Host/Service State Log Entries

Marc Powell marc at ena.com
Tue Apr 10 17:20:05 CEST 2007



> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagios-users-bounces at lists.sourceforge.net [mailto:nagios-users-
> bounces at lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of Prigge Scott
> Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 9:30 AM
> To: nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: [Nagios-users] Host/Service State Log Entries
> 
> > > I'm sure I answered this last week. This is expected and
documented
> > > behavior. See the CHANGELOG. It's desirable for the vast majority
of
> > > users and there's no option to disable it outside of editing
source.


> Is this the CHANGELOG entry you are referring to?
> 
> 2.0b1 - 12/15/2004
> # Improved logging of initial host and service states

This is the one actually --

http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/2_0/whatsnew.html#changelog

Logging changes - Initial host and service states are now logged a bit
differently. Also, the initial states of all hosts and services are
logged immediately after all log rotations. This should help with all
those "undetermined time" problems in the availability and trends CGIs.

> And if that is the case, then can you explain to me what the
> "log_initial_states" option does differently? I have been unable to
> determine the impact changing this value.

Normally, when nagios starts, it will only log the state of hosts and
services that are in a non-OK state. The log_initial_states variable
tells nagios to log the state of all hosts and services on restart
regardless of their state. Normally nagios does not need this but it was
useful for accurate reporting in the past. The logging of states after
log rotation further negates the need for this option and further
improves the accuracy of reports IMHO. Reporting (as I understand it)
works as follows --

Historically --

Nagios would only ever log state changes or non-OK states unless told to
log all initial states on restart. For any given reporting period only
reads the log files within that time period. If a host or service never
changed state or nagios wasn't restarted during that time period (and
the state was non-OK), the status of that host or service would be
unknown. You would either need to tell nagios to backtrack through prior
logs to look for a state change to know what the status was or to set an
assumed state, presuming you knew what it was. Lots of guesswork could
be involved and the reports are likely to be inaccurate.

Today --

Nagios logs the state of all hosts and services at the start of every
log file. For any given reporting period, nagios now knows the exact
state of a host or service at the beginning of that period. No longer is
there a need to backtrack through older logs to determine initial state
or to assume states.

--
Marc

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