Parent/Child Host Relationships

In the CCM (Core Configuration Manager) within Nagios XI, you can define a parent for a host by using the Manage Parents functionality on the Manage Hosts page. Generally, parent hosts are routers, switches, firewalls, etc... that lie between the monitoring host (Nagios XI) and the remote hosts. Parent/child relationships help Nagios XI figure out host reach-ability. If the parent host is down, the child hosts will be considered unreachable. Building these relationships can prevent duplicate notifications and escalations.

Advantages of the Parent/Child Relationship

• Host parent definitions allow an administrator, through the Nagios XI interface, to define a hierarchy of connectivity to monitored hosts from the Nagios XI server.

• If the parent host enters a DOWN state, it triggers Nagios XI’s host reachability logic to automatically determine which child hosts become inaccessible, and flags these as UNREACHABLE rather than DOWN, allowing notifications to only be sent for the parent host. Users will not be inundated with unnecessary notifications.

• After the relationships are setup in Nagios XI, parent/child relationships and statuses can be viewed graphically and in real time in the Hypermap or the Network Status Map, saving the administrator time in troubleshooting host issues.

To create a parent host relationship:

1. Navigate to Configure > Core Config Manager > Hosts.

2. Select a child host name to edit.

3. Click the Manage Parents button on the Host Management page.

4. On the resulting Manage Parents popup, select the parent host or hosts and click Add Selected.

5. Click the Close button.

6. Save and Apply Configuration.

Further Information on Manage Parents

This function is used to define a comma-delimited list of short names of the "parent" hosts for this particular host. A router, switch, etc. which is closest to the remote host is considered to be that host's "parent". Read the Determining Status and Reachability of Network Hosts document for more information. If this host is on the same network segment as the host doing the monitoring (without any intermediate routers, etc.) the host is considered to be on the local network and will not have a parent host. Leave this value blank if the host does not have a parent host (i.e. it is on the same segment as the Nagios host). The order in which you specify parent hosts has no effect on how things are monitored.

NOTE: You can view relationships of a host by clicking on the relationships icon within the Actions column on the Hosts page.