[Nagios-users] host_port objects - Enhancement Request
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
Greetings,
We are planning on submitting an enhancement request to Nagios with the
intention of having their professional services group code this for us.
We are interested in having our changes made available to the community
as well, so we wanted to get feedback from the community before we
submit the proposal. Any and all feedback is welcome.
Thanks.
Nagios Enhancement Proposal
Overview
Currently, there are two primary ways to add individual physical ports
for a port-based device. Each method has both advantages and
disadvantages, but neither fully satisfies the needs of Lafayette and,
likely, other institutions.
Service-based Ports
The first method is to treat ports as a service of a host and add them
as service entries. The following configuration snippet demonstrates this :
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_nameswitch.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
parents router.lafayette.edu
}
define service {
use service-standard
hostsswitch.lafayette.edu
servicegroupscisco-switch-standard
service_description Switch Port Gi1/0/1
check_commandcheck_snmp_traffic!-N Gi1/0/1!-C $USER2$
}
In short, this configuration defines a host and then a service for that
host which is, essentially, an snmp check that monitors the traffic on a
specific port.
Advantages
* Cleanly links a port to a switch
* Somewhat easy to add/remove specific hosts that need that port monitored
Disadvantages
* Parent/child relationships are difficult, if not impossible, to define
* Making service changes for a single port requires creating a unique
new service
* Service descriptions can get a bit long when they need to have a
meaningful description associated with them
* Ports with associated addresses are more difficult to define
Host-based Ports
Another method to accomplish this is to create a “fake” host entry for
each port and then assign services to those ports for monitoring. The
following configuration snippet demonstrates this :
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_nameswitch.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
parents router.lafayette.edu
}
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_nameswitch-g1-0-1.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
_PORTGi1/0/1
parents switch.lafayette.edu
}
define service {
use service-standard
hostsswitch.lafayette.edu
servicegroupscisco-switch-standard
service_description Port Traffic
check_commandcheck_snmp_traffic!-N $_HOSTPORT$!-C $USER2$
}
This configuration defines two hosts, a switch and a port on that
switch, and then a service linked to the port.
Advantages
* Parent/child relationships work as expected
* A single service entry can be used for many port entries
* Very easy to deal with address-assigned ports such as router interfaces
Disadvantages
* Every port on every switch has to be defined
* Port host_name entries are often fake
* Port address entries are often duplicated
Proposed Solution
host-port object
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_nameswitch.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
parents router.lafayette.edu
}
define host_port {
use cisco-switch-standard
host switch.lafayette.edu
port_nameGi1/0/1
}
define service {
use service-standard
host switch.lafayette.edu
port_based true
servicegroupscisco-switch-standard
service_description Port Traffic
check_commandcheck_snmp_traffic!-N $PORTNAME$!-C $USER2$
}
In this proposed configuration, a host is defined, as normal. A new
object, the host_port object, is defined with port-based information.
The host_port object imports information such as address and host_name
from the host but can override this information if needed. For
instance, a router interface may have an ip address and hostname.
Finally, a new tag, port_name, identifies the port name to use. When
displaying the host_port in the GUI, or identifying it in email/SMS, the
port_name should be appended to the host_name. A similar syntax could
be used for parent/child relationships as well.
The service definition uses a new tag, port_based, to identify that this
service is for the ports of a host, not for the host itself. This
service should be applied to all ports. port_name can be used in a
manner similar to host or hostgroups to restrict the
Re: [Nagios-users] host_port objects - Enhancement Request
I use check_mk which automatically does a host inventory and adds
active interfaces to the configuration.
Off topic: I have to say the check_mk in combination with
mk_livestatus and multisite make Nagios a much better solution. I
wonder if and when the Nagios team is going to adopt this solution and
make it a part of Nagios Core.
/Rutger
On Thursday, October 28, 2010, Jason Frisvold frisv...@lafayette.edu wrote:
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
Greetings,
We are planning on submitting an enhancement request to Nagios with
the
intention of having their professional services group code this for us.
We are interested in having our changes made available to the community
as well, so we wanted to get feedback from the community before we
submit the proposal. Any and all feedback is welcome.
Thanks.
Nagios Enhancement Proposal
Overview
Currently, there are two primary ways to add individual physical ports
for a port-based device. Each method has both advantages and
disadvantages, but neither fully satisfies the needs of Lafayette and,
likely, other institutions.
