Nagios is a host and service monitor designed to inform you of network problems before your clients, end-user or managers

do Nagios to run under linux. Shud hve http server and tcp stack The monitoring daemon runs intermittent checks on hosts and services you specify using external "plugins" which return status information to Nagios. When problems are encountered, the daemon can send notifications out to administrative contacts in a variety of different ways (email, instant message, SMS, etc.). Current status information, historical logs, and reports can all be accessed via a web browser. Configuration Files The majority of the configuration in Nagios is handled via text files in the /etc/nagios directory of the server. While there are many additional files and options, the truly necessary ones for a basic implementation are: > > > > > host.cfg hostgroups.cfg contacts.cfg contactsgroups.cfg services.cfg

The Simplest Setup In this configuration, the Nagios Server will periodically ping the Web Server to make sure that it is still responding to network traffic. If it stops responding, the Nagios Server will alert the people designated as contacts for the Web Server. The Nagios Server will also use plugins, such as check_disk, to monitor its own status |----| ping |web server| |ns | >>> | NRPE In this case, the Nagios Server will use the NRPE (Nagios Remote Plugin Execution) service running on the Web Server to run plugins on the remote machine. This allows the Nagios Server to monitor private information, such as CPU load or disk space, on the Web Server, and send alerts based on configured thresholds. |----| nrpe |web server| |ns | >>> | NSCA In this case, the Nagios Server cannot reach the Database Server because of the intervening firewall. So, instead, the Database Server uses the send_nsca utility to submit passive reports to the Nagios Server. This allows the Nagios Server to stay abreast of the Database Server's status without requiring a specific firewall hole to accommodate it. |----| NS|CA |web server| |ns | >>>| | Scheduled Downtime | | |

It is possible, using the web interface for Nagios, to schedule downtime for hosts or individual services. This means that the checks for those hosts and services will be suspended until the scheduled downtime end Event Handlers An event handler is an automatic script that kicks off when a monitored service enters a particular state. For example, if a machine is prone to having its Apache installation crash, a script could be written that attempts to restart the daemon and only mails the admin if this is unsuccessful. Notification Escalations Nagios supports Notification Escalations, a method of alerting additional or different groups of administrators when a problem goes unsolved. Service Dependencies In a case like this, services on the Web Server will be unreachable from the Nagios Server if there's something wrong with the Border Router. Nagios allows for Service Dependencies to be added to the configuration, so that in a situation like that, the Web Server would not be checked until the Border Router is functioning properly again. |\\\\\\\| | NS | | NS |\\\\\\\| |\\\\\\\| | <-------> bORDER rOUTER <--------> |\\\\\\\|

dISTRIBUT MONITORING |\\\\\\\\\\| | pns |\\\\\\\\\\| WEB SERVER | <---------------- ( WAN) nsca | | SECONDARY NAGIOS SERVER