Plan

Heartbeat is a client/server based network monitor and host observer.  hbd, the server portion receives heartbeat and state messages from clients and maintaines state and hisgtory of the informations it receives.

hbc, the client portion gathers information on various aspects of the
system it is running on, and sends it to hbd. Initially this info is basic, like OS make and version, hardware info (CPU type, memory and disks), fileystem info and some resource info. hbc/hbd support a plugin system to extend the info gathered and stored.

hbd also can send notification based on missed hbc updates, and on violation of pre-set limits for various state paramaters.