Very general question on nagios setup (host check vs. services)

[Jay West]

I'll forgo the specific platform and release information, as I suspect this
is a very general overiew type question. I have nagios set up and it is
working, but I feel there is something I "just don't get". I have read the
manual and faq, they didn't seem to address this at least in terms that made
sense to me. I also tried searching the archives but my question is so
general I couldn't find anything specific. I'll ask a few questions, but I
have a feeling that a single answer will allow me to figure out all of them.

First, when you set up a given host to be monitored, you tell it what test
to use.. check_host_alive I believe it is. This seems to just call a ping
test. By default I think, this check is "passive", and from the status
screen it would appear that this test only happens once when nagios is
started up. Sooo if a host goes down, when will it catch it if the test is
only done when nagios starts?

>From some of the sample config files and my own reading, it seems not
uncommon to define a host (and the check-host-alive), and then define a
single service for it called "ping". This seems odd to me. If the host will
already be pinged via check-host-alive in the host definition, then why the
need to define a ping service for it?

In my case, there are a group of hosts where all I care about is if the host
is up or not. But if I just define the hosts with check-host-alive, nagios
complains bitterly that I don't have any services defined.

So, I guess to sum up... if one defines a host and it gets pinged via the
host definition of check-host-alive, what is the difference between that
ping, and one you add to that host as a service check? There seems to be
something obvious I'm missing conceptually.

Any help is most appreciated!

Jay West


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