** Attention Mac OS/X Beta Testers **
We have put together a Mac OS/X Agent and Wizard for Nagios XI to allow easy monitoring of Mac OS/X Servers and workstations along with some documentation to put it all together.
Installing the Nagios XI Mac OSX Agent
Please take these for a test drive and let us know how we can improve them.
Nagios Remote Data Sender
, or NRDS is a component installed on a Nagios XI server that allows the administrator to create and manage configurations and plugins to be deployed with a passive agent that can be installed on a variety of operating systems. The passive agents downloads the current configuration and the required plugin from the Nagios XI server and run the checks and posting the results to the XI server.
Passive Monitoring with NRDS - Documentation
Nagios Remote Data Sender (NRDS) – Component Download
The Nagios CCM (Core Configuration Manager) is a new configuration front-end for managing Nagios XI object configurations. Nagios XI currently uses a modified version of the NagiosQL project for it’s configuration management, but back on 2009 we decided it would ultimately be easier for us to maintain and update the CCM if we built our own front-end onto the existing backend. The Nagios CCM project is still based on the NagiosQL database structure, but the front-end has been completely rewritten to allow for easier changes and additions, as well as a list of several new features.
Currently the Nagios CCM installs as a Nagios XI component, and it awaiting community beta testing in order for it move into production. We’re currently looking for users to beta test the new CCM, so if you’re interested in helping test this out, go ahead and comment to this post. See the screenshots below for a preview!
We have now released a CentOS 6 version of Nagios XI in the Amazon Ec2 for cloud monitoring. The new release is build on the x86_64 architecture and will be the standard for future builds.
In case you missed the announcement from Amazon, all instance sized can now be spun up with 64 bit images. This is a great step forward as it allows someone to start with a small instance at a much reduced price and as they grow they can take their same snapshot an start it up on a much larger system.
More information about running your Nagios XI system in the cloud can be found in our Nagios on Ec2 article in the Nagios Exchange.
The
latest Nagios XI – Amazon Ec2 cloud images have been pushed out to the following additional location:
The Nagios XI cloud images are an excellent opportunity to try Nagios XI without having the upfront expense of dedicated hardware and can be upgraded with virtually zero downtime.
Additional documentation on using the Amazon cloud images for your Nagios XI deployment may be found on the Exchange.
Using Nagios XI In Amazon EC2 Cloud
Many customers, especially the ones running large environments, have been asking us what is the best way to clone a host along with its services. We have a great tool called “Bulk Host Import Wizard” which does just that.
You can learn more about this wizard by reading our “Nagios XI – Bulk Host Import Usage” document, posted on the Nagios Library.
You can download the wizard from the Nagios Exchange by following this link.
Occasionally we get support requests from admins who need to uninstall Nagios XI in order to perform a fresh install or complete a move of XI to another server. In order to facilitate the cleanup and removal of Nagios XI on an old system, we put together a simple uninstall script and related documentation.
You can read the document here: Uninstalling_Nagios_XI.pdf
Nagios V-Shell 1.9 includes major performance updates, and a re-implementation of PHP caching that should decrease V-Shell page load times anywhere from 40-75%. I ran some benchmarking tests on a test system(Dual core desktop with 4GB of RAM) with 1800 hosts, and 7200 services. This system runs with an average CPU load of 2.0-6.0 throughout the day, so the hardware is being pushed pretty hard already from the check load. V-Shell 1.8 created page load times anywhere from 18-28 seconds throughout the interface without APC caching enabled. Needless to say, this is problematic for many users with larger environments. The Core cgi’s were able to load anywhere from 2-11 seconds, with the service status page taking around 9-11 seconds to load all of the data. My goal for 1.9 was to minimize any unnecessary processing, and optimize any functions that were inefficient or using slower PHP built-in functions. The differences in 1.9 are substantial. Without any caching enabled at all, I was able to decrease the average page load time to 9-14 seconds, which is 40-50% faster by itself. Once I had the code optimized, I reworked the APC caching functionality. If a user has PHP’s APC caching packages installed and enabled on their web server, V-Shell will cached the objects.cache file until it detects any changes in the file, while the data in the status.dat file will be cached based on a TTL (time to live) config option which now exists in 1.9. Once the data is cached in APC, the page load times throughout the interface averaged between 4-5 seconds for all pages, which is a 75% decrease in load time on average.
My goal for the next version of V-Shell is to add support for mklivestatus and ndoutils for backend data, which will eliminate the need to parse the objects.cache file and status.dat files for systems with those backends. This should further improve performance for larger installations.
Here at Nagios Enterprises we do our best to add new features and components that meet the needs of the community and our customer base. We get new feature requests every week, but sometimes the request is something we’re not able to fulfill in time, or the customer’s need requires a more “home grown” solution to fit the needs of their environment. For that reason, we’ve created some documentation for getting started with Nagios XI Component Development. The document covers some basic concepts in XI component development that would be needed regardless of what the component does, and is intended for development and administrators who are already familiar with programming concepts. This document covers the following topics:
This document is available on the Nagios Library.
The Nagios XI Google Map Component v1.1 displays host status as an overlay on a Google Map within Nagios XI. It uses lat/long coordinates defined in the “notes” config field to identify host location. Version 1.1 now support polylines for parent->child relationships. Any parent->child relationship that has coordinates defined for both hosts will now draw a polyline displayed between the two. This can be useful for drawing a topology map on real geographic locations. Special thanks to Wesley Zhao for your work on this feature!
