Nagios XI for Switches and Routers
Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2018 7:50 am
Using Nagios XI for network devices, by which I mean routers and switches, is kludgy. Because I see XI wizards for both straight SNMP service monitors and for MRTG-based service monitors with the MRTG-based services being the preferred method, I assume that someone has done a comparison of using both methods and decided that the MRTG monitoring has a more efficient SNMP polling engine or is better in some other important way. If that kind of comparison has not been done, then I have to wonder why MRTG was ever introduced into the Nagios mix. If MRTG is really a better, more efficient method, then there are several things that I would like to see improved in the integration between Nagios and MRTG in order for Nagios to truly be an enterprise-class network monitoring system. In my case, enterprise-class means a wide variety and hundreds of network devices with thousands of ports.
1. One of the most disappointing things about trying to use Nagios XI for network devices is that the nice Nagios document "Automated Host Management in Nagios XI" does not work for network devices and their services because it does not extend to the MRTG part of the product. If I pursued doing this with straight SNMP then it would be a totally different configuration than what the Network Switch/Router Configuration Wizard produces, and following the logic above, possibly less efficient than using MRTG.
2. The combination of using "Monitor Using: Port's Description" in Step 1 of the Network Switch/Router Configuration Wizard and using the REST API "GET objects/rrdexport" query is very awkward. The long strings of the port descriptions are extremely desirable in many or most places in the XI GUI, but are clumsy in the REST API. Maybe a combination of using the port numbers internally and in the REST API, and either the port names or descriptions in the GUI would work well.
3. Cleaning up MRTG configurations when devices or services are deleted in the Nagios XI database is at least a recognized issue, although needing to do this manually is asking for trouble.
4. Another very disappointing thing about the Nagios XI/MRTG mindmeld is that it is virtually impossible to add other port statistics to the monitoring configurations. In particular it is very desirable to have another column or two in Step 2 of the Network Switch/Router Configuration Wizard to be able to optionally monitor input and output errors on switch and router ports. I do really like the column header Check/Uncheck options on that page.
5. I saw another post on this forum about adding a Rediscover button so that changes to port descriptions or speeds could be easily updated without going through the entire wizard over again. I like this idea too, although even better would be if this was just done automatically on some periodic basis.
Thank you for your kind attention.
1. One of the most disappointing things about trying to use Nagios XI for network devices is that the nice Nagios document "Automated Host Management in Nagios XI" does not work for network devices and their services because it does not extend to the MRTG part of the product. If I pursued doing this with straight SNMP then it would be a totally different configuration than what the Network Switch/Router Configuration Wizard produces, and following the logic above, possibly less efficient than using MRTG.
2. The combination of using "Monitor Using: Port's Description" in Step 1 of the Network Switch/Router Configuration Wizard and using the REST API "GET objects/rrdexport" query is very awkward. The long strings of the port descriptions are extremely desirable in many or most places in the XI GUI, but are clumsy in the REST API. Maybe a combination of using the port numbers internally and in the REST API, and either the port names or descriptions in the GUI would work well.
3. Cleaning up MRTG configurations when devices or services are deleted in the Nagios XI database is at least a recognized issue, although needing to do this manually is asking for trouble.
4. Another very disappointing thing about the Nagios XI/MRTG mindmeld is that it is virtually impossible to add other port statistics to the monitoring configurations. In particular it is very desirable to have another column or two in Step 2 of the Network Switch/Router Configuration Wizard to be able to optionally monitor input and output errors on switch and router ports. I do really like the column header Check/Uncheck options on that page.
5. I saw another post on this forum about adding a Rediscover button so that changes to port descriptions or speeds could be easily updated without going through the entire wizard over again. I like this idea too, although even better would be if this was just done automatically on some periodic basis.
Thank you for your kind attention.