check_time plugin

[lyle]

I'd like to have a service check confirm that our client Hosts have their system time running reasonably close to the Nagios server.

Looking at the "check_time" plugin written by Ethan, it seems to work fine against Linux and Solaris Hosts running an nrpe client (and generally running NTP clients too).

Our Windows Hosts run a mixture of NRPE, NSClient++, and (sad to say) NSClient clients. They don't respond to a check_time request from the Server. Am I missing a client-side script? Is there another server plugin I should be using instead? Should I take my questions to the plugin maillist instead?

Thanks for any thoughts....Lyle

[mguthrie]

I"m not actually familiar with the check_time plugin, but I'm guessing it's mainly for Unix -based systems(?). I did find the below windows plugin that you could look at adding to the client systems.
http://exchange.nagios.org/directory/Un ... 29/details

[oz123]

The Plugin called "check_daytime.pl".
You need to enable the "Simple TCP/IP Services" on the client - this will open port 13 which is need.

Thanks

[mguthrie]

Thanks for the suggestion!

[lyle]

I looked at check_time.pl and it looks good. Unfortunately on Windows 2003 and 2008, it means installing Simple TCP/IP Services. Our Windows guy tells me it both means increased security risk on production servers (more ports open), and we don't have access to add Windows Components on some servers.

So I'm back to looking for a Windows client plug-in that will check the client's time against the Domain Controller, or one that works in conjunction with a server-side plug-in to check against the Nagios server.

We just had a problem with this that could get ugly. so I'm putting out the call for advice. Should I be asking over on the plug-ins list?

Thanks...Lyle

[mguthrie]

I came across this on exchange, not sure if it's something you've looked at already or not.
http://exchange.nagios.org/directory/Un ... 29/details

[lyle]

Someone on the nagiosplug-help list suggested check_time.vbs which checks Windows time against an NTP server. It got good reviews on Nagios Exchange, but I couldn't get it to work (maybe I needed an NTP Client running).

But that led me to check_ad_time.vbs which checks Windows time against the Domain Controller, which is what we should be sync'd to. This seems to be working quite well for us.

Thanks to all for the input....Lyle

[nscott]

Lyle,

Thanks for the follow up! Love to here how you worked it out.