Noob Q: Which remote monitoring model?

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HankB
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2022 11:16 pm

Noob Q: Which remote monitoring model?

Post by HankB »

Hi all,
Noob here (WRT Nagios, been managing my Linux hosts for decades now.) I'm just starting to deploy Nagios Core to monitor stuff on my home LAN that I'm getting tired of doing manually (and with the fear that I'll overlook something that will hurt.) Here are some of the things I'd like to watch:
  • HDD/SSD status as revealed by SMART data
  • Filesystem parameters such as capacity, RAID issues and so on. (I'm using ZFS on my file server and laptop and desktop.)
  • Problems such as excessive processor/RAM use.
  • Problems such as a host that goes AWOL. In this regard I have a handful of Raspberry Pi Zeroes monitoring sensors for stuff like temperature, humidity and so on. I've implemented MQTT Last Will and Testament to monitor their presence on my LAN but that means I have to check a page on my Home Assistant setup to see if they're all still there and reporting.
  • I'd consider monitoring some WiFi light bulbs and outlets since the App frequently tells me they're not available when I know they are.
Most hosts are Debian Linux or Raspberry Pi OS (R-Pi OS.) I'm running Nagios Core 4.4.7 in a Docker container in a Debian (AMD64) host. It's monitoring several other (remote) hosts via ping but I'd like more. Here is where I'm getting mired in the choices.

The first thing I ran across was NRPE. There is a package in the Debian and R-Pi OS repos for NRPE. But one of the documentation pages lists it as deprecated. Other documentation does not. If it is deprecated, I should probably go with something else, like NCPA.

There is no package in the Debian/R-PiOS repos with NCPA in the name. I can see where I can download a current package for Debian, but packages for R-Pi OS are not presently built because this project does not have access to a server running that OS. A further complication is that I'm using the 64 bit R-Pi OS on some hosts and I'm not sure if the older package will work for that. And IAC it is an OS release behind (Buster vs. Bullseye.) I guess I can build from source if I decide to go this way, assuming I did not run into any issues that I could not resolve. (I feel a little like I'm wading into the swamp here.)

There is a package in the Debian repos named nrpe-ng. I found the github repo for that and it has been archived, last update in 2017.

There is mention of using an SSH connection to access remote hosts and that seems like it would be another option.

I'm left wondering ...
  • Is NREP truly deprecated or were pronouncements of imminent death premature?
  • Is NCPA the way I should proceed?
  • Or should I be looking at SSH for this?
  • And what other questions should I be asking? (What are my unknown unknowns?)

Thanks!
gormank
Posts: 1114
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2014 12:00 pm

Re: Noob Q: Which remote monitoring model?

Post by gormank »

Nagios recommends ncpa
HankB
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2022 11:16 pm

Re: Noob Q: Which remote monitoring model?

Post by HankB »

Thanks, I'm going that way. The available 32 bit version installed on the 64 bit R-Pi OS along with a bunch of 32 bit dependencies. I can view the web page (on the monitored host) but haven't yet gotten monitoring via NCPA working. I need to go back to the docs and recheck my work.

Edit.0: This is working on both 32 and 64 bit R-Pi OS remote hosts. The problem that I needed to fix was that the Docker container I was using (nagios_manios) did not have Python installed. I installed Python3 and linked /usr/bin/python3 to /usr/bin/python and I am getting the results I seek.

The next issue I face is identifying the realm of check that are available when I install NCPA on the target host. I think it best to start another thread for that.

Thanks!

NB: I turned on debugging to identify the issue and particularly like the bitmap approach to specifying the event of interest.
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