monitoring hundreds of network switches

[Marc Powell]

On Nov 27, 2009, at 11:47 AM, D G Teed wrote:

> I'm looking for a streamlined method of configuring the check_fping
> test for hundreds of network switches.
> 
> Looking at the examples I see for hosts and hostgroup configuration,
> 
> e.g.: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_name=5caea3690911120551o40031fe3o3994b8fc8b463143%40mail.gmail.com
> 
> I can't see doing it that way, with a list of 400+ IPs in a single hostgroup.
> There must be a better way to do this.

Different problem. If you're just wanting to ping them, the only purpose of the hostgroup would just be to group them for display in the GUI. You do need them in a hostgroup for that. They should be in a hostgroup anyway though, it's just better in the long-run.

> With the fping command (not check_fping) I can feed it a list of IPs
> to check from a file.  If I ran fping with -a and did a diff between
> that output and my original list of IPs, I'd get a report of which switches are
> down.  I could write a shell script to do this and set up a cron in less time
> than it would take to do the same in nagios with my current knowledge
> of the configuration options in nagios.  

fping != nagios in the same way that a bicycle != an 18 wheeler. Each solves different problem statements and their complexity relates directly to their functionality. fping may be the tool for you if that's all you need or until you get familiar with nagios configuration (and develop your workflow). I'm a hands-on kind of learner and I personally think you're not going to really learn it until you do it though.

> I saw this example:
> http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/monitoring-routers.html
> but I don't get "allhosts, switches" in the hostgroups configuration.
> Is this some sort of keyword or built-in wildcard?

No, they're not keywords, the names are arbitrary but hopefully representational. They're real hostgroup{}s with appropriate members (or a wildcard member for allhosts presumably) created by you if you like those names.

It should be fairly straightforward for you...

You'll first need to create a hostgroup{} definition to contain all the switches. - http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/objectdefinitions.html#hostgroup

define hostgroup{
	hostgroup_name switches
	alias All Your Switches Are Belong To Us
}

There are at least 3 ways to associate your switches with this hostgroup. I purposely avoided using a 'members' directive with a wildcard because you may one day monitor more than just these switches... I also didn't list out each switch in the members line either. You could do it, but it gets messy to manage by hand. A third way, and most flexible, is below.

Next, you'll need to create a host{} definition for each of your switches. Your script-fu powers should come in handy here (i.e. a long one-liner awk should do it). Besides the usual required parameters, be sure to set the 'hostgroups' parameter to 'switches' to include it in the group above -- http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/objectdefinitions.html#host

define host{
	host_name	cool_switch
	alias		Freezer Switch
	address		192.168.1.2
	hostgroups	switches
	check_command	check_fping ;(or whatever it's called)
	check_period	24x7 ; (or whatever your schedule is)
	check_interval	5 ; (or whatever your schedule is)
	retry_interval	1 ; (or whatever your schedule is)
	other required parameters   ...
}

Make sure that these directives are put in a cfg_file that nagios reads, verify your config (/path/to/nagios -f /path/to/nagios.cfg), fix any problems, start nagios and voila. Not as good as home made bread but tasty none-the-less...

--
Marc


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