Stuck on NRPE for OS X Server

[Andrew Davis]

My /etc/xinetd.d/nrpe is below:

# /etc/xinetd.d/nrpe
# description: NRPE
# default: on
service nrpe
{
        flags           = REUSE
        socket_type     = stream
        port            = 5666
        wait            = no
#        user            = nobody
        user            = daemon
#        group           = nobody
        group           = wheel
        server          = /usr/local/sbin/nrpe
        server_args     = -c /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg --inetd
        log_on_failure  += USERID
        disable         = no
        only_from       = 127.0.0.1 10.1.1.170
}

Originally, it was set to nobody:nobody. As a test, I set it to 
daemon:wheel. In all cases, it gives the "cannot run as root" error. I 
guess I can try making a Nagios user & group and testing with that.

  A. Davis
  Email:     nccomp at gmail.com

  "There is no limit to what a man can accomplish
   if he doesn't care who gets the credit." - Ronald Reagan



Allan Clark wrote:
> Reply is bottom-posted.
>
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 16:57, Andrew Davis <nccomp at gmail.com 
> <mailto:nccomp at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     If I'm reading this correctly, the line about "NRPE daemon cannot
>     be run as user/group root!" is directly from the source code of
>     NRPE. Its not an xinetd thing. I've confirmed that xinetd is
>     running and listening on port 5666. I tried changing the
>     owner/group from nobody:nobody to another unprivileged user, but
>     it didn't work. Same results. It appears that despite my
>     configuring the /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg and the /etc/xinetd.d/nrpe
>     files to use a user other than root, it still tries to start it as
>     the root user and thus when an incoming connection comes in, it
>     gives the "NRPE daemon cannot be run as user/group root!" error.
>     Any thoughts on how to rectify this? Since NRPE is working fine on
>     Linux, is this just a Mac OS X thing? Any help would be immensely
>     appreciated.
>
>     AD
>
>
>     Andrew Davis wrote:
>>     FYI: /var/log/system.log on the client shows:
>>
>>     Mar 18 16:08:07 shu xinetd[29066]: START: nrpe pid=557
>>     from=10.1.1.170
>>     Mar 18 16:08:07 shu nrpe[557]: Error: NRPE daemon cannot be run
>>     as user/group root!
>>
>>     whether I do the default test (with SSL) or use the -n flag to
>>     test w/o SSL. The odd thing is that the nrpe config in
>>     /etc/xinetd.d is set to run as nobody:nobody and
>>     /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg is owned by nobody:nobody. Only
>>     /usr/local/sbin/nrpe is owned by root (as it should be), but is
>>     also set to 755 perms. I've compared to a Linux box I have with
>>     NRPE and xinetd working properly and the permissions are identical.
>>
>>     I'm stumped...
>>
>>     Andrew Davis wrote:
>>>     I have two Mac OS X servers, one running 10.3, the other running
>>>     10.4. Neither can be upgraded to 10.5 due to third party s/w
>>>     constraints. Both are PPC based XServe's.
>>>
>>>     Trying to compile nrpe with:
>>>
>>>         ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc/nagios --enable-ssl
>>>
>>>     Initially, I got the "cannot find ssl libraries" error:
>>>
>>>         ~
>>>         checking for SSL headers... SSL headers found in /usr/local/ssl
>>>         checking for SSL libraries... configure: error: Cannot find
>>>         ssl libraries
>>>
>>>     I downloaded the latest openssl and built it with:
>>>
>>>         ./config --prefix=/usr/local shared
>>>         --openssldir=/usr/local/openssl
>>>         make
>>>         make test
>>>         make install
>>>
>>>     I then had to edit ~/src/nrpe/configure and change the reference
>>>     from libssl.so to libssl.dylib
>>>
>>>     After that, nrpe compiled cleanly and I was able to move
>>>     ~src/nrpe/src/nrpe to /usr/local/sbin and start xinetd up. I've
>>>     confirmed that port 5666 is open and xinetd is running:
>>>
>>>         /usr/local/src/nrpe-2.12/src root# ps waux|grep xinet|grep
>>>         -v greproot   29066   0.0 -0.0    27484    308  ??  Ss   
>>>         3:53PM   0:00.02 /usr/sbin/xinetd -pidfile
>>>         /var/run/xinetd.pid -stayalive
>>>         /usr/local/src/nrpe-2.12/src root# netstat -an|grep
>>>         5666tcp4       0      0  *.5666                
>>>         *.*                    LISTEN
>>>
>>>     However, when connecting from the remote server, I get:
>>>
>>>         /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nrpe -H host.mydomain.org
>>>         <http://host.mydomain.org>
>>>         CHECK_NRPE: Error - Could not complete SSL handshake.
>>>
>>>     The same test but w/o SSL gives yields:
>>>
>>>         [nagios at nephilim src]$ /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nrpe
>>>         -n -H host.mydomain.org <http://host.mydomain.org>
>>>         CHECK_NRPE: Received 0 bytes from daemon.  Check the remote
>>>         server logs for error messages.
>>>
>>>     So two questions:
>>>
>>>     1) I'm a UNIX guy, but obviously Mac's are A) different and B) a
>>>     tad different being BSD-based. So what's the proper way to
>>>     stop/restart the xinetd daemon?
>>>     2) Any thoughts on SSL handshake error? I've googled it, but I'm
>>>     not getting very far.
>>>
>>>     Anyone have a step-by-step for compiling nagios plugins and NRPE
>>>     from source on OS X 10.x (specifically 10.3 and 10.4)? I'm using
>>>     NRPE for all other internal hosts, so I prefer to use it for the
>>>     Mac's too. I know I could do it via check_by_ssh and get around
>>>     this, but I prefer to use NRPE if I can.
>>>     -- 
>>>             
>
>
> On a Mac, your xinetd is a bolt-on over the launchd that's there by 
> default; you've obviously got it running.  Since you're in 
> /etc/xinetd.d/<something>, you need to cnfigure a different username 
> via xinetd's config.  Look for a /etc/xinetd.d/nrpe file, or similar, 
> containing the config for your nrpe service.  I tend to grep for the 
> port number in order to find the file.  Remember to check /local/*
>
> The time service has an example with juicy comments:
>
>
> service time
> {
> # This is for quick on or off of the service
>         disable         = yes
> ...
> ...
> # External services must fill out the following
> #       user            =
> #       group           =
> ...
> ...
> }
>
>
> Take a look there, see if you can choose a better username and/or 
> group and if your port of xinetd honours it.  I don't know if you have 
> a nrpe user, or run it as nobody.
>
> A better option would be a proper launchd config, allowing you to 
> shutdown xinetd if you're installing it there for this purpose only, 
> but then it's a Mac-only thing, and would be more difficult to 
> maintain for non-Mac people.
>
> Allan
>
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