monitor printer from Windows server

Werner, Robert RWerner at pomwonderful.com
Thu Dec 1 20:52:14 CET 2011


I've had good luck using System.Printing from Powershell and then running the scripts from NSClient++.

I just wrote the PowerShell Scripts to use the standard nagios plugin status codes.

I used the following links to develop the PowerShell scripts:
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/PrintServerManagementps1-7676ed28
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.printing.aspx

If there is interest,  I'll ask my boss about sharing the PowerShell scripts.

--
Robert G. Werner
Oracle Apps Systems Administrator
rwerner at pomwonderful.com
559.521.5089

From: Claudio Kuenzler [mailto:ck at claudiokuenzler.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 11:21 AM
To: Nagios Users List
Subject: Re: [Nagios-users] monitor printer from Windows server

Besides of course the Spooler Service, you should also monitor the Windows Event Log.
I've experienced a lot of driver issues on an old Windows print server which temporarily caused the affected printer(s) to appear as 'offline'. Such problems appeared in the event log as Warnings with the message content something about the driver. That was on a Windows Server 2003, but I think such driver problems are still logged to the Event Log.
On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 3:10 PM, Jim Avery <jim at jimavery.me.uk<mailto:jim at jimavery.me.uk>> wrote:
On 1 December 2011 12:39, James Osbourn <james.osbourn at citrix.com<mailto:james.osbourn at citrix.com>> wrote:
> I have a Windows 7 server acting as a print server and I would like to check the status of these printers and make sure that they are still online etc.
>
> I cannot seem to find a way of checking printers shared from a Windows machine, does anyone have any suggestions or references that I could use.
>
> Thanks
>
> James

I query the windows performance counter for number of print jobs
spooling.  If a printer breaks then usually this counter starts
ramping up quite rapidly as more and more print jobs get stuck in the
queue.

For example, the [external alias] section of your nsc.ini (assuming
you use NSClient++), you can have:-

alias_CheckCounter-PrintQJobs=CheckCounter "Counter:jobs=\Print
Queue(_Total)\Jobs" ShowAll MaxWarn=250 MaxCrit=500

Then your service definition would look something like this:-

define service {
       host_name                       printserver1,printserver2
       service_description             PrintQJobs
       use                             srv-pnp,generic-service
       check_command                   check_nrpe!-c PrintQJobs
       max_check_attempts              6
       check_interval                  15
       retry_interval                  5
       contact_groups                  notify-admins
       notes                           Records the number of Active
Jobs on a Print Server
       register                        1
}

And the command definition I use is just a generic one for any nrpe
check like so:-

define command {^M
       command_name                    check_nrpe
       command_line                    $USER1$/check_nrpe -H
$HOSTADDRESS$ -u $ARG1$
       register                        1
}

Our servers aren't quite as recent as Windows 7, but I guess the
counter would still be the same.

I hope that helps.

Jim

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