Nagios Support Forum

I am not clear on when and where the NagiosXI Oracle Plugin oracleinstall.sh ahould be run.

1. I understand that if I have an XI server that monitors local network Oracle instances, that installing the plugin should allow me to monitor the selected db instances.

2. NOT CLEAR - Scenario - remote Oracle server behind firewall. What XI product NRPE, NSCA, NRDS do I install and why? IF I have an isolated server that MUST be behind firewall with no port forwards, what options do I have? Do I run the oraclinstall.sh program on that remote server to be monitored?

3. If the remote server to be monitored is a 1386 server, do I install the 386 version on that server?

4. If I am generating an NRPE using the wizard and want to monitor Oracle, what steps do I take and what id the server is an i386? Do I install both i386 and x64 version of the Oracle rpms on the Nagios XI Cnetral server which generates the NRPE client?

I am trying to evaluate Nagios and need some direction.

Thank you

Hello, welcome to the community.

I would follow this document as oracle has some specific settings our installation script can not cover:

http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... lation.pdf

After that, you can take a look at the multiple Oracle Monitoring Wizards on your XI server, they will walk you through setting up monitoring, if they do not offer the right checks for you, or you run into problems don't hesitate to let us know so we can help! I hope this is what you are looking for, I believe you called in yesterday regarding the same thing.

1. Yes, you can monitor both local and remote instances.

2. Now, onto your scenario, if you could configure that firewall/system to only send out information, you could feasibly rig something up so that

3. Could you be a little more clear on this one? Do you mean i386? It should not matter for a number of check protocols, but I think we are skipping ahead here, we still have not found the right solution for this predicament.

4. There are a number of wizards which incorporate NRPE though none of them use oracle checks by default, this is why we have the wizards I noted above. The XI server does not generate a client, the clients are downloaded locally to each remote host you wish to use them on, and then installed there. The Nagios XI server does have a NRPE server built into it in order to send and receive those results however.

I would take a look at the rundown of each check protocol and then decide from there, though it seems you may be limited in what choices you have:

NRDS: http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... erview.pdf

NSCA: http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... ith_XI.pdf

NRPE: http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... g_NRPE.pdf

SNMP traps: http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... ith_XI.pdf

Then of course there is normal SNMP monitoring, and for windows the option to use WMI, etc..

The thing is you are trying to monitor specific oracle metrics it sounds, so you would want to have access to the oracle plugins we provide, which most use NRPE for active checks which would require port 5666 open on the oracle server, so it seems NRDS, SNMP Traps, or NSCA may be good choices to get base server metrics. The issue is, with passive checks since they are triggered on the remote host by changes on that host, it is hard to monitor very granular things, in some cases this does work, but without the server knowing nagios wants to access such and such data, at such and such level when Nagios tells it to with an active check this is more feasible as it is active, and thus more a command to the server, rather than a passive / static check.

I believe Andy was helping you yesterday and he may reply here too.

Sorry for the late follow up. This is possible. You will need a remote box configured with nsca or nrdp and the necessary oracle packages. The install script mentioned in the document only works on redhat/centos systems. You will also have to download an oracle rpm from oracle.com. Once those are all prepared on the remote system, you will need to configure your passive agent. You can use the XI checks in the oracle document as a guide to how to configure the check on the remote nsca/nrdp host. Once the check is working from the nsca/nrdp host, you can configure its passive options for nsca/nrdp. Finally, you can configure XI for a passive check with freshness.

This can be complex to set up as it has a number of moving parts.
I suggest you read up on:
nrdp
nsca
passive checks
and the following document:
http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... lation.pdf

| Nagios XI | <----------| Remote nsca/nrdp |-------------> | Oracle DB |
-------------------Passive---------------------------Oracle plugin---------------

Confused!

I have rad what doucmentation I can find on the NSCA method of Nagios. I have had no luck with getting it to work.

1. I went into Nagios xi core confiuration, setup my encryption method and password. The xinetd.d nsca file is set per documentation. Host is listneing on port 5667.

Does not seem clear that the NSCA option is really installed on the server. Google searches refer to downloading a speartae tar.gz file and running an install, so I am not clear if this is OLD docs, or required.

The PDFs do not address end-to-end setup of the nss++ client either. I feel it is clear as mud.

