Request For Comments: NWPE - Nagios Web Plugin Executor

[Tedman Eng]

Would someone have to run apache on each server they want to use it with?

<atonns at mail.ivillage.com> wrote in message
news:F63694D14D538A4CB8DA5DAB5215A11C053D83CA at cookiemonster.ivillage.net...
> Dear Nagios Community,
>
> I'm considering making a project that I'm working on for my employer open
> source. They are o.k. with the concept of open source licensing (otherwise
I
> wouldn't be writing this email). However, before putting the extra effort
in
> to "clean it up for public consumption", I want to poll the community to
see
> if there's any interest.
>
> Project:
> NWPE: Nagios Web Plugin Executor
> Execute service checks remotely, using HTTP[S] as a transport protocol,
and
> a thin wrapper around CGI as a service check API.
> It functions similar to nrpe with the benefit of possibly improving the
> performance of perl scripts for service checks (when using
apache/mod_perl).
>
> History:
> For a home-grown monitoring system, I decided I wanted to go with SNMPv3
> agents. The main reason were the authentication and encryption aspects.
So,
> I created a nice Solaris package of net-snmpd 5.0.7 and was very happy
with
> it. I am using Nagios to poll all of my servers w/agents. At the time,
> SNMPv3 support had not been integrated into check_snmp, so I ventured into
> coding my own plugins. Using perl with Net::SNMP was the right solution.
One
> major advantage my scripts have over check_snmp/snmpget is that I can
> retrieve an entire MIB table and reference objects by their description
> field (ie: from the hrStorageTable use htStorageDescr to determine the
index
> into hrStorageUsed/hrStorageSize) and have the script be automatically
> flexible when new items are added (ie: additional partitions are mounted,
> etc.). So far, I've had miserable success with embedded Perl Nagios (ePN).
> It leaks memory like mad (I have to restart at LEAST once a day) and the
> number of service checks (1400+) is totally overwhelming my poor UltraII.
So
> I cooked up an alternative...
>
> Functionality:
> A small C program 'nwpe' is called from a Nagios command
> (checkcommands.cfg). It is small, and strongly leverages libcurl
> (http://curl.sourceforge.net/libcurl/) to connect (via HTTP or HTTPS) and
> optionally authenticate to a webserver. An example usage would be:
>
> ./nwpe -U https://servicechecker.nagios.org/svc/check_remote_disk -a
> "args=--hostname=webserver1 --path=/usr --warning=20% --critical=10%" -u
> nagios -p checkITout
>
> "check_remote_disk" is a CGI script written in perl. In my case the
> webserver is running mod_perl. It uses Net::SNMP and other perl modules to
> perform it's service check. It also invokes a custom perl module I have
> written, NWPE (which will hopefully become Nagios::NWPE) that does the
> following:
>
> a) parses the POST/GET "args" field with a CGI object into @ARGV for
parsing
> by Getopt::Long
> b) redirects STDOUT to an IO::String to capture all output from the plugin
> c) sets the appropriate return value for the state of the service check
> (OK/WARNING/CRITICAL/UNKNOWN) in the HTTP Header field "Return-state:"
> d) prints the 'cached' output of the plugin on the real STDOUT with
> mime-type "text/plain"
>
> Essentially, the NWPE module makes it relatively painless to convert
command
> line service checks written in perl to CGI/mod_perl service checks.
>
> Finally, after the service check has return the data, the 'nwpe' C program
> prints the output of the request on STDOUT and returns the appropriate
value
> (Return-state:) to Nagios.
>
> Reasoning:
> The 'nwpe' system creates:
> 1) Additional flexibility - any scripting language that can be run from a
> webserver (perl/mod_perl/asp/jsp) can be used as a service check
> 2) Additional scalability - allows you to deploy multiple service check
> webservers just about anywhere on any network and leverage HTTP
load-balance
> technology (Cisco LocalDirector, BigIP, etc.) to distribute the load of
> running service checks.
> 3) Additional performance - using mod_perl to speed up normally slow perl
> service check execution
> 4) Additional security - access to service checks can be authenticated &
> encrypted, and use any other access control mechanisms your favorite
> webserver provides.
>
> When using nwpe with apache/mod_perl, I see it as combining the best of
nrpe
> and ePN.
>
> Downsides:
> 1) I have not integrated performance data into NWPE. However, I suspect it
> could easily be added as an additional HTTP Header or something similar
> (I've not done any performance data work with Nagios whatsoever).
> 2) the NWPE perl module is currently rough around the edges. Very rough.
> It's the first serious perl module I've written (and bares a striking
> resemblance to the stuff in perlboot, perltoot and perlobj).
> 3) While SSL has been integrated into libcurl for sometime, HTTP
> authentication is only part of the 7.10.6 pre-release and I couldn't get
> pre3 to work (but pre2 works like a champ). This might make compiling nwpe
a
> little hairy.
> 4) nwpe has not been setup with autoconf yet. It's features are slim.
>
> If there's a decent amount of positive response, I will try to see if I
> carve out some time to setup a site for NWPE development.
>
> Thanks,
> --Tony
>
> --
> "Computer science is as much about computers as
>         astronomy is about telescopes" -- Edsger Dijkstra
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Anthony Tonns, UNIX Administrator - atonns at mail.ivillage.com
>
>
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