Please help -- very confused about freshness checking and threshold

[John Fox]

Hello, All,

It appears to me that I've a massive misunderstanding about freshness
checks and the freshness threshold.

I have some scripts that I use for making and submitting passive
checks results to my Nagios server.  I run them every three minutes
via cron, and I have set the freshness threshold to 3600.  Despite
the seeming overkill of this threshold, my services often go stale
within just a few minutes of starting Nagios.  A few minutes pass,
and they then are updated.  It flaps like this persistently.

It seems quite clear to me at this point that I don't understand
the freshness-checking mechanism, and I'd really appreciate
some input from those who know the system better than I.

Here is the template I'm using for these particular services:

----
# Diskcheck service definition template
define service{
        name                            disk-template   ; Template 'name' - referenced in other service definitions
        active_checks_enabled           1       ; Active service checks are disabled
        passive_checks_enabled          1       ; Passive service checks are enabled
        parallelize_check               1       ; Active service checks should be parallelized (recommeneded)
        obsess_over_service             1       ; We should obsess over this service (if necessary)
        check_freshness                 1       ; Default is to NOT check service 'freshness'
        freshness_threshold             3600    ; Status should be updated every three minutes - this gives lots of wiggle room
        notifications_enabled           1       ; Service notifications are enabled
        event_handler_enabled           0       ; Service event handler is enabled
        flap_detection_enabled          1       ; Flap detection is enabled
        process_perf_data               1       ; Process performance data
        retain_status_information       1       ; Retain status information across program restarts
        retain_nonstatus_information    1       ; Retain non-status information across program restarts
        max_check_attempts              3
        normal_check_interval           3
        retry_check_interval            3
        check_period                    24x7
        notification_interval           3
        notification_period             24x7
        notification_options            w,c,r,u
        contact_groups                  systems
        register                        0       ; Don't register -- it's a template, dummy!
}
---

And here's a service definition that makes use of the template:

---
define service{
        use                     disk-template
        host_name               host.domain.name
        service_description     disk-/usr/local/etc
        check_command           stale-service-alert
        }
---

This has been driving me nuts for a few days now and I'd appreciate any clues as to
what I've overlooked.

Thanks in advance,


John
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| John Fox <jjf at mind.net> | System Administrator | Internet Ventures Oregon |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "You can't talk about George W. without addressing the strange            |
| Bilbo-Baginnian language that spurts out from between his lips like       |
| melted marshmallows coming out of a squirt gun." -- Dennis Miller         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+


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