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False positives avoidance

Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 11:47 am
by corez
I'm searching for solution that might omit false positives. I was given 3 servers and installed Nagios Core on each of them.
Each server monitors ONE client and what i want to achive is to be notificated this way:
1. When one server notifes problems nothing happens
2. When 2 of 3 servers notifes problems i got warned
3. When all of them notifes problems i got error message.

I check out google and found NagCen and Nagios Aggregator but seems like there're not intend to work this way.

Have you got any idea or solution how to handle this topic?

Re: False positives avoidance

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:56 am
by tmcdonald
Is there a particular reason you have one server dedicated to each host? A geographical or networking reason? The easiest solution, if possible, would be to have a single Nagios installation monitor all the clients and use something like BPI to manage the logic:

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

Also, I have moved this topic from Nagios Core Development to just Nagios Core as it does not relate to the development cycle.

Re: False positives avoidance

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:29 pm
by corez
Thank you for response.
BPI seems to be not the solution that i'm looking for.

Let me be more clear what i want:

The main idea is to have checks from different locations (3 locations) just in case of false positives when connection somwhere is broken.
I want to agregate data in one place and iterpret them - 3 checks to be interpreted on machine that will send notifications:
3 servers report [OK] status - none notification is sent
2 servers report [OK] status - warning
1 server reports [OK] status - critical

I hope it's a good explanation.

I've found:
http://exchange.nagios.org/directory/Pl ... dr/details
and
exchange.nagios.org/directory/Plugins/Others/check_multi/details

but TBH i have not idea how to engage to my project.

Re: False positives avoidance

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:41 pm
by eloyd
What you describe is what BPI does. You might want to take a closer look.

Having said that, this would be so much easier with one server as @tm says.

Re: False positives avoidance

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:47 pm
by tmcdonald
BPI would work on a single server, not across multiple. Nagios Fusion can combine multiple servers' views into one, but cannot run BPI.

http://www.nagios.com/products/nagiosfusion

This is somewhat of a unique situation, and I'm afraid there isn't a one-click solution at the moment.

Re: False positives avoidance

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:51 pm
by eloyd
Yes. Thanks. I realize that my reply was two thoughts that were not very well combined. I should have written, "this would be so much easier on a single server, as you could run BPI to do exactly what you want."

OP, have you looked at parent/child relationships? You say you are trying to avoid "false positives when connection somwhere is broken." If you identify the network path between your Nagios servers and host, does that take care of what you are trying to do?

Re: False positives avoidance

Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:56 pm
by sreinhardt
You could also forward checks from two, onto a central one, then use bpi, that might be the best solution in your case.

Re: False positives avoidance

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 2:02 pm
by corez
Well i set out on one Nagios server instance. So i assmue that BPI is the solution that will suit well.
It's still a little complicated to me. I'd be glad if someone can make a short description on what and where i should install, because i'm even lost in planning this solution.
Thanks for your commitment.

Re: False positives avoidance

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 2:13 pm
by eloyd
The short version is that you can create a group of services (those three, for instance) that only triggers a warning if a percentage of results are in a warning state. So if you want to wait until all three are bad, you would set your warning at 100%. If you wanted to wait until only two are bad, you would set the threshold to 66%.

This is just a quick overview of what you're trying to do. More specific information can be found at http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... BPI_v2.pdf (except you have to create the configuration files since this is Nagios Core).

Re: False positives avoidance

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 4:31 pm
by cmerchant
Thanks Eric. OP did that previous post answer enough of your question? Can we close this thread?