Nagios Support Forum

Posted: **Thu Apr 06, 2017 11:29 am**

Hi Everyone,
We recently purchased and downloaded the virtual machine of Nagios Core and got it up and running with basic check functionality fairly quickly. Now we are embarking on trying to get Nagios checking Windows servers processes, disk space etc... and we have found some fairly simply to follow tutorials to do it, but we have going that things are missing from our Nagios implementation -- directories, config file looks completely different than the one in the examples we've seen that claim to be "vanilla" config files.

Any suggestions on how we can reconcile our installation and get Windows checking to work? A pointer in the direction of instructions or walk-throughs would be very helpful. We are intermediates in Linux, but can follow instructions fairly well.

An example of a walk-through I tried to follow is below, but had to stop as soon as we got on the Nagios server because the config files were different and directoy structure did not look the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXVz_9GDbM&t=831s

Thank you in advance for your help!

Posted: **Thu Apr 06, 2017 4:41 pm**

Just so you're aware, we stopped distributing the Nagios Core VMs a few months ago. That doesn't mean we won't help you, though.

Were you encountering specific problems with monitoring Windows hosts? I can give a brief run-down, but it's a pretty broad topic that has different levels of complexity depending on what a given user already knows about Nagios Core.

This is a good YouTube playlist to start with if you want a general overview of the software:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... DUNE0M2plw

The Core Pro VM is going to be a bit different from stock Nagios Core systems. Mostly because it includes utilities like the Core Config Manager.

There are a few agents available for Windows:
NSClient++ (third party)
NCPA (maintained by us)

An "agent" is basically a process that lives on a machine and can handle Nagios Core requests for information. You can also use "agentless" monitoring with stuff like SNMP and WMI.

So I have NCPA running on my Server 2012 machine all configured and ready to handle Nagios connections. Here's my host definition and a sample service definition to monitor that machine:

Code: Select all

define host {
	host_name			192.168.67.99
	address				192.168.67.99
	check_command		check_ping!1000.0,50%!2000.0,80%!!!!!!
	max_check_attempts		5
	check_interval			5
	retry_interval			1
	check_period			24x7
	contacts			nagiosadmin
	notification_interval		60
	notification_period		24x7
	}	


define service {
	host_name			192.168.67.99
	service_description		CPU Usage
	check_command			check_ncpa!-t 'welcome123' -P 5693 -M cpu/percent -w 20 -c 40 -q 'aggregate=avg'
	max_check_attempts		5
	check_interval			5
	retry_interval			1
	check_period			24x7
	notification_interval		60
	notification_period		24x7
	contacts			nagiosadmin
	}

This will leverage the NCPA process running on my remote Server 2012 machine to check the CPU usage. I made this using the NCPA documentation and some general knowledge of Nagios object definitions. If it looks like straight nerd wizardry that makes no sense, getting acquainted with the different nagios configuration objects may be a good place to start.

Keep in mind that stuff like the nagiosadmin contact and the check_ncpa command are things i've already defined in my environment.

Posted: **Thu Apr 06, 2017 5:43 pm**

Thank you for the reply, I'll take a look at those videos tomorrow.

One of the biggest issues I am running in to is that the things some of the videos refer to aren't in the system. For example, one references "the Nagios.cfg file has a windows template that you just have to uncomment to acticate and save" -- ours does not have that -- or anything like it.

Should say:
cfg file =/usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/windows.cfg

Our Nagios.cfg does not have any lines that start cfg file = and we do not have any windows.cfg gile in the objects directory. So I'm not sure where to go from there on that. Maybe your links will help.

Posted: **Fri Apr 07, 2017 1:08 pm**

The VMs are a bit unconventional in that regard. The nice thing is the Core Config Manager can save a lot of time lost to writing flat-files, but there's also pretty sparse documentation or community resources for it. Mostly for the reasons you're experiencing; It's mostly pre-configured and doesn't look like a vanilla Nagios Core machine.

I always tell people in pre-sales stuff for Nagios XI to look at Nagios like a framework. There's a bit of a learning curve, but it's not going to impose limits on anything you want to do with it.

Nagios Support Forum

Issues with Nagios Core Install - Missing things

Issues with Nagios Core Install - Missing things

Re: Issues with Nagios Core Install - Missing things

Re: Issues with Nagios Core Install - Missing things

Re: Issues with Nagios Core Install - Missing things