Good advice.
I'm happy to say we can tick most of those boxes. For logs I've been using the free Splunk, quite handy for post incident forensics. I'd also add : Pay attention to host parents and service dependencies. Getting them right can be the difference between knowing what is going on and a notification blizzard. I'd also propose only monitoring what you need to, seems obvious but it's easy to start monitoring because you can. Matthew Joyce 02 9382 0051 | IT Manager | Children's Cancer Institute Australia for Medical Research > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf > Of Russell Adams > Sent: Tuesday, 14 August 2007 10:17 AM > To: nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: Re: [Nagios-users] Nagios best practices? > > My $0.02: > > Use a text editor and version control. > > Minimize and automate as much as practical. > > Try out NACE. Make a template, setup a query to find systems to > apply it to. Don't be the administrative bottleneck when systems > need to be added, or they won't be. Set standards and let > automation do the work for you. > > Make sure you have two methods for notification. Email is good, > backup IXO/TAP/SMS via modem on POTS is better (Sendpage). > > Have a dedicated UPS on your Nagios system. Power's out, > notifications continue. > > Use a trending (Torrus) and log monitoring (Syslog-ng & Logmuncher) > tool in conjunction with Nagios to ensure all your bases are > covered. Tie them in to use Nagios notification engine as needed. > > Consider using SNMP for common checks on platforms with decent > snmpd's (Linux, Windows 2000+, AIX 5.3, etc). This saves you from > deploying NRPE everywhere, minimizing the client side software. > (This'll start a flame war, so I'll point out you should only use > SNMP on an internal network and use host ACL's to confine SNMP to > read only queries from the Nagios server and one alternate for > upgrades. ) Check out Patrick Proy's snmp plugins, > http://nagios.manubulon.com/ . > > Choose what you monitor and how you notify carefully. Apathy caused > by too many off hours notifications is a real problem when that > important message goes out. I'd suggest email for all > notifications, but SMS only for critical services in a critical > state. > > Good luck! > > On Mon, Aug 13, 2007 at 09:30:19PM +0100, Jim Avery wrote: > > On 13/08/07, Steve Huff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hello folks! > > > > > > I'd like to roll out Nagios to replace our aging Mon > installation; > > > however, setting up Nagios has been more difficult than I had > > > expected, which makes me wonder if I'm going about it the > wrong way. > > > > > > Can you recommend a Nagios best practices document or howto? > > > > The relevant page in the official Nagios documentation you need to > > look for is "Time-Saving Tricks For Object Definitions". I > would give > > you the url, but for some reason I can't get to that page > just at the > > moment. > > > > An excellent introduction to Nagios which goes through how to > > configure it is the book 'Nagios' by Wolfgang Barth published by > > NoStarch Press. You can buy it online in .pdf form, > printed form or > > both. It's getting slightly dated now, but IMO it's an easier read > > than some of the alternatives if you're just starting out. > > > > Using hostgroups and templates judiciously you should be able to > > achieve what you want pretty easily. My recommendation would be to > > start with a simple config and expand from there rather > than trying to > > do everything at once. > > > > hth, > > > > Jim > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. > > Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. > > Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX > and a browser. > > Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > > Nagios-users mailing list > > Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users > > ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and > OS when reporting any issue. > > ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent > to /dev/null > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > Russell Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > PGP Key ID: 0x1160DCB3 http://www.adamsinfoserv.com/ > > Fingerprint: 1723 D8CA 4280 1EC9 557F 66E8 1154 E018 1160 DCB3 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ Nagios-users mailing list Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue. ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
