Warning and Alerts to a GPI-OUT or COM1

[shlelieveld]

Hello all,

Thanks for helping
I'm using NagiosXI 2014R1.0 and monitor about 3900 services and almost 400 servers. About 140 machines are used for TV playout, and for a few critical playout related processes it should report to our MasterControlRoom (MCR) with high and fast alert. for this we want to use a sort of traffic light system. A green lamp should lid when all is good, an Orange lamp if one or more of those processes is in warning, and a red for critical, it has to be a physical lamp, because websites are overlooked.
We already have such a system installed for our UPS/GenSet.
So to do this it would be nice if some sort of GPI setup could be created (GeneralPurposeInterface/GeneralPuposeInterconnect, this is a physical power switch, all good is all is at 0 volt, GPI 1 High for warning = at >3 volt, GPI 2 high for critical = >3 volt. Most systems with GPI's can handle more than 1 GPI). Some software can use the COM port to act as GPI out.
If this is not possible we might be able to have a print connected to the COM port to convert serial info to GPI's. But than still we need some addon that drives the warnings/criticals to a serial message.

Is there anyone that can give me a suggestion? I'm not a programmer/scripter so I'm not able to create scripts or programs myself.

Thanks,

[eloyd]

Nagios itself will not be able to drive a light. You need something that has power and accepts some sort of control signal to turn on the appropriate light. I'm going to suggest that you watch David Stern's Nagios World Conference 2013 Nagios Light Bar video and see if it gives you any ideas.

I'm guessing that an arduino would work as well to drive LEDs if that's all you're looking to do. You'd have to send the appropriate signal via a COM port to tell the Arduino to activate the appropriate LEDs. Somewhat beyond my current state of exploration (after all, it is Memorial Day weekend here in the States) but I may come back to this topic with more specifics once the sun and "beverages" wear off.

[tmcdonald]

I just so happen to be a resident Arduino geek!

First of all, without knowing the GPI(+O?) specifics it is hard to say if this can be done. In theory you could hook into our BPI component and use some custom event handlers to drive the traffic light, but as eloyd said if you can get an Arduino in there it might be easier. I would grab an Arduino Uno + Ethernet shield, a few relays, transistors, and hookup wire for the hardware. Then it's just a matter of the event handler sending a specific string to the Arduino, and applying your own logic to the lights from there.

If you get some details on your current hardware I might be able to help with that, or if you decide to go the Arduino route I'd be more than happy to help with that as well.