPM and DEB packages will store the plugins as Python source code on the machine again. This requires Python 3.

[mdicss]

You did not find a way, to compile the checks into smaller executables again? Would you no longer recommend to compile python scripts?

[markuslf]

Indeed. The upcoming packages in the next release will install a Python virtual environment (venv) and the plugins in pure source format. Therefore, Python will be required on the target machine. For Windows, we will still compile, but we will reduce the number of plugins shipped. Unfortunately, we could not find a way to reduce the size of the executables, and other users love the flexibility that the source code version offers.

[mdicss]

Thanks.

[slalomsk8er]

@markuslf I just had an idea.
One option for a smaller compiled version would be to put all plugins into one executable and use the first argument to change, which actual plugins would be executed.

[markuslf]

Needs some testing. Let's keep that in mind.

[mdicss]

Good idea, but I think, with this solution, the overall needed diskplace would be smaller, but loading would be slowly and it would need more memory. An Option would be to use a daemon (like the service in powershell in icinga for windows) which runs constantly and can be called to do the single tests.
Another disadvantage is, that you couldn't delete all plugins, that you dont need any more.

[slalomsk8er]

I don't think it will be noticeably slower then the current compiled checks. Memory usage will probably be bit higher as all libraries would be included but I don't know if they get loaded if they aren't in the code path of the requested check.

The PowerShell daemon was necessary because of the atrocious startup times and resource use of PowerShell.

I'm quite curious how real world numbers would look.

[wwuck]

Busybox does something similar, where you symlink the command name to the single busybox executable and then busybox checks argv[0] to see which command is being requested.