reduced (single) alert for one location with many devices

[pnewlon]

I have 34 locations (remote, connected via broadband and VPN tunnels). At each location there are approximately 18 devices (+/- a few) with 2-3 services defined for each device. If the broadband connection goes down for a given remote location, I get 'critical' messages for ALL the services Nagios cannot get to. I turned off all host notifications which reduced resultant email deluge a bit, and turned re-notification down to 8 hours but it is still a pretty big load of email notices to read on a blackberry when 2-3 locations are down for a day or so.

Is there a way to consolidate the devices into a single alert? I thought about using check_cluster but I would get a cluster alert for any single device/service down at a location. When the broadband connection is up, it is nice to only get a specific alert about a single device/service. I have the ability to monitor the router connecting the remote location, though I am not now doing it. If I defined the router (host / service) is there a way to say 'if you can't get to this device, refrain from alerting about all the devices behind it'?

Thanks! Phil

[mfarrenk]

Hi Phil,

I know it has been some time since you posted this. However, this is what the relationships in Nagios are for.

If you define relationships saying that switchB has switchA as a parent, and switchA has routerA as a parent, then if routerA goes down (i.e. the broadband link), then you'll only get a text about routerA. If you look at the Nagios status screen, it will show routerA as down and switchA and switchB as being unreachable.

That's the beauty of Nagios. But you have to define those relationships for Nagios to know how your network looks.

[LHammonds]

Thanks for posting this! I'm new to Nagios and still learning how to setup my site. I noticed somebody using "parent" but I didn't know what that meant or how/why to use it. This makes perfect sense. I'm currently setting up servers at the moment but when I get to setting up the switches, this will be extremely handy to know. +1 kudos