Nagios Support Forum

We have been using an older version of Nagios core on a PHYSICAL server using a GSM cell phone plugged in via a USB cord. This server died. We are looking at you newer version Nagios Xi.

The questions I have are...

1) Using your Nagios Xi prepackaged VM for VMWARE can we still plug in a GSM cell phone to send out SMS alerts? (We want to use a cell phone because using the email option for SMS alerts and if the internet goes down we would not see the alert till the internet came back up.)


2) If we can plug in a GSM cell phone for text messages is this difficult to set up?


3) How well can this work with VMware and if the Nagios server gets VMotioned to a new host?

1) Provided your vmware instance provides the ability to enable host to guest usb devices, then yes this should work fine.
2) I honestly couldn't say, however it should be little if any different from how you did it previously. Although on that note we do have a device that is suggested for sms alerts if you would like them out of band from email. I will have to lookup the exact device, as I forget.
3) this will not work unless you have an identical device plugged into the host that XI was vmotioned to. This is purely a limitation of vmotion and vmware, but fully expected, as your guest cannot talk with hardware that it is not connected to.

A possible solution is to us a USB virtualization program that allows you to connect to a USB device on one computer from a virtual machine over a network.

I use a program called USB Redirector at home. I have a Windows Home Server that is virtualized and I connect a USB drive to my desktop PC. Windows Home Server sees it just like a normal connected USB drive.

There is a Linux version, so it should be possible to make it work.