Inventory management component

[snapon_admin]

Is there any sort of inventory management component for Nagios? I've been skimming the exchange but haven't really found anything that would do what I'm looking for. Essentially what I'd be interested in would be an additional tab when you click on a host for inventory information, things like serial number, OS version, warranty info, etc. Some of this info should be obtainable via snmpwalk, but some of it (warranty status for example) would likely need to be manually added, so that would need to be possible as well. Does anything like this exist currently?

[WillemDH]

Snapon,

I've seen this question popup a few times and I think there is no 'inventory management component" existing at the moment.

Grtz

Willem

[zaji_nms]

Dear snapon

May be you looking for OBJECTNOTES. We using it any really very good feature.

http://exchange.nagios.org/directory/Ad ... nt/details

Regards

[WillemDH]

Hello

Inventory management is soo much more then just some notes. And it is not possible yet to set a hyperlink in a note. Made a feature request for this some time ago. http://tracker.nagios.com/view.php?id=552

You could use free variables to add extra information to hosts, but the values are not searchable with the search button in XI. Here is a link with some documentation: http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/ ... tvars.html

I had a topic about searching free variables in this topic: http://support.nagios.com/forum/viewtop ... ilit=+free

Well, you can query the core json api for a json encoded full list of objects (including custom variables):
CODE: SELECT ALL
http://<ip>/nagios/cgi-bin/objectjson.cgi?query=hostlist&details=true

So I think it is actually possible, but it would be nice if these values could be searched for in the Nagios XI gui.

Grtz

Willem

[snapon_admin]

The problem with using the object notes is that we already use notes for our instructions for our 24/7 operations team. When they receive an email alert, their email template includes instructions for what they should do to correct the issue (if possible) before calling the on-call admin. This prevents unnecessary calls in the middle of the night and allows for much quicker problem resolution, so it's something we really can't get rid of. Having a specific tab for instructions on each service/host and being able to include those instructions in emails would also be another amazing feature that we could really use, and would be really helpful, but for the time being the notes will suffice for us.

And as Willem said, inventory management would be much more than just notes, and it certainly should be possible to query all the necessary info via an snmpwalk. I was actually moderately surprised to see that nothing like this exists on the exchange yet, I would imagine that I'm not the only one using Nagios that would find something like this useful.

[lmiltchev]

Having a specific tab for instructions on each service/host and being able to include those instructions in emails would also be another amazing feature that we could really use, and would be really helpful, but for the time being the notes will suffice for us.

Perhaps you could place some useful links for hosts/services under "Quick Actions" via the Actions component.

http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... ponent.pdf

It is quite flexible - you could call a custom url, shell script, macro, etc.

[WillemDH]

Yes the actions component is very useful. And even better if you have some spare time, take a look at Nagios Reactor. You can also attach event chains to hosts / services.

[lmiltchev]

Good call, WillemDH! It's a free product, too.

[snapon_admin]

Eh, I pitched Reactor to them already but they're sort of married to Control-M at this time. It was deemed too much effort/too little gain to switch from Control-M to Reactor. Good suggestion, though. I'll look into quick actions for Operations, but that still leaves the subject of my OP, inventory management. Is this something that's been brought up before? Is there a potential for something like this being developed ever? Just curious as it would be incredibly helpful for us.

[WillemDH]

Imho the most critical part to convert Nagios to an inventory system, would be a searchbox which can search through the free variables and display them. To add free variable data to Nagios XI, an event chain could be created that updates the host cfg file. If you make a feature request to enable us to search free variables, in the original search function or an extra search function, I'll immediately +1 it.

Willem