checking host alive or service ping check

[Jim Avery]

2009/5/6 Felipe Ferreira <fferreira at osiatis.es>:
> Hello all,
> What is the difference between checking a host is alive with a check in
> the host template (check_command check-host-alive), witch I have defined
> as a PING.
> And creating a ping service applied to the host ? I did a test with both
> configurations, and didn't see a different behavior.
> The only big advantage I have with the Ping is the graphics witch I
> really need, so I am wondering if I could disable host-alive check, and
> make it depend on the ping service check? BTW I use centreon.
>
> cheers,
> www.felipeferreira.net

Host checks (especially for routers, switches, and other network
nodes) are important in determining reachability.  See
http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/networkreachability.html

If you have no other active checks for that node, then I would
normally recommend configuring ping as both host and service check, as
it just makes it easier to see what's going on in the Nagios cgis.  If
you are already actively monitoring other services (for example FTP)
on the host, then personally I wouldn't bother having ping as a
service check too (I'd just use ping for the host check).

You might want to use different parameters for the host check ping,
for example if you want the host check to send more pings with a
longer timeout than the service checks to make absolutely sure the
host is really 'down'.  On the other hand, you might want to make your
host checks really simple and quick so that Nagios doesn't get bogged
down doing host checks if you have a major network outage affecting a
lot of hosts.

hth,

Jim

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