Nagios best practices?

[Matthew Joyce]

I agree and would be happy to contribute.
Also, v3 is going to bring some changes regarding config options and
strategies, having some best practices available will be useful for the
transition.

I'm not saying BPs will necessarily change, but ways to achieve them
might.
I for one hope service dependencies will become less long winded and
more flexible. (grumble)


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: Thursday, 16 August 2007 8:08 AM
> To: nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [Nagios-users] Nagios best practices?
> 
> 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
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > 
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