I've tried everything possible. I am completely lost. I want to throw my keyboard through a window. How in god's name do I get nagios to accept an argument that includes spaces? I have a service that uses the check_by_ssh plugin to run a script on a remote server. The script takes an argument that is wrapped in quotes and can potentially contain spaces. Originally I had defined the command as comand_name check_by_ssh command_line /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_by_ssh -H $HOSTADDRESS$ --command=$ARG1$ which works fine for a service that looks like this... check_by_ssh!"/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_load -w 5,5,5 -c 9,9,9" but not for one that looks like this... check_by_ssh!"/my/custom/script '$ARG1$'" So I defined a new command... command_name my_custom_script command_line /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_by_ssh -H $HOSTADDRESS --command="/my/custom/script '$ARG1$'" and set up a new service... my_custom_script!"this is my argument" and that still fails. Wy are my quotes/spaces not being passed? What is going on here? I have tried every combination of single quotes, double quotes, escaping quotes, escaping spaces, and invoking the will of satan but I can not get this thing to work. For the love of god help me.