Nagios Support Forum

I have a evaluation version of Nagios XI installed on Redhat 7.6. We are trying to evaluate if we can monitor 50+ AIX 7.2 servers. This page:

https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nag ... 1553636498

describes how to install the AIX monitoring agent on target AIX servers. Currently AIX 5.3 and AIX 6.1 are supported. Doesn't even mention AIX 7.

From here: ftp://www.oss4aix.org/RPMS/nagios-plugins/ , I downloaded the Nagios plugin for AIX from 10/2018 and Nagios nrpe from 10/2017. They don’t install because of RPM dependencies.

I don't want to go around installing a bunch of RPM's to get nagios working on AIX. I set up a nagios user with ssh keys on an AIX client. What functionality is provided with the monitoring agent that I don't get with just being able to ssh to the server?

Hello, @RedandBlack63. We do not have packages available for AIX 7.1 / 7.2 but I do have a web site that you can download them from.
The site is called http://www.perzl.org/aix/

The links below are direct links to the files you need to download to the AIX server.

ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/fpin ... .3.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/gawk ... .1.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/net- ... .1.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/net- ... .1.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/net- ... .1.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/open ... .1.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/open ... .1.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/pyth ... .1.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/libd ... .1.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/nagi ... .1.ppc.rpm
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/nagi ... .1.ppc.rpm

Put them all in one folder and run the following to install all of the packages.

rpm -Uvh *.rpm

The /etc/nagios/nrpe.conf needs to be changed a bit to get it to work so edit that file.
This option will have to be set to 1 to allow the NRPE agent to accept arguments.
dont_blame_nrpe=1

Change this from

pid_file=/var/run/nagios-nrpe/nrpe.pid

to

pid_file=/var/run/nrpe/nrpe.pid

to match the pid file in the init script.

Save the changes and restart the NRPE service.


If you want to use arguments in the commands that you define in XI, you will also have to do the following changes in the /etc/nagios/nrpe.conf file.

Comment out the hard coded commands

#command[check_users]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_users -w 5 -c 10
#command[check_load]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_load -r -w .15,.10,.05 -c .30,.25,.20
#command[check_hda1]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_disk -w 20% -c 10% -p /dev/hda1
#command[check_zombie_procs]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_procs -w 5 -c 10 -s Z
#command[check_total_procs]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_procs -w 150 -c 200

Uncomment these commands.

command[check_users]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_users $ARG1$
command[check_load]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_load $ARG1$
command[check_disk]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_disk $ARG1$
command[check_swap]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_swap $ARG1$

### PROCESSES ###
command[check_all_procs]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/custom_check_procs
command[check_procs]=/opt/freeware/lib/nagios/plugins/check_procs $ARG1$

Change to the NRPE user by running this

sudo su - nrpe

Then to start the Agent, run this

/opt/freeware/sbin/nrpe -c /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg -d

To test to see if the AIX server can be polled from the Nagios server, run the following command from the Nagios server (replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the IP Addrerss on the AIX server)

/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nrpe -H xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

If it returns the version number that you should be able to run the NRPE commands from the XI server.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I have too many dependency requirements to get all those rpm's installed:


[migration2:/home/nagios/rpms]# rpm -Uvh *.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
gettext is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
gmp >= 6.1.2-1 is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
mpfr >= 3.1.6-1 is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
libsigsegv >= 2.11-1 is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
readline >= 7.0-3 is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
info is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
libgmp.a(libgmp.so.10) is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
libmpfr.a(libmpfr.so.4) is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
libreadline.a(libreadline.so.7) is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
libsigsegv.a(libsigsegv.so.0) is needed by gawk-4.2.1-1.ppc
gettext >= 0.10.40 is needed by nagios-plugins-2.2.1-2.ppc
/opt/freeware/bin/perl is needed by net-snmp-perl-5.7.2-3.ppc
/opt/freeware/bin/perl is needed by net-snmp-utils-5.7.2-3.ppc
python-libs = 2.7.13 is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
db4 >= 4.8.30-1 is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
gettext >= 0.10.40-6 is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
gdbm >= 1.11-1 is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
libffi >= 3.2.1-2 is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
readline >= 7.0-2 is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
sqlite >= 3.16.2-1 is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
zlib >= 1.2.3-7 is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
libdb-4.8.so is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
libffi.a(libffi.so.6) is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
libgdbm.a(libgdbm.so.4) is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
libpython2.7.so is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
libreadline.a(libreadline.so.7) is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc
libsqlite3.a(libsqlite3.so.0) is needed by python-2.7.13-1.ppc


If getting the Nagios agent installed is a requirement, unfortunately, that's not going to happen. Can't Nagios do it all it needs to do through an ssh connection on the client?

@RedandBlack63, I see. Yes, we do have a tutorial on monitoring hosts using SSH. Here's the article.
https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nag ... ng_SSH.pdf

I got the ssh portion working. Is there some url that tells me the difference between what the ssh client and what having the actual full blown agent installed does? What am I missing by not being able to install the agent on my AIX servers? Thanks.

@RedandBlack63, Some users would prefer NRPE because the setup process is faster(for CentOS/RHEL there is automated installer) and there is no need to create SSH keys. NRPE allows users to hardcode commands on the remote server itself. In some cases running a check through NRPE is faster because the ssh key exchange process takes up time. I'd say in your case, it is probably faster to just set up ssh keys rather than install all rpm dependencies, so I'd just go with check_by_ssh on AIX servers.

I have setup ssh keys. See command sample below:

[nagios@btsrheltest1 libexec]$ /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_by_ssh -E -H migration2 -C uptime
03:21PM up 5 days, 7:46, 1 user, load average: 3.36, 3.33, 3.36

However, when I look at server status for that host (migration2), I see a bunch of errors that say:


(No output on stdout) stderr: connect to address 10.106.248.32 port 5666: Connection refused


Why am I getting those errors if ssh works??? What's the difference between using NRPE and ssh? Can using ssh do everything that NRPE can? If it can, you can direct me to a document that tells me everything I need to do now to get full functionality using ssh?

@RedandBlack63, Did you use a Linux server wizard to set up service checks?

(No output on stdout) stderr: connect to address 10.106.248.32 port 5666: Connection refused

They're using the NRPE(on port 5666) and not ssh. You can delete these checks in the Core Configurations Manager.

You need to use the "SSH proxy" wizard instead in XI to set up checks that are going to use SSH.
Keep in mind that these SSH commands are using Nagios plugins. To install the plugins you can download and install the following RPM on the remote server.
ftp://www.oss4aix.org/latest/aix71/nagi ... .1.ppc.rpm

You can close this now. We've decided to look for another monitoring solution that better supports AIX 7.2. Nagios looks like a fantastic product, other than the lack of AIX 7.2 support. Thanks.

Hi @RedandBlack63,

Thank you for evaluating Nagios XI. We do have official documentation on configuring SNMP monitoring on AIX, let us know if this would be an option for you.

Monitoring AIX Using SNMP
https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nag ... g-SNMP.pdf