volatile services (was: RE: max_check_attempts vs. logfiles vs. notification)

[Carroll, Jim P [Contractor]]

I think I may have an answer to my requirement.

I was looking at the docs regarding Volatile Services
(http://your_nagios_server/nagios/docs/volatileservices.html) and realized
this *may* do what I need it to do.  But I have a concern that I was hoping
someone could address.

In the docs, it states:

"These events normally only occur for services when they are in a non-OK
state and a hard state change has just occurred. In other words, they only
happen the first time that a service goes into a non-OK state. If future
checks of the service result in the same non-OK state, no hard state change
occurs and none of the events mentioned take place again."

This seems to indicate that if check_log finds 'error' the first time,
notifications will be sent out and the status is reset to OK.  So far, so
good.  But what happens if each/every time check_log goes there and finds
'error' in the logfile (eg, a rapidly degrading disk)?  Will Nagios say,
"Yeah, you told me about that already.  I'm not going to send out
notifications, because I did that already"?

I'm going to try to test this out (determining design through observation),
but if someone could shed some light on this (the actual design through
empirical evidence), it would be appreciated.

jc


-------------------------------------------------------
This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek
Welcome to geek heaven.
http://thinkgeek.com/sf