[Nagiosplug-help] Trouble installing plugins - not templatedperhaps?

[Peter Kiem]

Hi,

>> 1. After installing the plugins package you still need to change the
>> nagios.cfg file to tell it where the plugins are.  It would be far
>> better
>> if after installing the plugins package it copied the command.cfg into
>> /etc/nagios and changed your nagios.cfg file to load that file.
>
> No, the default configuration from Nagios includes
> /etc/nagios/checkcommands.cfg. It may not have all plugins defined but
> since the plugins are in a seperate package (that may not come from my
> website) I can't expect them to be dependend from another package.

Yes but for me the checkcommands.cfg didn't work.  For instance for
check_http I was getting this in the logs

[1062511445] Warning: Return code of 127 for check of service 'HTTP' on
host 'web1' was out of bounds. Make sure the plugin you're trying to run
actually exists.

Now in your checkcommands.cfg there is this for check_http

# 'check_http' command definition
define command{
        command_name    check_http
        command_line    $USER1$/check_http -H $HOSTADDRESS$
        }

That seems to be looking for the check_http program/script in the nagios
user home directory or something?  There is no check_http in the
nagios.rpm so where does it find this command to run?

The standard nagios-plugins rpm from the sourceforge site puts in a
command.cfg file into /etc/nagios and I consider this a reasonable thing
for the plugin packages to do.

>> 2. The /usr/share/doc/nagios-plugins-1.3.1/command.cfg file from the
>> plugins package is the old non-template format and nagios from the
>> package
>> above complained about syntax errors in the command.cfg file and refused
>> to run.
>
> The nagios-plugins project should ship an updated one then. I don't use
> that one as you'll have to change most of the plugins anyway to fit your
> installation. It may be worthwhile though to have a list of tweaked
> commands/plugins added to the default checkcommands.cfg.

Agreed.  Is there any difference from the nagios-plugins rpm from your
site and the one from sourceforge?

>> I had to do a LOT of customisation to get this to run under Red Hat 7.3
>> Although I understand Nagios is not for the novice users, these problems
>> with the plugins proved quite challenging to get it running!
>
> What is a lot of customisation ? Sure you have to add you
> network(-topology) and sure you have to define and tweak the plugins you

Yes I had to add my topology in I would expect that.  But the plugins are
a different matter.  The checkcommands.cfg from the nagios rpm did not
work and installing the nagios-plugins rpm did nothing to help either.

A user can be expected to edit the config files to add in their own hosts,
services, contacts etc but they should not need to learn about how plugins
work to use the "standard" plugins, only if they want to add new plugins.

The standard plugins should just work without intervention.  I understand
this is your intention (hence the checkcommands.cfg) but it didn't.

> If you have improvements to the default config-files, I suggest you give
> feedback to the nagios developers so your changes are added to the next
> release.

Consider this feedback to your RPM packaging of Nagios, at least for the
RH7.3 version.

Yours are the only Nagios RPMs for Red Hat Linux that are listed on the
Nagios site and I do appreciate the time you have obviously taken to
package it up.

-- 
Regards,
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