Dealing with unwanted questions (was: trouble getting started...)

[Todd Barbera]

I think this section of the documentation says it all:

Advice for Beginners


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Congrats on choosing to try Nagios! Nagios is quite powerful and flexible,
but unfortunately its not very friendly to newbies. Why? Because it takes a
lot of work to get it installed and configured properly. That being said, if
you stick with it and manage to get it up and running, you'll never want to
be without it. :-) Here are some very important things to keep in mind for
those of you who are first-time users of Nagios:


Relax - its going to take some time. Don't expect to be able to compile
Nagios and start it up right off the bat. Its not that easy. In fact, its
pretty difficult. If you don't want to spend time learning how things work
and getting things running smoothly, don't bother using this software.
Instead, pay someone to monitor your network for you or hire someone to
install Nagios for you. :-)


Read the documentation. Nagios is difficult enough to configure when you've
got a good grasp of what's going on, and nearly impossible if you don't. Do
yourself a favor and read before blindly attempting to install and run
Nagios. If you're the type who doesn't want to take the time to read the
documentation, you'll probably find that others won't find the time to help
you out when you have problems. RTFM.


Use the sample config files. Sample configuration files are provided with
Nagios. Look at them, modify them for your particular setup and test them!
The sample files are just that - samples. There's a very good chance that
they won't work for you without modifications. Sample config files can be
found in the sample-config/ subdirectory of the Nagios distribution.


Seek the help of others. If you've read the documentation, reviewed the
sample config files, and are still having problems, try sending a
descriptive email message describing your problems to the nagios-users
mailing list. Due to the amount of work that I have to do for this project,
I am unable to answer most of the questions that get sent directly to me, so
your best source of help is going to be the mailing list. If you've done
some background reading and you provide a good problem description, odds are
that someone will give you some pointers on getting things working properly.

----------------

If you're not willing to at least do some up front reading, i.e., setup my
system for me, then you're truly out of your league in dealing with this
software or any other software. Get a COTS solution and have a consultant
set it up for you and make sure you have a support contract so that someone
can tell you what to do when things go wrong. A certain amount of
responsibility falls upon the individual who wishes to embark on setting up
a system. They need to accept that.

JMTC,


Todd


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Leangen" <nagios at leangen.net>
To: <nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 7:54 PM
Subject: [Nagios-users] Dealing with unwanted questions (was: trouble
getting started...)


>
> Thought I'd add my 2 cents... This seems to be a recurring problem.
>
> > As a general statement, the amount of help received is commensurate
> > with the amount of work put into solving the problem before coming
> > here _and_ the amount of detail about the actual problem that is
> > provided.
>
> Excellent reply, Marc.
>
> I've been on quite a few lists in various OS communities, and this one,
> although very helpful, can be quite hostile at times.
>
> I certainly understand the frustration of those wanting to help, but who
> are overloaded by simple questions that have already been answered many
> times before.
>
> On the other hand, though, I also understand others who have trouble
> with basic things.
>
>
> Is there not some way to chide people a little more gently?
>
>
> For instance, perhaps a new "newbie" list could be created, so people
> who are particularly annoyed with receiving newbie mails could simply
> avoid that list?
>
> Or maybe we could have some kind of standard statement that we copy-
> paste that points to the guidelines for posting to the list.
>
> No matter how much we want the problem not to exist, there will always
> be people who post questions that others may be frustrated with. Quite
> frankly, some of the replies, although understandable, have shifted a
> bit to the nasty side. I just think that there must be a better way of
> dealing with the problem other than replying with a nasty tone.
>
>
> Anyway, just a few ideas...
>
>
>
>
>
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