Nagios best practices?

[Russell Adams]

We should start a list of these on the Wiki (we do have a wiki now,
right?).

I'd be curious to see what feedback is received and what other ideas
are proposed.

On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 02:08:01PM +1000, Matthew Joyce wrote:
> Good advice.
> 
> 
> I'm happy to say we can tick most of those boxes.
> For logs I've been using the free Splunk, quite handy for post incident
> forensics.
> 
> I'd also add :
> Pay attention to host parents and service dependencies.
> Getting them right can be the difference between knowing what is going
> on and a notification blizzard.
> 
> I'd also propose only monitoring what you need to, seems obvious but
> it's easy to start monitoring because you can.
> 
> Matthew Joyce 
> 02 9382 0051 | IT Manager | Children's Cancer Institute Australia for
> Medical Research 
>  
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: nagios-users-bounces at lists.sourceforge.net 
> > [mailto:nagios-users-bounces at lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf 
> > Of Russell Adams
> > Sent: Tuesday, 14 August 2007 10:17 AM
> > To: nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> > Subject: Re: [Nagios-users] Nagios best practices?
> > 
> > My $0.02:
> > 
> >    Use a text editor and version control.
> > 
> >    Minimize and automate as much as practical.
> > 
> >    Try out NACE. Make a template, setup a query to find systems to
> >    apply it to. Don't be the administrative bottleneck when systems
> >    need to be added, or they won't be. Set standards and let
> >    automation do the work for you.
> > 
> >    Make sure you have two methods for notification. Email is good,
> >    backup IXO/TAP/SMS via modem on POTS is better (Sendpage).
> > 
> >    Have a dedicated UPS on your Nagios system. Power's out,
> >    notifications continue.
> > 
> >    Use a trending (Torrus) and log monitoring (Syslog-ng & Logmuncher)
> >    tool in conjunction with Nagios to ensure all your bases are
> >    covered. Tie them in to use Nagios notification engine as needed.
> > 
> >    Consider using SNMP for common checks on platforms with decent
> >    snmpd's (Linux, Windows 2000+, AIX 5.3, etc). This saves you from
> >    deploying NRPE everywhere, minimizing the client side software.
> >    (This'll start a flame war, so I'll point out you should only use
> >    SNMP on an internal network and use host ACL's to confine SNMP to
> >    read only queries from the Nagios server and one alternate for
> >    upgrades. ) Check out Patrick Proy's snmp plugins,
> >    http://nagios.manubulon.com/ .
> > 
> >    Choose what you monitor and how you notify carefully. Apathy caused
> >    by too many off hours notifications is a real problem when that
> >    important message goes out. I'd suggest email for all
> >    notifications, but SMS only for critical services in a critical
> >    state.
> > 
> > Good luck!
> > 
> > On Mon, Aug 13, 2007 at 09:30:19PM +0100, Jim Avery wrote:
> > > On 13/08/07, Steve Huff <shuff at hmdc.harvard.edu> wrote:
> > > > Hello folks!
> > > >
> > > > I'd like to roll out Nagios to replace our aging Mon 
> > installation; 
> > > > however, setting up Nagios has been more difficult than I had 
> > > > expected, which makes me wonder if I'm going about it the 
> > wrong way.
> > > >
> > > > Can you recommend a Nagios best practices document or howto?
> > > 
> > > The relevant page in the official Nagios documentation you need to 
> > > look for is "Time-Saving Tricks For Object Definitions".  I 
> > would give 
> > > you the url, but for some reason I can't get to that page 
> > just at the 
> > > moment.
> > > 
> > > An excellent introduction to Nagios which goes through how to 
> > > configure it is the book 'Nagios' by Wolfgang Barth published by 
> > > NoStarch Press.  You can buy it online in .pdf form, 
> > printed form or 
> > > both.  It's getting slightly dated now, but IMO it's an easier read 
> > > than some of the alternatives if you're just starting out.
> > > 
> > > Using hostgroups and templates judiciously you should be able to 
> > > achieve what you want pretty easily.  My recommendation would be to 
> > > start with a simple config and expand from there rather 
> > than trying to 
> > > do everything at once.
> > > 
> > > hth,
> > > 
> > > Jim
> > > 
> > > 
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc.
> > > Still grepping through log files to find problems?  Stop.
> > > Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX 
> > and a browser.
> > > Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >>  http://get.splunk.com/ 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Nagios-users mailing list
> > > Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
> > > ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and 
> > OS when reporting any issue. 
> > > ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent 
> > to /dev/null
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Russell Adams                            RLAdams at AdamsInfoServ.com
> > 
> > PGP Key ID:     0x1160DCB3           http://www.adamsinfoserv.com/
> > 
> > Fingerprint:    1723 D8CA 4280 1EC9 557F  66E8 1154 E018 1160 DCB3
> > 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc.
> Still grepping through log files to find problems?  Stop.
> Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser.
> Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >>  http://get.splunk.com/
> _______________________________________________
> Nagios-users mailing list
> Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
> ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue. 
> ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
------------------------------------------------------------------
Russell Adams                            RLAdams at AdamsInfoServ.com

PGP Key ID:     0x1160DCB3           http://www.adamsinfoserv.com/

Fingerprint:    1723 D8CA 4280 1EC9 557F  66E8 1154 E018 1160 DCB3

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc.
Still grepping through log files to find problems?  Stop.
Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser.
Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >>  http://get.splunk.com/
_______________________________________________
Nagios-users mailing list
Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue. 
::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null