Nagios Support Forum

I am trying to setup an alert for the first time on an existing server.

I want to start from scratch and build an accurate alert for our main website

I need to do more than ping , I need to login and verify proper page is returned

may also need to verify SQL services are running on backend server

so where do I begin?
I see service templates and plug-ins already there that may be useful but would like help thinking this through to get the best plug-ins and setup possible so I understand the whole alert process


Thanks in advance... I appreciate all you guys being patient with such a noob

The auto login is going to be somewhat tricky depending on how you actually log in. Is it a single page or a multi-step process? Is there a redirect after the login? Is there a "success" string you could use to verify you have logged in? Webinject is probably going to be needed for anything complicated, but for simple POST/GET-based login you can probably get check_http to do it.

As for the backend SQL, is it reachable by Nagios?

Nagios can reach the SQL, there is an alert already setup for SQL on other servers

as far as the logon part I think we get a single logon page and it responds with a page containing certain content string if ok and different string if failed, so should be basic


actually an error brings up a message box

success page includes Text: Do My Work (New)

Well if it is using basic authentication, check_http should allow you to provide login credentials, and do a sting check for the successful return. If it does not match the string it will return critical. As for sql checks, you could replicate what you have on other machines or take a look at exchange.nagios.org and see what other checks you might want to use.

great now what I need is the raw steps to set up an alert...

example:

edit ???.conf to create service
edit ??? to add host to host list
edit ??? to create an alert with x host and Y service
update running config
restart services

Is there a specific order to setup alerts?
any good docs on how to understand this better? I will search for sticky posts but if you have any good links it will be appreciated...

I'd have a look at the "How to Monitor" sections from the below URL:

http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/toc.html

The object definitions page will also show you what each configuration definition will do:

http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/ ... tions.html

Though it should be covered in the aformentioned links, be sure to verify your configs before restarting nagios:

Centos/Rhel:

http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/ ... onfig.html

muchas gracias !

Are we good to close this now? Or do you want to keep it open for alert based questions?

close for now, I need to read the documentation and give it a shot. I can open a new one if needed, thanks for all your help!

Sure, closing it up.