Tag Archive for 'nagiosxi'

Monitoring Gas Prices Using Capacity Planning in Nagios XI

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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Monitoring a Nagios XI Server

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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Integrating autoIT With Nagios

AutoIT is a very powerful set of software tools whichs allows the recording and writing of scripts to automate windows tasks, from moving the mouse cursor to sending key strokes. In this example autoIT is used in conjunction with an NRPE check to open firefox.exe and record the time it takes to load a URL, then sends this time to the Nagios  XI server where the plugin pulls it in as a service. This may also be used to grab the loading time of a specific program or service and the script shows where this can be changed.

Having the ability to run these scripts via NRPE checks allows system administrators to custom tailor Windows server automation without having to initiate them locally.

Some of the abilities of AutoIT are as follows:

  • Easy to learn BASIC-like syntax
  • Simulate keystrokes and mouse movements
  • Manipulate windows and processes
  • Interact with all standard windows controls
  • Scripts can be compiled into standalone executables
  • Create Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs)
  • COM support
  • Regular expressions
  • Directly call external DLL and Windows API functions
  • Scriptable RunAs functions
  • Detailed helpfile and large community-based support forums
  • Compatible with Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 2008 / Windows 7 / 2008 R2
  • Unicode and x64 support
  • Digitally signed for peace of mind
  • Works with Windows Vista’s User Account Control (UAC)

The above bullet points were taken from http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/

 

Below is a video showing an example of the check website load time script in action:

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