Service-based Ports
The first method is to treat ports as a service of a host and add them
as service entries. The following configuration snippet demonstrates this :
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_name switch.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
parents router.lafayette.edu
}
define service {
use service-standard
hosts switch.lafayette.edu
servicegroups cisco-switch-standard
service_description Switch Port Gi1/0/1
check_command check_snmp_traffic!-N Gi1/0/1!-C $USER2$
}
In short, this configuration defines a host and then a service for that
host which is, essentially, an snmp check that monitors the traffic on a
specific port.
Advantages
* Cleanly links a port to a switch
* Somewhat easy to add/remove specific hosts that need that port monitored
Disadvantages
* Parent/child relationships are difficult, if not impossible, to define
* Making service changes for a single port requires creating a unique
new service
* Service descriptions can get a bit long when they need to have a
meaningful description associated with them
* Ports with associated addresses are more difficult to define
Host-based Ports
Another method to accomplish this is to create a “fake” host entry for
each port and then assign services to those ports for monitoring. The
following configuration snippet demonstrates this :
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_name switch.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
parents router.lafayette.edu
}
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_name switch-g1-0-1.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
_PORT Gi1/0/1
parents switch.lafayette.edu
}
define service {
use service-standard
hosts switch.lafayette.edu
servicegroups cisco-switch-standard
service_description Port Traffic
check_command check_snmp_traffic!-N $_HOSTPORT$!-C $USER2$
}
This configuration defines two hosts, a switch and a port on that
switch, and then a service linked to the port.
Advantages
* Parent/child relationships work as expected
* A single service entry can be used for many port entries
* Very easy to deal with address-assigned ports such as router interfaces
Disadvantages
* Every port on every switch has to be defined
* Port host_name entries are often fake
* Port address entries are often duplicated
Proposed Solution
host-port object
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_name switch.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
parents router.lafayette.edu
}
define host_port {
use cisco-switch-standard
host switch.lafayette.edu
port_name Gi1/0/1
}
define service {
use service-standard
host switch.lafayette.edu
port_based true
servicegroups cisco-switch-standard
service_description Port Traffic
check_command check_snmp_traffic!-N $PORTNAME$!-C $USER2$
}
In this proposed configuration, a host is defined, as normal. A new
object, the host_port object, is defined with port-based information.
The host_port object imports information such as address and host_name
from the host but can override this information if needed. For
instance, a router interface may have an ip address and hostname.
Re: [Nagios-users] host_port objects - Enhancement Request
I think this would be a very nice enhancement. Many of the services we run are associated with a host and a port. We're using the service-based ports solution that you describe. Since Nagios requires that the combination host_name and service_description be unique, we often have to embed a port name in the service_description. Since the port is also passed as an argument to the check_command, it ends up being defined in two places and the service_description has to be changed when we change the port being used for the service. Having to configure a separate service for each port on a given host also complicates configuration changes. -- Nokia and ATT present the 2010 Calling All Innovators-North America contest Create new apps games for the Nokia N8 for consumers in U.S. and Canada $10 million total in prizes - $4M cash, 500 devices, nearly $6M in marketing Develop with Nokia Qt SDK, Web Runtime, or Java and Publish to Ovi Store http://p.sf.net/sfu/nokia-dev2dev ___ Nagios-users mailing list Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue. ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
[Nagios-users] Nagios/NRPE script getting No output returned from plugin
Hi, Getting a No output returned from plugin error message from a Nagios/NRPE script 1) Running Nagios v3.2.2 and v3.2.3(now) and NRPE v2.12 2) The script: OK_STATE=0 UNAME=`/bin/uname -r` echo OK: Kernel Version=$UNAME exit $OK_STATE 2) Results on command line on Nagios Server using NRPE - Same OK results from both the root and nagios user: [nag...@cmonmm03 libexec]$ ./check_nrpe -H dappsi01b.dev.screenscape.local -c check_kernel OK: Kernel Version=2.6.18-194.11.3.el5 When I run the check_kernel.sh script on the machine locally it works there too. Help, any thoughts or known solution regarding this would be appreciated? Thank you Rick B. Munn -- Nokia and ATT present the 2010 Calling All Innovators-North America contest Create new apps games for the Nokia N8 for consumers in U.S. and Canada $10 million total in prizes - $4M cash, 500 devices, nearly $6M in marketing Develop with Nokia Qt SDK, Web Runtime, or Java and Publish to Ovi Store http://p.sf.net/sfu/nokia-dev2dev___ 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
Re: [Nagios-users] host_port objects - Enhancement Request
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 10/28/2010 12:39 PM, Rutger Blom wrote: I use check_mk which automatically does a host inventory and adds active interfaces to the configuration. Does this solve the parent/child problem? What ends up in the config for, say, a switch port? Is that added as a host or a service? - -- - --- Jason Frisvold Network Engineer frisv...@lafayette.edu - --- What I cannot create, I do not understand - Richard Feynman -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkzJvHAACgkQO80o6DJ8UvnAxACdEOadhtzsOBZlhDmEDCOagWc/ eeYAnicGnuAuN/+ylU1pnU7BBHnVKJuh =9b2M -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Nokia and ATT present the 2010 Calling All Innovators-North America contest Create new apps games for the Nokia N8 for consumers in U.S. and Canada $10 million total in prizes - $4M cash, 500 devices, nearly $6M in marketing Develop with Nokia Qt SDK, Web Runtime, or Java and Publish to Ovi Store http://p.sf.net/sfu/nokia-dev2dev ___ 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
Re: [Nagios-users] host_port objects - Enhancement Request
On 28 October 2010 16:16, Jason Frisvold frisv...@lafayette.edu wrote:
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
Greetings,
We are planning on submitting an enhancement request to Nagios with the
intention of having their professional services group code this for us.
