Nagios Support Forum

Posted: **Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:38 am**

Hi,

We have an issue were the nrpe_user is configured to use nagios. However when the nagios user is called, it ignores the environment variables configured in bash.bashrc and profile.d/appenv.sh.

When the environment variable is hardcoded within our scripts this then does work.

I have seen messages about this happening in the event the nrpe_user has been assigned a numeric variable but as you can see in the below configuration (npre.cfg) this is not the case:

log_file=/var/log/nrpe.log
debug=1
pid_file=/var/run/nagios/nrpe.pid
server_port=5666
nrpe_user=nagios
nrpe_group=nagios
allowed_hosts=127.0.0.1,::1
dont_blame_nrpe=1
allow_bash_command_substitution=0
command_timeout=60
connection_timeout=300
command[check_users]=/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_users -w 5 -c 10
command[check_load]=/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_load -r -w .15,.10,.05 -c .30,.25,.20
command[check_hda1]=/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_disk -w 20% -c 10% -p /dev/hda1
command[check_zombie_procs]=/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_procs -w 5 -c 10 -s Z
command[check_total_procs]=/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_procs -w 150 -c 200
include=/etc/nagios/nrpe_local.cfg
include_dir=/etc/nagios/nrpe.d/

TIA - any help would be gratefully received

Posted: **Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:46 am**

CrazyHorse019 wrote:However when the nagios user is called, it ignores the environment variables configured in bash.bashrc and profile.d/appenv.sh.

Commands executed by NRPE do not run in a shell -- Bash or otherwise. They are executed via popen. They therefore do not inherit environment variables defined in a particular shell.

Here's the environment variables that get set on the latest NRPE version:
https://github.com/NagiosEnterprises/nr ... #L320-L338

Code: Select all

setenv("PATH", path, 1);
setenv("IFS", " \t\n", 1);
setenv("LOGNAME", nrpe_user, 0);
setenv("USER", nrpe_user, 0);

...

setenv("HOME", pw->pw_dir, 0);
setenv("SHELL", pw->pw_shell, 0);

It would be more appropriate to set your required environment variables via the init system. For systemd on CentOS 7, with NRPE running under xinetd:

Code: Select all

[Unit]
Description=Xinetd A Powerful Replacement For Inetd
After=syslog.target network.target NetworkManager-wait-online.service

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/var/run/xinetd.pid
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/sysconfig/xinetd
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/xinetd -stayalive -pidfile /var/run/xinetd.pid "$EXTRAOPTIONS"
ExecReload=/usr/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

We are providing an EnvironmentFile to xinetd via systemd. I can update this environment file (/etc/sysconfig/xinetd) with a value:

Code: Select all

FOO="bar"

Have a dummy command in my nrpe.cfg:

Code: Select all

command[echo_foo]=/usr/bin/echo hello $FOO; exit 0

Then restart the daemon (xinetd in this case) and the NRPE server picks it up just fine:

Code: Select all

[root@capra_nag ~]# /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nrpe -H 127.0.0.1 -c echo_foo
hello bar

But only because I'm explicitly including certain environments and variables in the parent process (xinetd), which are inherited by the child process (NRPE).

TL;DR you can totally do this, but it depends on how both your operating system and your init system are handling environment variables because the NRPE process itself ... doesn't aside from the few I mentioned

Posted: **Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:32 pm**

Thanks, @mcapra!
@CrazyHorse019, Let us know if you have any questions.

Posted: **Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:48 am**

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

I should have mentioned the versions of services and OS that I am currently using - apologies that you've had to make assumptions.

So I am using nagios-nrpe-server service on ubuntu 18.04 - neither inetd or xinetd are installed on the system. The purpose of using nagios nrpe is to to serve my icinga 1.x installation in conjunction with pnp4nagios.

I am using nagios-nrpe-server 3.2.1-1ubuntu1.

Are there any caveats to this installation or do the same instructions still apply - would I just install xinetd and add the environment variable and have it referenced in the nrpe config?

Posted: **Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:46 am**

As mcapra mentioned

mcapra wrote:Commands executed by NRPE do not run in a shell -- Bash or otherwise. They are executed via popen. They therefore do not inherit environment variables defined in a particular shell.

If you want to add variables they need to be added to the command, such as

Code: Select all

command[echo_foo]=/usr/bin/env FOO="bar" /usr/bin/echo hello $FOO; exit 0

Additionally, this is a Nagios forum and we cannot support icinga installations.

Locking thread

Nagios Support Forum

nrpe.cfg not passing through a global environment variable.

nrpe.cfg not passing through a global environment variable.

Re: nrpe.cfg not passing through a global environment variab

Re: nrpe.cfg not passing through a global environment variab

Re: nrpe.cfg not passing through a global environment variab

Re: nrpe.cfg not passing through a global environment variab