the beginner's guide to nagios xi
DESCRIPTION
Guia para iniciantes do Nagios XITRANSCRIPT
-
Monitor
THE B
EGIN
NERS
GU
IDE TO
NA
GIO
S X
IAlert
Plan
Customize
PRESENTED
BY
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THE BEG
INN
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IDE TO
NAG
IOS XI // 2
COM
PREHEN
SIVEM
ON
ITORIN
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G VIA
EMAIL &
MO
BILE U
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PERFORM
ANCE
INCREASED
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ULTI-TEN
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MO
NITO
R YOU
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GIO
S X
IN
agios X
I is the m
ost powerful IT infrastructure m
onitoring solution on the m
arket. Nagios X
I extends on proven, enterprise-class open source com
ponents to deliver the best monitoring solution for todays
demanding organizational requirem
ents.
Designed for scalability and flexibility, XI is designed to m
ake problem
atic IT monitoring tasks sim
ple, while retaining the pow
erful attributes of its enterprise-class foundation blocks.
RE
QU
ES
T A DE
MO
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CON
TENTS
CHAPTER O
NE: CO
NFIG
URE
/6
CHAPTER TW
O: VISU
ALIZE
/9
CHAPTER TH
REE: ORG
ANIZE
/13
CHAPTER FO
UR: AN
ALYZE & M
ANAG
E
/16
CHAPTER FIVE: G
LOSSARY
/19
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INTRO
DU
CTION
For over 15 years, Nagios has been the industry standard in netw
ork m
onitoring. Nagios X
I is used by organizations in nearly every industry including education, healthcare, governm
ent, and Fortune 100 corporations. Its ability to both scale and adapt to surrounding netw
ork environm
ents is the key to XIs success in a w
ide variety markets and
implem
entations.
Nagios E
nterprises was founded on the idea that your netw
ork shouldnt dictate your w
ork. Thats why w
ith Nagios X
I, weve
developed features, tools, and components that m
ake managing your
network faster, w
hile also giving you the control you need to get the job done, even w
hen you cant make it into the office.
We also dont think it is fair for your netw
ork monitoring solution to lim
it you and to determ
ine how and w
hat you monitor. X
I is a full-featured, flexible m
onitoring framew
ork that can be molded to your netw
ork and m
eet your organizations dreams, w
ishes, and desires. With the pow
er of N
agios XI behind the scenes in your organization, the possibilities
are endless.
The document that follow
s is a short beginners guide that weve
developed to help you learn the basics, best practices, and feature set of N
agios XI that are m
ost useful in real-world situations. That said,
the capabilities of XI stretch far beyond the exam
ples mentioned in
this eBook, so take a look at the inform
ation weve provided and step
outside the box of traditional network m
onitoring. Your organization is unique and w
e believe your monitoring solution should be too.
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OVERVIEW
There are a few m
ain topics well cover in this packet. W
ell walk you through the basics and best
practices of Nagios XI, explain key term
s, and get you familiar w
ith monitoring, analysis and
managem
ent.
CO
NFIG
URE
VIS
UA
LIZE
ORG
AN
IZE
AN
ALYZE
MA
NA
GE
At the heart of monitoring is configuration. Config W
izards make it easy to quickly begin m
onitoring your network
while key organizational tools and topography graphs provide the tools necessary to stay on top of netw
ork segm
entation.
See deep into the health of any device on your network. Q
uickly take remediation action and m
anage individual devices right from
within the XI interface. W
ith XI, you are provided with a central view
of your entire IT operations netw
ork and business processes.
We provide a foundation for view
ing your data, but you should see it in a way thats intuitive to you.
Develop custom
dashboards in seconds and tailor XI to your specific needs.
Viewing real-tim
e data is almost as im
portant as reporting on your findings. A full list of technical reports allow
users to see whats happening on the netw
ork over a period of time and
make im
portant business decisions based on real data segmentation.
Take full control of your network w
ith powerful adm
inistrative tools designed to elim
inate the hassle of managing a netw
ork infrastructure. Manage users, notifications,
and a myriad of other system
settings and preferences right within XI.
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CHAPTER O
NE: CO
NFIG
URIN
GN
agios XI is designed to provide the most flexible and pow
erful configuration foundation in m
onitoring. If it uses electricity, chances are, XI can monitor it. Easy-to-use Configuration W
izards allow
you to enter information in a step-by-step program
and instantly monitor your netw
ork. Extend beyond out-of-box capabilities w
ith custom plugins and w
izards from the N
agios Exchange.
1
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Now
is a good time to determ
ine what you w
ant to gain from m
onitoring your network. Its im
portant to have an idea of how
your network is segm
ented, your organizational strategy, the metrics you
NEED
to monitor, and the m
etrics you WAN
T to monitor. Another thing to think about is H
OW
you w
ant to monitor. Agent-based, agent-less, SN
MP traps, etc.
