Suggestion on Nagios upgrade

[mon-team]

Hello,
we currently have a Nagios XI installation, Nagios XI 2014R2.7 on Nagios Core 4.0.8.
The current OS is a CentOS 6.6.
Our purpose is to migrate to the latest Nagios XI stable release, and also to a more recent CentOS version. Also the MySQL database needs to be upgraded,as we have a really old version (5.1).
We'd like to have some suggestion from you about the two ways we can follow:

(1) upgrade the OS/MySQL on our current server, than proceed with the Nagios XI upgrade.This way should be faster but, if I understood correctly, we will continue to have both the PostreSQL and he MySQL database.

(2) take a new server, with a fresh CentOS and Mysql installation and install on it the latest Nagios XI version. Then import a backup of our current Nagios installation in order to have our monitoring system aligned on the new Nagios XI server.
This should take a longer time but would guarantee us a 'fresh' system and to have only the MySQL database.

What would you recommend? in case we decided for option (2) is it possible to load a backup (taken from the old Nagios XI version) on the latest Nagios XI and Nagios Core system?

Regards,
Francesco

[scottwilkerson]

I would recommend option 3

Upgrade Nagios XI to the current version on the current system

Provision a new server with the new OS

Install current version Nagios XI on new server

Following the back/restore document to take a backup of old server and restore on new server, making note of the extra process on page 12 when changing OS
https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nag ... ios-XI.pdf

[mon-team]

Thanks Scott,
i'll follow your recommendations!

[scottwilkerson]

Thanks Scott,
i'll follow your recommendations!

Sounds good!

[mon-team]

Hello Scott,
sorry, I've still a question on this matter!
I'd like to be sure that there wont' be issues importing a backup from a Nagios XI Version 4.X to a fresh Nagios XI installion version 5.0.

In particular if the older version was using the PostreSQL database, and the new installation is using only the Mysql database do the backup import will work?

Regards and happy new year!
Francesco

[scottwilkerson]

My suggestion contained this

Upgrade Nagios XI to the current version on the current system

So when you take a backup it will be the latest version 5.x.x

If you have a backup that contains a postgresql database, it will enable postgresql on the system you are restoring to.

[mon-team]

Thanks for your answer,
as we have a quite large monitored infrastructure, the only possibility to migrate to Nagios 5 is using a backup and restore it on the new Nagios installation.
But in this way, as you said, we will always bring with us the Postgresql database.

Do you think this could become a problem in the future? (maybe with future Nagios version?)
Is there a way to abandon postgresql?

Regards
Francesco

[scottwilkerson]

But in this way, as you said, we will always bring with us the Postgresql database.

Do you think this could become a problem in the future? (maybe with future Nagios version?)
Is there a way to abandon postgresql?

this is correct, and no, there is no problem using the postgresql database. there isn't any way at present to automatically switch away from using the postgresql database

[mon-team]

Hello,
as i'm going to upgrade our Nagios Xi installation, i've started reading something on your support documentation, and i've found the document that explains how to migrate the tables on PostreSQL on MySql... now, i'm a bit confused as you told me that there was no way to switch away from PostgreSQL!

Is it possible but not recommended?

If it's possible, (and in this case we'd like to migrate from PostreSQL to MySql), at which step of the upgrade do you recommend to do it?
(1) migrate postgresql to mysql on Nagios 4.2, upgrade to Nagios 5.4, doing a backup and import it on the new server with the fresh installed OS or.....
(2) upgrade Nagios 4.2 to Nagios 5.4, do a backup, import it on the new server with the fresh installed OS and then, on this last, migrate postgresql to mysql

Regards!
Francesco

[scottwilkerson]

I would do the upgrade and then attempt the migration after taking a backup of the new system.

We do have this documented, but there are caveats and it isn't always 100% successful, so a goo backup/restore plan is in order.