We are interested in having our changes made available to the community
as well, so we wanted to get feedback from the community before we
submit the proposal. Any and all feedback is welcome.
Thanks.
I agree something needs doing to make it easier to monitor multiple
ports on network nodes. The issue goes a bit wider than just ports on
hosts though.
There are other object relationships which can be tricky to set up
using the limited host/service structure. Some examples that come to
mind are:
virtual hosts in a VMWare cluster
load-balanced services
clustered applications
various physical and virtual structures in a SAN
My preference would be for a less prescriptive nomencalture with more
flexibility over what can be grouped with what so Nagios will then be
able to cope with whatever groupings and parent relationships we care
to throw at it.
For example, if instead of host_port, we have component then it's
less prescriptive.
I'd like to throw around some other ideas for how the service
definition would work too. For example:
define service {
use service-standard
components switches-cisco/port*
servicegroupscisco-switch-standard
service_description Port Traffic
check_commandcheck_snmp_traffic!-N $PORTNAME$!-C $USER2$
}
That's my 2p anyway. I'm not a programmer. For all I know the dev
team might have some ideas already up their sleeve for Nagios 4 or 5.
Cheers,
Jim
--
Nokia and ATT present the 2010 Calling All Innovators-North America contest
Create new apps games for the Nokia N8 for consumers in U.S. and Canada
$10 million total in prizes - $4M cash, 500 devices, nearly $6M in marketing
Develop with Nokia Qt SDK, Web Runtime, or Java and Publish to Ovi Store
http://p.sf.net/sfu/nokia-dev2dev
___
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
Re: [Nagios-users] Nagios and OpenVMS servers
Thanks for your offer Andreas, but I was able to work with HP and get SNMP working without any special hacks or modifications. -- Chris On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Andreas Ericsson a...@op5.se wrote: On 10/27/2010 04:38 PM, Chris Hudson wrote: Anyone here ever configure an OpenVMS server for snmp / Nagios? Any info at all would be greatly appreciated, I'm not having any luck at all. I once hacked NRPE to work on OpenVMS. It's not quite NRPE anymore though, but it worked (and still works) for the customer that ordered the job. I'll send it to you off-list, as the tarball ended up being quite large. If you want support for or help with it, you'll have to contact our sales people and get a contract. I simply don't have time to delve into it again, and to be perfectly honest DCL isn't so much fun that I want to spend my days writing it ;) -- Andreas Ericsson andreas.erics...@op5.se OP5 AB www.op5.se Tel: +46 8-230225 Fax: +46 8-230231 Considering the successes of the wars on alcohol, poverty, drugs and terror, I think we should give some serious thought to declaring war on peace. -- Nokia and ATT present the 2010 Calling All Innovators-North America contest Create new apps games for the Nokia N8 for consumers in U.S. and Canada $10 million total in prizes - $4M cash, 500 devices, nearly $6M in marketing Develop with Nokia Qt SDK, Web Runtime, or Java and Publish to Ovi Store http://p.sf.net/sfu/nokia-dev2dev___ 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
Re: [Nagios-users] host_port objects - Enhancement Request
On 10/28/2010 05:16 PM, Jason Frisvold wrote:
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
Greetings,
Hi there.
We are planning on submitting an enhancement request to Nagios with the
intention of having their professional services group code this for us.
Never heard of such a group. Considering I'm a core developer you'd have
thought I would know, but I suppose not. Ah well. Anyways; if you want to
pay for new features, go wild :)
We are interested in having our changes made available to the community
as well, so we wanted to get feedback from the community before we
submit the proposal. Any and all feedback is welcome.
