Important check_command functionality

[Andreas Ericsson]

Ton Voon wrote:
> Hi!,
> 
> One neat trick that we've done in Opsview for configuring in a 
> distributed environment is an "important check command".
> 
> The documentation change says:
> 
> ---
> 
> Service templates can make use of a special rule which gives precedence 
> to their check_command value. If the check_command is prefixed with an 
> exclamation mark (!), then the template's check_command is marked as 
> important and will be used over the check_command defined for the service.
> 
> Why is this useful? Mainly when setting a different check_command for 
> distributed systems. You may want to set a freshness threshold and a 
> check_command that forces the service into a failed state, but this 
> doesn't work with the normal templating system. Using this 
> <i>important</i> flag allows the custom check_command to be written, but 
> a general distributed template can be used to overrule the check_command 
> when used on a central Nagios server.
> 
> For instance:
> 
> # On master
> define host{
>        name                    service-distributed
>        register                0
>        active_checks_enabled   0
>        check_freshness         1
>        check_command           !set_to_stale
>        }
> 
> # On slave
> define host{
>        name                    service-distributed
>        register                0
>        active_checks_enabled   1
>        }
> 
> # Server configuration, used by master and slave
> define host{
>        host_name               host1
>        check_command           check_http...
>        use                     service-distributed
>        ...
>        }
> 
> ----
> 
> The patch is attached. Would this be desired in core Nagios?
> 

I like it, and I can think of at least three users of this feature
off the top of my head.

/Andreas

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