Due to a number of customer requests, we got busy working on the development of monitoring wizards for Postgres database server. We just released three new wizards for complete monitoring of Postgres. You can find them on Nagios Exchange:
Enjoy!
We’ve had a number of customer requests for new Nagios XI wizards that make it easy to monitor Linux/Unix machines either by SSH (using check_by_ssh) or NRPE. This is often useful in environments where Nagios admins have already installed the Nagios plugins and/or NRPE on machine in order to monitor them with Nagios Core.
Due to the requests we received, we whipped together some new wizards that help with this. Specifically, the new SSH Proxy and NRPE wizards.
And lest I forget, we also had a great community member (thanks Joshua!) document and test instructions on monitoring AIX over NRPE. We worked with Joshua to develop the NRPE wizard in a way that would work with his AIX/NRPE setup. BTW: Would you believe using Nagios to monitor AIX could save $300k+ on Tivoli licenses? 
One of our customers requested that we add a “latest alerts” feature to Nagios XI, so the interface felt familiar to team members that were used to a competing product. We whipped up a component to meet their needs and “voila!”, here it is for your use as well.
The new Latest Alerts component can be downloaded from the customer-only download section of the Nagios Library. Note: You must have a current support and maintenance contract for Nagios XI to download the new component.
Jelle Smet has done a screencast on his NSCAweb addon for Nagios. Check it out!
NSCAweb part 1: Introduction from Jelle Smet on Vimeo.
Some engineering Nagios users in Japan managed to hook up their geiger counter to Nagios, so they could monitor radiation levels outside their office in Tokyo. This is a great example of how flexible Nagios can be, although it is a bit unnerving. Our thoughts go out to everyone in Japan that is suffering from the recent earthquake and tsunami, as well as the ensuing radiation problems. Stay safe!
Nagios is an extremely flexible monitoring system that is capable of monitoring just about anything you need. A great example of a “non-standard” use of Nagios is that of monitoring audio levels and silence in audio streams. James Harrison wrote a nice article on using Nagios to monitor audio silence with SilentJack. Read his article here.
We’re constantly looking at ways to visualize data faster and easier. One of the solutions that’s being worked on is a new graph of alerts. Watch for this to be available for Nagios XI in the next few months.
As noted previously, we have many clients that are managed service providers. Designing an effective monitoring solution that works for their clients and their business needs can sometimes be challenging. We’ve put together a high-level document that describes some methods for designing monitoring solutions that can work for MSPs and other companies that need to monitor remote networks.
Read the document: Monitoring Architecture Solutions For MSPs.pdf
Many of our clients are Managed Service Providers (MSPs). The challenges they face when monitoring their clients’ networks vary greatly, but a common problem they face is how to monitor remote Windows machines that are located behind a firewall.
A simple solution to this challenge involves configuring the NSClient++ agent to act as a passive agent which reports it status to Nagios. We’ve written a document that describes the steps needed to configure passive monitoring of Windows boxes.
Read how to do it: Using NSClient For Passive Checks.pdf
Passive checks are extremely useful for integrating information from external applications and agents. They’re also the primary method of monitoring remote machines that are behind firewalls, proxies, and on private networks.
In an effort to simplify the setup of new remote agents and applications with Nagios XI, we developed a method for easily capturing and configuring new passive host and service check results.
Read How To Do it: Monitoring Unconfigured Objects With XI.pdf
