Am I missing some docs?

[Carroll, Jim P [Contractor]]

Documenting some things becomes a bit of a slippery slope.  That is, where
do you draw the line?  SNMP is itself a vast subject, and in the context of
Nagios, requires things like net-snmp, among others.

Regarding using "nagios" as a member of "hostgroups":  Do you have a host
defined called "nagios"?  I know I don't.  And I'm certainly not using any
hostgroup called "hostgroup".  That would be about as helpful as naming a
computer "computer".  :P  I refer all to RFC1178:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1178.html

A hostgroup should have a logical name, like "dev-unix" or "prod-nt".  Just
some way of pigeonholing a group of similar systems.  A member of that group
should be referred to by the hostname you defined for it in hosts.cfg.  You
don't add an "SNMP device", per se; you define a service in services.cfg
which references the host (defined in hosts.cfg) and a token (I'm not sure
what Ethan prefers to call it) in checkcommands.cfg, which in turn
references that actual command/binary/script on the local disk.  (If you
happen to be using NRPE, then that command would be check_nrpe, which in
turn specifies a client host and another token/label in the remote host's
nrpe.cfg, which in turn executes a command, with arguments.)

Sound confusing?  It takes a little getting used to, but hang in there, as
it will eventually make sense.

jc

> -----Original Message-----
> From: doug.moore at ibill.com [mailto:doug.moore at ibill.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 11:18 AM
> To: Carroll, Jim P [Contractor]; nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: RE: [Nagios-users] Am I missing some docs?
> 
> 
> The pdf file is around 199 pages, printed it all out. But it 
> doesn't  have a
> section on "Here is how you add a device, do 1, 2, 3."
> 
> oh, it has lots of "pretty network diagrams", tons on  
> Authentication and
> Authorz, freshness checks etc.
> 
> Just a simple scenario of how to add a snmp device would be nice. 
> 
> The damn thing keeps bitching about not having any members in 
> "hostgroups".
> I have "nagios" defined as  group member.
> 
> I am trying to start out with only 1 device, and can't even 
> get nagios get
> past the hostgroups errors for the past 3 hours.
> 
> thanks!
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carroll, Jim P [Contractor] [mailto:jcarro10 at sprintspectrum.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 12:10 PM
> To: 'doug.moore at ibill.com'; nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: RE: [Nagios-users] Am I missing some docs?
> 
> 
> Are you sure you've read ALL the docs?  There's quite a lot to read.
> 
> I realize it's a bit of a Catch-22, but if you have Apache 
> set up properly,
> you should be able to read the online docs that came with 
> Nagios.  Failing
> that, change to the /usr/local/nagios/share/docs directory 
> (assuming you
> installed Nagios under /usr/local) and type "lynx index.html" 
> (or "links
> index.html" if that's your cuppa).  Not as pretty as a GUI, 
> but it's all
> there.
> 
> When I add a new device, I end up editing quite a few files.  It goes
> something like:
> 
> - hosts.cfg
> - hostextinfo.cfg
> - hostgroups.cfg
> - services.cfg
> 
> This would be a typical add/change/delete.  If I were to add 
> another person
> to be notified, that's something else altogether.
> 
> Sure, perhaps editing more than one file is more tedious than 
> editing one
> monolithic file, but the definitions get to be a lot more streamlined.
> Compare this to taking a new database and normalizing it.  
> You don't end up
> with one huge table.  :^)
> 
> I remember the first time I tried to fire up Nagios with the 
> default config
> and the pre-flight check failed.  "Argh," I thought.  Yeah, 
> learning to
> config Nagios wasn't as simple as learning how to cat a file, 
> but at some
> point I got to 'critical mass' and had that 'Aha!' moment.  
> I'm sure you
> will, too.  Just be patient.  :)
> 
> Food for thought.
> 
> jc
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: doug.moore at ibill.com [mailto:doug.moore at ibill.com]
> > Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 10:11 AM
> > To: nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> > Subject: [Nagios-users] Am I missing some docs?
> > 
> > 
> > I have downloaded nagios and its plugin's.  Printed out the 
> > manual, read it,
> > got nagios installed. Now the fun part, various parts of my 
> > install are
> > failing the "pre-flight". I can get my "nagios" webpage to appear.
> > 
> > I don't know the dependecies between the services, hosts, 
> > groups and other
> > config files.  I don't see anywhere this is outlined. Is this 
> > "relationship"
> > of edit config X, then add to config Y defined somewhere? 
> > 
> > What order is the adding of devices done?
> > 
> > 1.hosts
> > 2. services
> > 3. dependencies
> > 4. etc
> > 
> > yes, I have read the docs, and the faq, and did a search 
> > using google for
> > some insight... nothing so far has made the light bulb go 
> "off" yet. 
> > 
> > 
> > thanks
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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