check_by_ssh from a different username

[David Mitchell]

Hello list,

I've got a situation where I can't create 'nagios' users on the systems I
need to monitor; I'm stuck with using a set of different user names to
monitor a range of systems.

For the sake of the discussion, assume the account on the Nagios server is
'nagios' and the account I've been given on the remote server I need to
monitor is 'monitoruser'.

In trying to setup a check_by_ssh script, I'm at the point where I can do
either of these successfully
- from the 'nagios' user on the Nagios server, I can run
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_by_ssh -H REMOTEHOST -l monitoruser -C
"nagios-test-script'.  This runs fine, but I get prompted for monitoruser's
password on the remote system.  Obviously I can't enter the password when
this command is running from within Nagios
- from a shell logged in as 'monitoruser' on the Nagios server, I can run
the identical command and I don't get prompted for the password; everything
works as I'd like, except that I need to be running the command from the
'monitoruser' account on the Nagios server (and I want to run the command
from the 'nagios' user instead).  The fact that this works without a
password prompt tells me that I've got monitoruser's ssh public key set up
on REMOTEHOST

If I'm logged in as 'nagios' and try to run
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_by_ssh -H REMOTEHOST -i
/home/monitoruser/.ssh/id_dsa -C "nagios-test-script" -vvvv, I get "warning:
Identity file /home/monitoruser/.ssh/id_dsa not accessible: Permission
denied.", which is what I'd expect.  This fails because the user 'nagios'
can't access the ~/.ssh/id_dsa file of monitoruser; this is correct
behaviour from a security perspective.

How can I use check_by_ssh to monitor remote servers, when the username on
the remote box is different from the Nagios user name?

Thanks in advance

Dave M.
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