A report records how ONE cycle went. Nothing ages it, so a PC that stops
reporting keeps the status of its last good cycle: switch a machine off after a
clean run and it shows 'ok' indefinitely. One had been offline more than a day
and still read 'ok'.
Silence is a different fact from the last cycle's outcome, so it is computed
separately rather than by rewriting the stored status. receivedat - the server's
own clock, not anything a client asserts - is compared against
geenforce_reportstaleminutes, default 30, which is roughly two missed cycles at
the usual cadence. Set it to 0 to turn the check off.
In the table 'stale' takes the badge, because a status from a machine that has
not spoken since is not evidence of anything. What it last reported stays in the
tooltip with the time it was heard. The stored status is untouched: it is still
a true record of that cycle, just not proof the PC is alive.
A site whose scope enforces less often than the threshold will read stale while
healthy, which is what the setting is for.
962979d483