Correct usage of 'starttime' to query objects/statehistory?

[amoss24]

Hi all,

Trying to look at the API in order to have a better idea of how ServiceNow's Event Management module is collecting data from Nagios.

In querying the objects/statehistory endpoint, what is the correct use of 'starttime'?

I have an example based on what arguments ServiceNow uses, and I am adding in pretty=1 so I can read the output when I try to query the API:

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https://nagiosxi.domain.com/nagiosxi/api/v1/objects/statehistory?starttime=1620331491&orderby=state_time:d&pretty=1&records=3000&apikey=MyAPIKeyHere

By setting my start time to 1620331491, I am under the belief that I would expect results from Thu May 06 2021 20:04:51 GMT and newer. However, I am confused because I am seeing results that go further back than expected, here's the oldest result from the request above:

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 "state_time": "2021-05-06 15:06:36"

Just looking for clarification, or if something with our Nagios installation is not correct.

Thank you in advance!

[gsmith]

Hi,

The starttime is GMT. Is your Nagios XI server's timezone set for America/Chicago?

Thanks

[amoss24]

Hi @gsmith,

It is interesting you bring that up. Our team recently standardized on UTC (GMT) time since we span multiple time zones, and the server was changed. This means I can run 'date' and output the expected results: Fri May 7 15:21:36 UTC 2021

However, I checked our system profile and can see this:

Date/Time
PHP Timezone: America/Chicago
PHP Time: Fri, 07 May 2021 10:24:08 -0500
System Time: Fri, 07 May 2021 15:24:08 +0000

Should the PHP timezone match the system time? That would make sense if that is causing our issues. I hadn't even thought to check that.

To add to this,

I just checked and I do indeed see that we did not change the timezone in the XI interface. If the system time and the time in XI need to match I will change.

[gsmith]

Hi,

Yes, matching the XI timezone with the server's timezone is the recommended practice.

Once you make the change please let me know if things are working as expected.

Thanks

[amoss24]

That indeed fixed the issues I was encountering. I think we mistakenly updated the system time from the terminal when the documentation states that we should just update it from the XI interface.

Thank you @gsmith