Good idea. My reply is below. I've thought of some of those problems myself.
Nagios Enhancement Proposal
Overview
Currently, there are two primary ways to add individual physical ports
for a port-based device. Each method has both advantages and
disadvantages, but neither fully satisfies the needs of Lafayette and,
likely, other institutions.
Service-based Ports
The first method is to treat ports as a service of a host and add them
as service entries. The following configuration snippet demonstrates this :
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_nameswitch.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
parents router.lafayette.edu
}
define service {
use service-standard
hostsswitch.lafayette.edu
servicegroupscisco-switch-standard
service_description Switch Port Gi1/0/1
check_commandcheck_snmp_traffic!-N Gi1/0/1!-C $USER2$
}
In short, this configuration defines a host and then a service for that
host which is, essentially, an snmp check that monitors the traffic on a
specific port.
Advantages
* Cleanly links a port to a switch
* Somewhat easy to add/remove specific hosts that need that port monitored
Agreed.
Disadvantages
* Parent/child relationships are difficult, if not impossible, to define
I disagree. The switch is still the parent of whatever hosts are sitting
beyond it, from Nagios' point of view. If one port stops forwarding
traffic but the switch is still up (and thus probably reachable from the
admin interface), the actions a network admin would take are vastly
different. I agree that it would be nice to be able to surpress
notifications for the hosts connected through this particular port, but
that would be easier to solve by making it possible to have services as
parents (like a parent_service, perhaps).
* Making service changes for a single port requires creating a unique
new service
* Service descriptions can get a bit long when they need to have a
meaningful description associated with them
Agreed on those two (sort of).
* Ports with associated addresses are more difficult to define
I don't quite follow you here. If you mean that the interface name is
hard to remember (or type), then you can just rename the interface in
the switch itself. Name it kungfupanda for all anyone cares. It's a
piece of hardware, so it won't be offended no matter what you name it.
Other than that, finding it hard to remember is just another reason
why you would want it sent to you in a notification so you can quickly
find which interface it is when you're trying to fix the problem.
Host-based Ports
Another method to accomplish this is to create a “fake” host entry for
each port and then assign services to those ports for monitoring. The
following configuration snippet demonstrates this :
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_nameswitch.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
parents router.lafayette.edu
}
define host {
use cisco-switch-standard
host_nameswitch-g1-0-1.lafayette.edu
address 192.168.0.100
hostgroups cisco-switch-standard
_PORTGi1/0/1
parents switch.lafayette.edu
}
define service {
use service-standard
hostsswitch.lafayette.edu
servicegroupscisco-switch-standard
service_description Port Traffic
check_commandcheck_snmp_traffic!-N $_HOSTPORT$!-C $USER2$
}
This configuration defines two hosts, a switch and a port on that
switch, and then a service linked to the port.
Advantages
* Parent/child relationships work as expected
They work no differently than they did before. Or am I missing
something?
* A single service entry can be used for many port entries
* Very easy to deal with address-assigned ports such as router interfaces
True.
Disadvantages
* Every port on every switch has to be defined
False. Only the ones you need to monitor somewhere have to be
defined.
Re: [Nagios-users] host_port objects - Enhancement Request
On 28 Oct 2010, at 16:16, Jason Frisvold wrote: Nagios Enhancement Proposal Overview Currently, there are two primary ways to add individual physical ports for a port-based device. Each method has both advantages and disadvantages, but neither fully satisfies the needs of Lafayette and, likely, other institutions. Opsview (http://opsview.com) has the Service-based Ports way of doing this. You assign host attributes with X number of items to a host and then Opsview will generate X service checks against it. An example of this is urls or disks or processes. But the most common request for X number of things is interfaces, so we've designed some special pages for that. There's a discovery page where you click Query Host and you get a list of all your interfaces and you just tick which ones you want monitored, with your desired thresholds. And there's a Host Interfaces page where you can see a graph of all your interfaces with throughput and errors/discards. See our screencast at http://bit.ly/dnWPJI (from 02:10 onwards) to watch it in action. Ton -- Nokia and ATT present the 2010 Calling All Innovators-North America contest Create new apps games for the Nokia N8 for consumers in U.S. and Canada $10 million total in prizes - $4M cash, 500 devices, nearly $6M in marketing Develop with Nokia Qt SDK, Web Runtime, or Java and Publish to Ovi Store http://p.sf.net/sfu/nokia-dev2dev ___ 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
