Monitoring in a Heterogeneous Environment [was Re: [Nagios-users] check_memory]

[Andreas Ericsson]

John Warburton wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> I would like to point out that whilst Nagios is "designed to run under 
> Linux" (http://www.nagios.org/about.php), that many people use Nagios to 
> monitor other variants of Unix.
> 
> I think I am like a few others here, who have come from a Big Brother 
> monitoring background. The mind set of the plugin developers at BB is 
> that the plugins would work under many different operating systems. OS 
> specific stuff is flagged.
> 
> I come over to Nagios to see mainly Linux specific stuff that is not 
> flagged as being Linux specific. For example, the contrib memory 
> checking plugins (contrib/check_mem.pl and 
> contrib/tarballs/check_memory.tgz) are Linux specific. The C code is 
> obvious and won't compile anywhere else, but the perl script and the 
> script submitted by Trevor below have problems:
> 

contrib is unchecked by the official developers and may have porting 
issues. This is understood by anyone who has ever seen a contrib dir 
before, as contrib is usually a place where users can upload their own 
stuff and have it included for other users benefit, if they can at all 
benefit from it.

That said, I'll cut some cruft.

> 
> 1. File a bug report for contrib/check_mem.pl as it is wrong for Linux & 
> Solaris (at least).
> 

Feel free.

> 2. Request that *all* plugins have some sort of #ifdef OS in them, and 
> try to work in multiple environments. check_disk.c is an excellent 
> example here.
> 

check_disk is an official plugin. Maintainers have made sure it ports 
nicely to most OS's (Tru64, HPUX, Linux, *BSD, AIX, etc. etc.)

> 3. Look to Big Brother as a guide to heterogeneous monitoring. The 
> memory script (http://www.deadcat.net/viewfile.php?fileid=804) is an 
> excellent example. Question - these are released under the GPL. Can 
> these be quickly hack for Nagios (with proper acknowledgment of the 
> authors) of course?
> 

Naturally. You can upload it yourself on the tracker page (and have it 
included in the contrib dir) within a day or two. For the record, the 
question mark at the end of the sentence effectively marks it as a 
question, so no need to flag it in advance.

> Comments?

You are obviously deliriously happy with big brother. Use it.

> Constructive criticisms? Flames > /dev/null.
> 

Flames always come on stderr, so that would be
flames >& /dev/null
(or the more portable)
flames > /dev/null 2>&1
;)

Cheers

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson at op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Lead Developer


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