the meaning of a "plug-in"

[lyle]

Boy, is this a dumb question, but it's been nagging at me for a while.

I understand the meaning of the term "plug-in" when it comes to installing a Nagios server. Plug-ins are external scripts or executables called by the Nagios Server to get environment-specific checks done. They're distributed with the Server, and live in libexec. One typical plug-in might be "check_nrpe". I can find all sorts of them at Nagios Exchange.

But what about when we're talking about a remote Host? The distribution of the NRPE client for a Windows Host includes a bunch of scripts and executables in the libexec directory that query the Host for info.
- these are also refered to as "plug-ins", right? We use the check_nrpe plugin on the Server to query the NRPE service on the client Host, which calls the client-side plug-in, right?
- are they the same distribution as comes with Nagios Core and XI? I realize packaging and versions might be off.
- can the same plug-ins be used as external scripts for NSClient++ ? and would we refer to them as plug-ins there too?
- how about for SNMP clients?

Thanks for any mud-clearing advice.....Lyle

[nscott]

these are also refered to as "plug-ins", right? We use the check_nrpe plugin on the Server to query the NRPE service on the client Host, which calls the client-side plug-in, right?

Thats correct.

are they the same distribution as comes with Nagios Core and XI? I realize packaging and versions might be off.

Yeah, pretty much.

can the same plug-ins be used as external scripts for NSClient++ ? and would we refer to them as plug-ins there too?

Where this becomes an issue is the who Linux vs Windows deal. Some of the plugins are perl, some are C, some are shell, so you'd have to navigate that if you were looking to do a direct translation of the NRPE plugins.

how about for SNMP clients?

Not exactly sure what this means. However, SNMP varies from platform to platform. Microsoft has their own OIDs compared to net-snmp which is common on Linux machines. To take that a step further, AIX (IBM's proprietary UNIX) has compeltely different OIDs than net-snmp does. I hope this answers your question.