Nagios Support Forum

The infamous display_name directive.
I know that is in not implemented in the XI CGIs yet, but I was wondering when this was gonna actually be used.

Object Definitions wrote:display_name:
This directive is used to define an alternate name that should be displayed in the web interface for this host. If not specified, this defaults to the value you specify for the host_name directive. Note: The current CGIs do not use this option, although future versions of the web interface will.

Looking around the forum for information about display_name, I see that it has been a planned feature since around 2010 or so.
See:

• https://support.nagios.com/forum/viewto ... f=7&t=6209
• https://support.nagios.com/forum/viewto ... f=6&t=8228
• https://support.nagios.com/forum/viewto ... 16&t=11539
• https://support.nagios.com/forum/viewto ... 16&t=26979
• https://support.nagios.com/forum/viewto ... 16&t=30852
• https://support.nagios.com/forum/viewto ... 18&t=33051
• http://tracker.nagios.com/view.php?id=123
• http://tracker.nagios.com/view.php?id=128

Are we waiting for a complete rewrite of all the XI CGIs or what?

I mostly ask because many of the best CGIs only show the host_name, which is rather annoying to look at when you are forced to use unique host_names for over 800 hosts.
I currently have all my hosts using their IP addresses as their host_name, since I know the IP addresses are unique in my environment, and when automatically generating host configurations I want the new host with the same IP address to replace the old host.
But having everything listed by IP address is not very useful for my non-technical co-workers, and they aren't even sorted correctly because it is a string.

If there really is no ETA planned for this feature, how easy would it be to edit the dashlets myself?
Shouldn't be to hard to replace the displayed host_name with the display_name with something like: ($display_name == NULL ? $host_name : $display_name)

I think something might have just gotten mis-labeled. Running on XI 5.2.9:

The CCM fields, whose values reflect their fields:
But the "alias" here is the description in the edit box:
Host status, displaying the description in parentheses:
Host details, notice no alias:
User settings, where it is specified to show the alias:
I think we either need to add a CCM "alias" field (my preference), or change the current wording to say "Display host display_name". Will check with devs and update, but in the meantime can you see if this would work in your environment?

Also, regarding CGIs - only Core uses actual CGI compiled files, XI for the vast majority uses PHP scripts so this would end up being potentially a mix of Core and XI functionality.

tmcdonald wrote:User settings, where it is specified to show the alias:

user.png

I think we either need to add a CCM "alias" field (my preference), or change the current wording to say "Display host display_name". Will check with devs and update, but in the meantime can you see if this would work in your environment?

I did read that it was being added as a per-user setting in one of the threads I linked to, but yeah there is only the alias option.

tmcdonald wrote:Also, regarding CGIs - only Core uses actual CGI compiled files, XI for the vast majority uses PHP scripts so this would end up being potentially a mix of Core and XI functionality.

To be honest, I wasn't sure what "CGI" stood for, I mainly just meant the XI summary lists and such.
I was a huge fan of the BBMap, expect for the fact that it only showed the host_name, and then it of course became less useful after I added a little over 800 hosts to it.

It would be fairly broad and take a while if I filed a request to "Update all areas of XI to respect the host alias", but in the meantime if I went more specifically with a list of pages/reports/dashlets to update, which would be a priority for you?

tmcdonald wrote:It would be fairly broad and take a while if I filed a request to "Update all areas of XI to respect the host alias", but in the meantime if I went more specifically with a list of pages/reports/dashlets to update, which would be a priority for you?

The BBMap and the default summary and hostgroup pages.

Filed the request internally as "ID8926 - Expand usage of display_name in interface" with a specific emphasis on those pages.

I don't have an ETA since it needs to filter through the dev team, but it's on the radar now.

tmcdonald wrote:I don't have an ETA since it needs to filter through the dev team, but it's on the radar now.

Awesome, thanks!

Since a feature request was submit, is it ok if we lock this thread?

mcapra wrote:Since a feature request was submit, is it ok if we lock this thread?

Ooh yeah. I meant to say you could.
I'll just have to watch the updates even carefully from now on.