What I need to know:

1. Do I need to add/configure something else on the Nagiosxi server? If so what? URL to file and instructions.

2. NSCA client method of NSS++ client. Install proceedsa apace ok, but then the .ini file looks as if it needs configuration. at least that's what it says. I tried your youtube channel and no NSCA videos available period.

I have wasted much time on this to not solve this for checking your product. At this point if it wer up to me I would say no way to your product.

I expect that a company that is trying to sell me something would have help available and better How To documentation.

I am willing to keep at it if I can receive help.

john_effcomp wrote: I expect that a company that is trying to sell me something would have help available and better How To documentation.

John,

I can understand your frustration, but please realize that every network, and every installation is different. We have documentation that covers the most common implementations but when you veer away from that by saying things like "NOT CLEAR - Scenario - remote Oracle server behind firewall" this is going to take some working on from your side as there is no way for us to know the idiosyncrasies of your network.

In most environments we see, it isn't a problem to allow access through a firewall for the monitoring server to a machine you want monitored. When this isn't available you will need to craft the solution that meets your needs using the tools available.

Given that, what I would recommend would be setting up a machine behind the firewall that can do the monitoring, it will need to have the oracle plugin installed on it
http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... lation.pdf

It will also need a way to send the results to XI installed on it, you can use NSCA
http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... ith_XI.pdf

Then, you will need to setup a cronjob on that machine to run a script that will call the plugins with the appropriate arguments and then send the data via send_nsca to your XI server.

Nagios has unlimited flexibility, but that does come with a bit of a price as you may have to craft these custom solutions, whereas many other competing products don't have the flexibility to do complex monitoring like this even if you wanted to.

I'm sorry but your response is not helping me resolve the issue.

Let me start out by saying that your reponse time on the forum is excellent.

I have read all of the pdf documents in ALL of your responses and I still have questions and the problem is unresolved.

1. The last pdf entry refers to an NSCA tar.gz install. No mention of this being for the "to be monitored" client, or if this is REQUIRED on the Nagios server in order to RECEIVE the data from the NSCA CLIENT. It appears from the base Nagios XI install that some NSCA files have been installed so this is a confusion point for us. A simple staetment in the PDf such as This file is to be use to install on the monitored client", or "This is REQUIRED to be installed on the Nagios (central server )".

2. The nss++ client install is easy, but does not give any indications of whether or not the user needs to mofify anything or not in the client ".ini" file. Looking at the file infers that one must change entries in this file before it can work.

3. NSCA - A document that covers ONLY NSCA with end-to-end instructional steps would save client frustration (mine) and keep support emails/calls to a minimum. It should be possible to either craft easy to follow step-by-step instructions with screenshots, or make a video. I would make it into two sections; Nagios server side NSCA setup including setting up the server to be monitored steps, and Client NSCA setup. leave nothing to question. If we need to go in and modify the .ini file after the nss++ install, say so and give an example.

It is not clear from the get go how to setup a NSCA server in the CENTRAL server side versus the preferred NRPDE method.

I have installed other client monitoring systems and have had few issues doing so, not so with Nagios due to the scarcity of information included with the documentation.

Big Brother, Xymon, Spiceworks, and Zenoss installs are much cleare due primarily to the documentation.

My opinion is that most support personnel have limited time to install, configure and evaluate a product to see if it is viable for the company to purchase. If it is not clear how to do so, then those products typically are set aside in favor of something that is easier to install.

You may be missing sales opportunities due to the confusion on how to install and setup the base installation.

Follow-upcomment.

Let's forget about Oracle monitoring. IAt this point I would like to just be able to understand, install and get ta remote NSCA client to communicate with our test XI server.

I have setyup a client on my Windows 7 workstation in an attempt to make to get around any issues with a remote server. My scenario duplicates the intended client situation.

1. I am behind a firewalled router.

2. I have the sclient++ installed on my Win7 station as nsca using the password setup on the server through administartion NSCA.

3. Central server is setup with NSCA DES and a password.

I can't get my Win7 to communicate to the server either.

4. I CAN ping and telnet to the server port 5667 and get back some text which seems to indicate that I can connect to the server. I do not know WHAT I should see as a result of the telnet as I do not have that information.

Hope this helps.

Can we setup a remote session where you can connect to my Win7 PC so we can resolve this?

john_effcomp wrote:Can we setup a remote session where you can connect to my Win7 PC so we can resolve this?

Most certainly. I have sent an email to you to setup a time for a quick start service.