Virtual Machines - define as parent or as host dependency...

[Andrew Davis]

Thanks much for the info. Curious... you mention ESX and VSphere. Do you 
know if your check_vmware test also works against VMWare Server 2.x 
(free edition). We are running ESX internally, but have a single 
external server running VMWare Server 2.x with three VMs in it. Hence 
why I ask...

   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


On 1/26/10 3:03 AM, Steve Shipway wrote:
> This is the way we do it, with Parents (not host dependencies).
> First we create a virtual object for the VMWare farm.  This has a 
> status of UP if any of the farm servers are up (using check_summary).  
> This virtual 'host' has several services, using the v0.9 check_vmware, 
> relating to the farm's alarms, storage volumes, etc.  These services 
> have service dependencies on the VirtualCentre service running on the 
> Virtual Centre host.
> The Farm object has ALL of the ESX Servers as Parents.
> All the VMs in the farm have the Farm object as a parent.  Some of 
> them also use check_esx3 to alert on Alarms, CPU, and Memory usage 
> within VMWare.
> This might seem a bit complex if you've only the one server, but as 
> soon as oyu have multiple servers in the farm, and use DRS, you have 
> to use a farm object for parents/dependencies.
> It might make more sense for these relationships to be host 
> dependencies rather than parents i nmost cases, but we have a SAN 
> mirrored environment to a seocnd ESX farm so that the VMs can be 
> brought up ther ein the event of a complete farm outage, hence the use 
> of Parents rather than dependencies.
> If you have VSphere4 (ESX4.0) with a SNMP-enabled Cisco virtual switch 
> in the farm, you could probably make the virtual switch the parent 
> device rather than having to use a farm object.
> The VMWare monitoring plugin we're using is v0.9 of check_vmware, from 
> here: http://www.steveshipway.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1648 
> <http://www.steveshipway.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1648>
> check_summary is available from nagiosexchange.org (as is check_esx3 
> which is the forerunner of check_vmware)
> Steve
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Andrew Davis [nccomp at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 26 January 2010 9:14 a.m.
> *To:* nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> *Subject:* [Nagios-users] Virtual Machines - define as parent or as 
> host dependency...
>
> I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this, yet keep things as 
> simple as possible.
>
> Say I have a server called Saturn running VMWare. I'm monitoring this 
> server with Nagios.
> I also have three VM's on Saturn: Jupiter, Mars, and Pluto
>
> I want to suppress all host and service alerts on Jupiter, Mars, & 
> Pluto if the host Saturn is down (unreachable). I do NOT want to 
> suppress host or service alerts from Jupiter, Mars, and Pluto if the 
> VMWare processes (services) are down on Saturn. Basically, if my VM 
> server is completely unreachable, don't bother me about its client VM's.
>
> Am I better off doing this with a host dependency? Something like:
>
> *define hostdependency {
> 	host_name			Host B
> 	dependent_host_name		Host C
> 	notification_failure_criteria	d,u
> 	}
> *
> Or am I better off defining Saturn as the parent of the VM's in the 
> host config? Something like:
>
> *define host {
> 	host_name               jupiter
> 	use                     VMs
> 	alias                   jupiter
> 	address                 172.26.251.60
> 	parents                 saturn, tpdmzsw1
> }*
> I've successfully used the "parents" directive to define network 
> topology, so I would think this would work. What might be the risks of 
> defining both?
> -- 
>
>
>    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
>    
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://www.monitoring-lists.org/archive/users/attachments/20100126/c72df7d4/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation
Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business
Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts
Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
Nagios-users mailing list
Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue. 
::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null