migrating from one server to another with XI

[iwang]

Hi, i am about to migrate a Nagios XI(already over 500 hosts managed) to a new OS. as the current Nagios is based on CentOS 6. we are about migrate to Redhat 7.x. and the database sit in the different machine. I know we have the document for backup and restore. but can you help point out:

• 1. if there are anything else we need note down when the DB sits in different servers?
  2. if the server's hostname and IP changed, how to handle the nagios agent setup? all the existing host is using NRPE, is the new nagios only support NCPA or both? do we need refresh all agents with NCPA?
  3. if we migrate all data first and then we change the new host IP/hostname to original one, what configurations need to be done? in this case, it will not require client side to update the agent or update the configuration.

[jdunitz]

As long as you're moving your new server to the same IP address, everything should work pretty well with very little reconfiguration needed.

Do be aware that both servers need to be running the same version of XI in order to do the migration. After completing the migration, of course, you can upgrade your new machine to a newer XI version if you want to.

1. if there are anything else we need note down when the DB sits in different servers?

Just be sure that the new XI machine isn't writing anything to the new DB. This is extremely important. As soon as the new machine starts up, if it's pointing to the same external DB, it will almost certainly destroy your data, so very careful about this.

2. if the server's hostname and IP changed, how to handle the nagios agent setup? all the existing host is using NRPE, is the new nagios only support NCPA or both? do we need refresh all agents with NCPA?

You can still use NRPE. Both NRPE and NCPA are still supported at this point. If you have third-party agents or plugins that have their own configurations, you may need to bring their config data over separately and/or reconfigure them after the migration.

3. if we migrate all data first and then we change the new host IP/hostname to original one, what configurations need to be done? in this case, it will not require client side to update the agent or update the configuration.

The way you'd really want to do this is to install XI on the new server, back up your data on the old machine, shut down XI, move the data to the new machine, shut down the old machine, then change your new machine to take over the old machine's IP address, and import the data. Be very, very certain that the new machine cannot reach the DB until the old machine is shut down AND the data is imported.

[iwang]

thanks for the details. what's the release note of each release?
what's main difference between 5.5 and 5.6?

Thank you

[jdunitz]

Between 5.5.x and 5.6.x, it's been mostly fixes and fairly minor features--nothing too drastic. Have a look at the change log here:
https://www.nagios.com/downloads/nagios-xi/change-log/

Also, this might help:
https://www.nagios.com/roadmaps