Author Archive for Ludmil Miltchev

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Monitoring Gas Prices Using Capacity Planning in Nagios XI

By Ludmil Miltchev on January 9, 2014

Nagios XI is the most powerful IT infrastructure monitoring solution on the market.  You can use it to monitor virtually anything.  Although Nagios XI is typically meant for more “serious” work, you can have some fun with it as well!  I guess I have been somewhat nostalgic lately…  Do you remember when a gallon of gas used to cost less than a dollar? 🙂

In this article I will show you how to install the check_gas_price.py plugin, set up a dummy host, and add multiple services to it.  This will allow you to check the gas prices in the USA.  Then you may use the Capacity Planning component in Nagios XI Enterprise Edition to view the trends of gas prices in the USA.

First, download the check_gas_price.py plugin from this URL:

http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagiosxi/scripts/check_gas_price.py

Next, install the plugin from the Nagios XI web interface by going to: Admin –-> Manage Plugins –-> Choose File, then select the check_gas_price.py file and click Upload Plugin.

If you would like, you can view the plugins’ usage by typing in terminal:

Your output should look like this:

Monitoring gas prices with Nagios XI - check_gas_price.py

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Category: Awesome, Cool Stuff, Graphs, Nagios XI, Plugins and Reports. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Monitoring VMWare with Nagios XI

By Ludmil Miltchev on December 11, 2013

It is quite easy to monitor VMWare infrastructures in Nagios XI. All you need to do is run the VMWare monitoring wizard, provided you had previously installed the VMWare Perl Software Development Kit (SDK) on the Nagios XI server.

Note: To learn how to install SDK, please, refer to our “Nagios XI – Monitoring VMWare” document.

From the Nagios XI web interface, click on the “Configure” menu and select “Run the Monitoring Wizard”. Scroll down to select the VMWare monitoring wizard. Enter the IP address of the VMWare server, login credentials, select what you would like to monitor (VMWare host or a guest), and click “Next” to proceed. In Step 3 of the wizard, you will have to select the metrics that you would like to monitor such as CPU Usage, Memory, Services, etc.

VMWare Monitoring Wizard - Nagios XI

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Category: Configuration, Nagios XI, VMWare and Wizards. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Monitoring a Nagios XI Server

By Ludmil Miltchev on November 27, 2013

Many people rely on Nagios XI for their monitoring needs, but what happens if the primary XI monitoring server goes down, crashes, loses power, or gets disconnected from the network? For example, if your border router or internet connection goes down, Nagios XI will be unable to deliver email alerts to admins. See below:

Nagios XI - Monitoring a Nagios XI Server

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Category: Alerts, Nagios XI, Remote Monitoring and Wizards. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Nagios XI – Bulk Host Cloning and Import Wizard – New Video Available Now!

By Ludmil Miltchev on October 10, 2013

If you missed my post from March 2, 2012 on how to clone a host along with its services in Nagios XI, now is the time to revisit this topic. There is a new video available that shows you how to use this amazing tool.

Sometimes it can be a daunting task to set up a monitoring system, especially when you have hundreds of machines that you are trying to monitor, but Nagios makes it simple. The Bulk Host Cloning and Import Wizard is easy to use and allows you to clone a host that has been already set up, according to your specifications, and then copy this “template host” into many other hosts that you want to monitor in the same manner.

For example, if you have 500 devices that you need monitored and you want them all monitored in the same manner, all you need to do is set up the first one. Once that is done, you can clone that template via the Bulk Host Import Wizard into the other 499 hosts so that they will be set up in the exact same manner. This will save you a lot of time and effort!

To see how easy it is to use the Bulk Host Cloning and Import Wizard, please watch our video below. The video is less than 3 minutes long, so it’s not going to take much of your time, but it will teach you:

  • How to select your “template” host, and verify its configuration
  • How to select the services that you need to monitor
  • How to enter the IPs, names, and descriptions of the “new” hosts
  • How to verify that the “new” hosts have been created successfully

For more information on how to use the Bulk Host Import Wizard check out this document:

Nagios XI Bulk Host Import Wizard Usage.pdf

Note: If you watched my presentation (“Bulk Management Of Host And Services In Nagios XI“) during the Nagios World Conference 2012, you probably remember that in the past, you couldn’t clone a host, unless you had at least one service selected. This is changed in the new version of Bulk Host Cloning and Import Wizard as per customer requests. Thank you for your feedback! Now, you can even clone hosts, with no services.

Category: Nagios XI and Wizards. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .