Nagios Monitor Server, and NRPE clients, giving funny results

[Sean McAfee]

Gabriel - IP Guys wrote:
> I get the concept, NRPE is installed on my client servers, and nagios
> itself is installed on ate server designated the monitor server. This
> server itself also has NRPE installed as it's monitored by a separate
> nagios install, but that's above and beyond this issue. I've been told
> that I cannot pass arguments to NRPE from the monitor server. For
> example, check_nrpe -H client_IP check_disk - is the most that I can
> issue on the monitor server. I guess this then means that in the *.cfg
> files on nagios, everywhere it says check_nrpe!check_disk - there should
> be no arguments after it?
> 
> If this is the case, then I think I found where the guy I replaced made
> a mistake!

I think you may not fully understand how NRPE works - check_nrpe just 
tells a client to run a predefined check.


In your scenario, with a typical NRPE setup, there would be a check on 
the Nagios server :

define command {
         command_name    check_remote_disk
         command_line    $USER1$/check_nrpe2 -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -c 
check_disk -a $ARG1$ $ARG2$
}


And a corresponding entry in the client nrpe.cfg:

command[check_disk]= /usr/local/libexec/nagios/check_disk -w $ARG1$ -c 
$ARG2$

Now to actually make it check:

define service{
         host_name               server.example.com
         service_description     Disk Space Check
         use                     generic-service
         check_command    	check_remote_disk!50!80
}


On the Nagios host, this check is expanded to `check_nrpe2 -H 
server.example.com -c check_disk -a 50 80`, which  is seen by the NRPE 
daemon, and exanded to `/usr/local/libexec/nagios/check_disk -w 50 -c 80`.

Even if you can't pass arguments to the client NRPE because of policy or 
security reasons, you can still pass arguments on to the client-local 
check scripts with a few minor changes.

On Nagios:

define command {
         command_name    check_remote_disk
         command_line    $USER1$/check_nrpe2 -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -c 
check_disk_default
}

define service{
         host_name               server.example.com
         service_description     foo.txt file age
         use                     generic-service
         check_command    	check_remote_disk
}


And finally on the client nrpe.cfg:
command[check_disk_default]= /usr/local/libexec/nagios/check_disk -w 50 
-c 80

The only real tradeoffs to doing it this way are relating to templating 
and configuration centralization, so the hit is restricted to management 
overhead.

-- 
Sean McAfee
System Engineer

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