A small piece of softw
are is installed on the m
onitored device (called a host) to provide in-depth inform
ation about the monitoring
metrics (called services) on that
host.
A type of monitoring strategy
where the N
agios XI server reaches out to the host device for inform
ation and actively checks to see if anything has changed. U
sually aided by an agent, this strategy can get resource intensive in large environm
ents.
Without installing anything on the
host, monitor services w
ith XI. For exam
ple, using WM
I on Window
s m
achines, or SNM
P on Linux m
achines can accomplish an
agent-less setup.
A monitoring strategy w
here XI does not actively reach out to the hosts for inform
ation, rather it listens for new
information. This
strategy can prove very efficient w
hen monitoring large
infrastructures by decreasing the load on the N
agios XI server.
Agent-based
Agent-less
Active M
onitoringPassive M
onitoring
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Configuration W
izards
Configuration Wizards are sim
ple step-by-step program
s that configure your network devices,
servers, databases, etc. for monitoring in N
agios XI. Stay aw
ay from the com
mand line and give these
wizards a try!
Determ
ine your desired notification settings and click apply. You are now
m
onitoring.
Top 5 Configuration Wizards
Step Three
Step O
neS
tep Two
Find the wizard for
you! With over 40+
pre-installed wizards,
you can monitor nearly
anything your network
can throw at XI.
Enter the device inform
ation and the w
izards will do the
rest!QU
ICK TIP
1. Window
s Server Wizard
2. Linux Server Wizard
3. Netw
ork Switch &
Router Wizard
4. Database W
izards MongoD
B, MSSQ
L, MySQ
L, Oracle, Postgres
5. Exchange Server Wizard
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CHAPTER TW
O: VISU
ALIZEView
ing your devices and being able to take remediation actions im
mediately is extrem
ely important
in your monitoring solution. The host and service detail pages are great for drilling dow
n into a device to see exactly w
hats going on and also to take action. Lets take a look!2
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Quick Actions are custom
izable links that can be program
med to take rem
ediation action as well as other
administrative tasks. Am
ong the many options, you can
With Perform
ance Graphs, you can see the historical data
that Nagios XI has collected. These graphs allow
for extensive analysis of m
onitoring metrics including
custom tim
e frames, user m
enu mem
ory, and direct linking to m
onitored devices. Within the graph you can:
1. Zoom D
rill down to specific events to see w
hats going on
2. Stats Hover over data points for m
ore detailed information
3. Dashify Add to your dashboards for a custom
ized view.
Quick A
ctions
Performance G
raphs
schedule a check to make sure
your host or service is truly up or dow
n. You can take action on your rem
ote devices right from
Nagios XI.
Quick Actions are fully custom
izable. Add links to repair scripts event handlers or other custom
scripts to take remediation action.
Performance G
raph Examples
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Graph Explorer: D
rill down to specific H
osts/Services to see whats happening on your netw
ork. Get an overview
of top alert producers, overall H
ost/Service health, and Multi-M
etric performance graphs.
See which devices are causing
the most alerts
Top Alert Producers
Host H
ealth & S
ervice Health
Quick pie charts show
ing the overall health of your network.
Time-S
tacked & M
ulti-Stacked Perform
ance Graphs
View service data over tim
e, or compare and contrast m
ultiple hosts and services in one easy to read graph.
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4. Maps: Being able to view
your monitoring data &
network perform
ance on a map can be extrem
ely beneficial. Saving users time &
allowing for at-a-glance
network visibility, m
aps can be customized to users view
ing preferences & give adm
inistrators the awareness necessary to m
aintain their network health.
Google M
ap Visualize your netw
ork across any geographical region. Per-fect for service providers or large organizations, the G
oogle M
ap feature allows users to quickly spot the problem
areas and regions of their netw
ork. Segment your netw
ork based on office location, datacenter, or client location and plot the geo-coordinates on the m
ap. Drill dow
n to the details of a particular location and quickly react to netw
ork incidents.
NagV
is D
ont limit your creativity! N
agVis allows users to create
custom m
aps to represent their network visualization
preferences. The server room visualization show
s a real-w
orld image of a server room
and plots device inform
ation on the exact server blade. View detailed
information about the server and take action w
hen necessary.
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CHAPTER TH
REE: ORG
ANIZE
XI provides you with a lot of tools and options for segm
enting, viewing, and m
apping your network.
Your data needs to make sense to you. U
se the Hostgroups and Servicegroups as w
ell as Nagios BPI
to keep track of device groupings and organize complex business processes. The H
ypermap feature
auto-generates a network topography m
ap based on your Parent-Child relationships built into your host configurations so you can see a quick overview
of your networking environm
ent.
3
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Nagios Business Process Intelligence is a sim
ple w
ay to monitor the overall health of com
plex processes in your netw
ork.
- Determ
ine essential group mem
bers in the process. W
hen an essential mem
ber goes down,
youll receive an alert, regardless of the overall health of the process.
