specify name used in status map?

[anritter6281]

Is there a way to specify which label gets used in the status map? I noticed that each nagios host has a hostname, an IP address, and a display name.

Is there a way to specify that for the status map, the display name is used instead of the hostname?

I ask because fully-qualified host names are can be long, and for us they are often truncated.

[rdedon]

Yes, this can be edited to whatever you would like.

-Through the web interface go to Configure and Core Config Manager under Advanced Configuration on the left panel.
-Under Monitoring on the left panel choose Hosts.
-On the right panel click on the edit icon for the host that you want to change.
-Under Host Name edit this to whatever you would like. Also, you can make changes to Display Name and Description if desired.

[anritter6281]

The hostname seems to be overriding the display name in the Network Status Map

[anritter6281]

The online help for the display name field states that the current CGIs don't use display_name. Is this really the case or is it just something that slipped through QA testing?

Having the CGI's (and therefore status map cgi) to use the display name is exactly what I am looking for. If this is not functional now, how soon until it will?

[mguthrie]

The hostname doesn't necessarily need to be a FQDN, just the host address. You can specify a shorter name if needed.

I agree, having the display name as the name on the status map would be preferable. I might suggest adding that as a feature request on our tracker.http://tracker.nagios.com

[anritter6281]

It has been my understanding that to not use an FQDN for a hostname requires search domains to be configured in the resolver of the nagios server. This is required so that a hostname can be completed as an FQDN and then sent to DNS for resolution. If we have the the same hostname but with different completion domains, this would break monitoring when using hostnames that are not FQDNs. With search suffix lists in domain resolution, the first match for completion and resolution stops the further searching of subsequent subdomains (search suffixes) in the resolver list.

I could be wrong in my understanding of domain search suffix order, and domain completion. If nagios defaults to using the IP only, then this entire issue is moot. But to use the IP only, or use the IP first by default strikes me as a bad idea as well. And the underlying principle (and/or presence of) three seperate fields (IP, hostname, and displayname) is not fully implemented, as well as flawed. The three seperate fields is something I like in nagios.

I registered on that website and submitted the feature request. I have since found the account I created doesn't work, and I don't see the feature request there. Frustrating.

[mguthrie]

Bear with me on this in that I'm more of a developer than a network guy, so when it comes to DNS, you know more than I do. However, as far as Nagios is concerned, unless you've created custom commands that actually call the $HOSTNAME$ macro in the arguments, all of the checks in nagios use the $HOSTADDRESS$ macro. The "address" field will take either an IP address or a hostname. If your Nagios server can resolve to that hostname, you can run your checks against it.

I'm going to create a feature request about the display_name directive, as other uses have requests some features regarding that as well. I'll look into the account creation on the tracker as well.

[mguthrie]

Added as a feature request:
http://tracker.nagios.com/view.php?id=126