The sad side of version 2.0 - serviceextinfo

[Ethan Galstad]

On 8 Mar 2006 at 11:35, Paul Smith 02 wrote:

> 
> Okay, love Nagios, been using it since 1.0beta something, and now
> I´m implementing version 2.0.
> 
> I love the speed of the new version, the instant host search is 
> superb, but what happened to the serviceextinfo?
> 
> It´s now verified as it´s loaded, which is a good idea and sadly a
> lot of work for me, I have long lists of hosts that don´t run a
> service but had an serviceextinfo entry for convenience. My fault,
> I´ll clean it up.
> 
> 
> So, into my observations:-
> 
> 1) Redundancy. Now we have:-
> 
> define service {
>  use generic-service
>  host_name MyHost
>  service_description This is my service
>  check_command check_nrpe!check_my_service
> }
> 
> define serviceextinfo {
>  host_name MyHost
>  service_description This is my service
>  notes_url 
> http://mynotes/ThisIsMyService.html
> }
> 
> WHY!
> 
> IMHO, the serviceextinfo should be merged into the `define
> service´ command, so all I really needed is:-
> 
> define service {
>  use generic-service
>  host_name MyHost
>  service_description This is my service
>  check_command check_nrpe!check_my_service
>  notes_url 
> http://mynotes/ThisIsMyService.html
> }
> 
> Obviously, to make things backward compatible both methods should be
> allowed. This could also be applied to the hostextinfo, but as I only
> have 130 hosts and 4000 services, my emphasis is on the service side
> of things.
> 
> 2) Meaningless icon_image. Now we have a notes_url and an action_url,
> why do we only have a single icon_image? Shouldn´t there be a
> notes_icon and action_icon?
> 
> 3) Drill thru. In the old version, clicking on the icon displayed
> against a service in the "Service Status Details" used to execute
> the notes_url, now it takes you to the extinfo.cgi. I guess this is
> because we have a notes_url and an action_url so we don´t know which
> to go to.
> 
> 4) graph_url. Now that we have multiple URL´s against a service, why
> not add the one everybody wants, a link takes the user to a graph of
> the service. I am not suggesting that the base Nagios system should
> offer a graphing facility, just the chance to list a URL to it.
> 
> 5) More icons. Taking points 2+3+4 into account, I would like to see
> an icon for each URL defined appearing on the "Service Status
> Details" display, etc. I think I am in favor of dropping icon_image
> and having a default icon for notes_url, action_url and graph_url.
> Obviously, I am suggesting that clicking on the icon takes you thru to
> the URL.
> 
> Your comments are welcome.
> 
> I would love for Ethan (or another skilled Nagios developer) to just
> agree to all this and a day later we have 2.1b1 available. It would
> take me awhile to familiarise myself with all the code to be able to
> do this.
> 
> PS: In my hacked 1.2 code, all acknowledge critical alerts shows in
> lylic instead of red, takes your mind off them and onto the important
> ones, but this should probably be done by the new web interfaces
> coming for Version 3.x
> 
> Paul

Hostextinfo and Serviceextinfo definitions are being merged with host 
and service definitions, respectively, in Nagios 3.x.  In fact, 
they're already supported in the CVS HEAD branch.

I'm not sure what the future of the *extinfo variables will be, as 
the new web interface in 3.x may use different variables altogether.  
I don't expect development on the  web interface to start for another 
month or so, so I'll wait til then to make any decisions on changes.  

FYI, there will be support for custom variables in Nagios 3.x for 
host, service, and contact definitions.  So if the predefined 
variables don't fit your every need, you'll be able to define new 
ones and make those variables available to the web interface for 
adding new features, etc.



Ethan Galstad,
Nagios Developer
---
Email: nagios at nagios.org
Website: http://www.nagios.org



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