[Nagiosplug-help] check_nrpe plugins work fine for a while then start throwing "NRPE: unable to read output"

[Kyle Smith]

Hey Nagios Folks,

We're seeing some strange behavior with a few of our nrpe plugins and  
am wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to work on the problem.

We are running OS X 10.5.6 with NRPE 2.12 and NRPE plugins 1.4.13.

We have some plugins written in Ruby (boss loves it, I am learning  
it :-)) that work fine with a freshly started nrpe daemon. Start up  
nrpe on the client, force checks from the gui, see a green nagios  
console, nice. But after a while in the console under "Status  
Information" we start seeing "NRPE: unable to read output" rather than  
our normal success messages. Bounce the nrpe on the client, force the  
check through the gui, and things start working again for a while.

While seeing the errors I can still run the plugin on the client no  
problem but when I try to run it from the server via command line (/ 
usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nrpe -H IP.of.client -c command) I see  
the error "NRPE: unable to read output".

Another data point - We have one system where things were working fine  
but we needed to start passing params to nrpe. I recompiled after  
running ./configure --enable-command-args and setting  
dont_blame_nrpe=1 in the nrpe.cfg. Start up a new nrpe and it works  
fine, can pass params from the server no problem...but the a check  
that was working fine for weeks starts throwing "NRPE: unable to read  
output" after 3 or 4 successful invocations. Arg!! I had to rollback  
to the previous nrpe and check_nrpe.

I am trying to set nrpe debug on in nrpe.cfg on the client and then  
bounce nrpe but i don't see any more messages in /var/log/system.log  
as compared to when I run with nrpe debug turned off. It's like  
turning on debug has no effect.

I am curious about 2 issues - 1) why no extra messages in the system  
log file with debug enabled? and 2) Anyone seen anything like this  
happening where nrpe plugins work fine for a while then start throwing  
the error?

TIA

kyle


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