Nagios blocking/stalling: Thread issue? v 2.0b3 or 2.0rc2

[Ben Miller]

Andreas, 
Thanks again for your suggestions.

> Perhaps you can try using check_icmp instead? That way you would get
rid 
> of one set of file-descriptors, and the Nagios process in charge of
the 
> plugin will be the process' parent rather than its grandparent.

I tried checki_icmp from the standard pack of plugins and it has
resolved the problem for me.  For whatever reason, check_icmp does not
cause the same issue that check_ping does.  It is very clear that
check_ping somehow "clogs up" (highly technical description) the
threading and allows Nagios to only use a single thread to do internal
processing and wait on checks/alerts.

I use lots of check_snmp commands that spawn snmpget where the
grandfather relationship works. So I don't know why check_ping breaks
things.

> Try replacing check_ping with check_icmp. If that doesn't work this
bug 
> needs to be found and fixed in Nagios, which is non-trivial to say the

> least and near impossible without knowing what it is that breaks.

While I have a solution that allows me to move my project forward, thank
you very much!!, I am concerned that there is something as simple as a
check that can cripple the Nagios process.  Is there someone who is
interested in trying to determine if this is an anomaly or easily
replicable in other environments as well.

>From my tests it would seem that this problem should be easy to
replicate for testing purposes.  My only recommendation in testing it is
that you ping something that doesn't exist with a high packet count.
This is what I have done.

Thanks again for all you help and discussion that led to a workable
solution.

Please let me know if I can help in hunting down the root cause if this
is indeed replicable on other systems.

Thanks,
Ben





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