SMTP/IMAP/POP3 checks

[Steve Shipway]

> I'm planning to start to use Nagios to monitor some email servers.
> The idea is having Nagios sending an email using check_smtp and then
> retrive it using check_tcp.
> 
> Can those two plugins accomplish this?

No, these two plugins only check for sanity on the ports and do not
actually send/receive email.

The way we do it here is to check all sorts of things. 

First, we use check_imap/check_smtp/etc to check that the ports are
listening correctly.

Then, we have checks for mail queue lengths on the mail servers (make
sure they aren't too large as this indicates something is
constipated...)

Finally, I have a 5-min cronjob that injects an email into the mail
system, addressed to a pseudouser on the Nagios host.  This pseudouser
is in fact a program which parses the email, identifies how long it took
to arrive, and submits a passive service check into nagios with a status
based on the delivery time.  A service freshness check will set the
service status to critical if no email is received for 30 mins (the
critical threshold for mail delivery here).  This is most likely the
sort of thing you're after.  The check_mail_loop plugin does similar to
this but for people with a single POP mailbox - our system is bigger and
so this was not appropriate for us.  You sould make sure you are
injecting your email into the system at a suitable place so that it does
not bypass the majority of the normal mail flow, though.

Steve

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