Post 5.6.2 upgrade - Nagvis thing

[SteveBeauchemin]

I notice that the Nagios XI Upgrade makes some big changes to the Nagvis application.

I had set the permissions in the Nagvis directory to allow the nagios user some editing permissions. The upgrade changes the owner and group to apache for the entire structure.

I also use multiple backends in Nagvis. The upgrade comments out all backendtype= and only leaves the ndomy backendtype set.

Once I realized this and put back my file permissions, and edited my nagvis.ini.php file I was able to use Nagvis again.

In administering the Nagvis tool I find myself manually adding files and editing cfg files at the OS level. If you do that, then the x,y coordinates can be lined up easily to make the screens look good. I can add shapes and icons and maps easier. Make horizontal lines be horizontal. I do not rely on the GUI to work in Nagvis when I am refining the look and feel of a Nagvis page. The GUI is good for a rough sketch. Making things look perfect I find easier by editing the cfg files manually.

Bottom line is I use the nagios user to do this work. These are file permissions that work for me.

Code: Select all

# userfiles images shapes
chown -R apache:nagios /usr/local/nagvis/share/userfiles/images
chmod 775 /usr/local/nagvis/share/userfiles/images/*
chmod u+s /usr/local/nagvis/share/userfiles/images/*
chmod g+s /usr/local/nagvis/share/userfiles/images/*

# Change file perms so both apache and nagios users can modify them
find /usr/local/nagvis/share/userfiles/images -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;

# etc maps
chown apache:nagios /usr/local/nagvis/etc/nagvis.ini.php
chmod 664 /usr/local/nagvis/etc/nagvis.ini.php

chown -R apache:nagios /usr/local/nagvis/etc/maps
chmod 775 /usr/local/nagvis/etc/maps
chmod u+s /usr/local/nagvis/etc/maps
chmod g+s /usr/local/nagvis/etc/maps

# Change file perms so both apache and nagios users can modify them
find /usr/local/nagvis/etc/maps -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;

The Nagvis application lets you have more than one backend in use at a time. After updates, check the nagvis.ini.php file carefully.

So, my cautionary tale is to tell people to make sure to document any Nagvis changes for future reference. You may need the information to bring your Dashboards back to life.

Steve B

[npolovenko]

@SteveBeauchemin, Thanks for bringing this to our attention. All customized components in XI get overridden to defaults during some XI upgrades. Perhaps if more people will face the same problem we could add a reminder/warning message in the web interface.