network plan and configuration management ?

[Robert Nelson]

Andre,

Just commenting on a few things Jo said, otherwise a good action plan.

> I just started using Nagios about a week ago. It's great to 
> see all the 
> things it can check upon and it's great to tweak it to do 
> what we need. 
> It will take you more than a week to get it all set up 
> though, I'm afraid.

If you stick with a small portion of the network (this is an internship
and a proper Pilot would only include a small portion anyway), it
shouldn't be too hard to get nagios up and usable by the end of the
week. I'd expect to spend some time at home fussing with the details.
Word of advice - don't set up any email or pagers (that work) until
Thursday, or you'll get real pissed off at the spam you generate when
you typo names and IP's and check commands.

> 1. What I did to create the network plan is to make an 
> inventory of all 
> the machines that are on the same local subnet as. Those don't need a 
> "parents=" line.
> Then you have a look at your default gateway. Give the Nagios 
> server as 
> its parent. We have a web server in the DMZ, so that gets the default 
> gateway as its parent. We have an off site location. Its router also 
> gets the default gateway as its parent. All the servers that 
> are on this 
> location get that router as its parent.
> To check for internet connectivity, I defined the outgoing 
> router. Its 
> parent is our default gateway. Then I do http checks on some 
> web sites 
> on the internet.

A big note on this one: take your existing network diagram or plans and
then rework them *from the perspective of the Nagios machine*! Nagios
doesn't care if your core router is the center of the network; that's 4
hops away and lots of crap can die in between without taking down the
core. Sometimes it's difficult to view things this way (in my network,
only one device, a managed switch, has the Nagios host as a parent) but
it has to be done.

Also, remember that DNS is a great way to store IP information for
Nagios, not just web sites. I use IP addresses for external items we
monitor (such as a radius server someone else owns, but that is accessed
from our network) and DNS names that I control for everything else. It's
much easier to set up earlier rather than later.

> 4. They are text files. I just use vi through ssh.

If you're doing edits on a winders box, resize your notepad/wordpad
window so that it's the same size as a host or service entry. Every time
you fill in a host name and hit page down, you'll be on the host name
line for the next entry. Makes things a *bit* easier for initial setup.

Rob Nelson
Network Engineer
Windchannel Communications
919-538-6326 


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