- Receive alerts on overall health % thresholds.
Segment your netw
ork into logical groupings and easily view
breakdowns of host health and service
health .
Auto-generated by the parent-child relationships you configure, this netw
ork topography visualiza-tion lets you see exactly how
things are connected in your netw
ork infrastructure.
QU
ICK TIP
To get the most out of XI, and the H
ypermap, m
ake sure you define the proper parent-child relationships for each device youre monitoring. This w
ill m
inimize false positive alerts, and m
itigate alert fatigue.
Nagios B
usiness Process Intelligence (B
PI)H
ostgroups & S
ervicegroupsH
ypermap
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Dashboards are a pow
erful feature of Nagios XI designed to provide individual users w
ith customized inform
ation they find useful. Dashboards are often used
to display important, relevant inform
ation where it is needed m
ost. Dashboards are specific to individual N
agios XI users. Each user can create their own unique
set of dashboards to customize N
agios XI to fit their needs.
Dashboards
Nagios XI allow
s users to create m
ultiple customized dashboards.
To add a new dashboard, select the
Add N
ew D
ashboard link under theD
ashboard Tools Menu.
This will open a dialog box w
here users can enter a title and background color for their new
dashboard. Once you have
named your dashboard and selected a
background color, click Subm
it. This new
dashboard can be accessed from the M
y D
ashboards menu on the left side of the
page.
Adding D
ashlets
Select the Add D
ashlets link on the left side of the page to expand the m
enu. To add a dashlet, click on the A
dd This To A
Dashboard icon located to the left of
each of the list items.
Nagios XI also allow
s you to add dashlets to your dashboard from
other pages w
ithin the site. Any summ
ary, graph, or chart that has the A
dd To Dashboard
icon can be added to your custom
dashboard.
Dashlets can be m
oved and resized within
the dashboard to create a custom layout
to fit a users particular needs. To m
anipulate a dashlet, move your m
ouse over it to reveal a blue border and a set of icons.
The Pin/Float Dashlet
icon controls w
hether the dashlet is fixed to the page, or if it can be m
oved.
The tab located at the bottom
right corner of the dashlet controls the size. Tore-size your dashlet, click &
drag the tab.
Each user has a special home page
dashboard that is shown to them
when
they login. This dashboard can be m
odified from the dashboards page, and
dashlets can be added, manipulated, or
removed using the m
ethods described above.
Manipulating D
ashletsH
ome Page D
ashboardA
dding Dashboards
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CHAPTER FO
UR: AN
ALYZE AND
MAN
AGE
XIs powerful reporting features allow
you to not only view your data, but m
ake informed business
decisions for your organization. Reports are essentially static dashboards that contain summ
arized m
onitoring data that can be scheduled, exported, saved, and shared.4
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Overview
of some of the m
ost useful pieces of inform
ation to help you determine the overall state
of the network. Availability, Top Alert Producers,
Alert Histogram
, and Latest Alerts make this report
perfect for C-level executives.
Service Level Agreements are im
portant for every organization to m
aintain. Whether youre a service
provider, or you have a strict IT budget, the SLA Report in N
agios XI is perfect for determining if
youre meeting your SLA or not. Just select a host,
hostgroup, or servicegroup, determine your
timefram
e, and click update.
Designed to provide you w
ith the ability to predict w
hen network incidents w
ill occur, the capacity planning report allow
s users to plan for hardware
upgrades, future outages, and more. Stay ahead
of the curve with four prediction m
ethods. Add the report to a dashboard to keep an eye on a specific host or service.
Executive Sum
mary
Service Level A
greement (S
LA)
Capactiy Planning
QU
ICK TIP
Use the buttons in the upper right-hand
corner of any report to see what actions you
can take on them.
Edit Dashlet Settings
View All H
ost Tracks
View H
osts Services
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Manage U
sers & N
otificationsB
ackups & C
onfiguration Snapshots
Extend Your Monitoring C
apabilities
Sending notifications when things go w
rong on your netw
ork is extremely im
portant. Making sure the
person responsible for that device receives a noti-fication is crucial. In the Adm
in panel, XI allows the
managem
ent of users, notifications, and preference to ensure the right people are notified w
ith the information necessary to resolve the
issue.
XI has the ability to send critical monitoring data to
an off-loaded data storage device. Schedule your system
to run regular backups to ensure your data is never lost, or create local backups to restore from
later.
Configuration Snapshots are taken after each Apply Configuration, storing the last 10 good and last 5 bad configuration files allow
ing users to archive, dow
nload, & restore from
a previous configuration. The archive feature is perfect for storing m
ilestone upgrades or configuration changes to roll back to if som
ething goes w
rong.
Flexibility and customization is w
here Nagios XI
truly excels. Manage com
ponents, dashlets, Config W
izards, plugins, and MIBs all from
the adm
in panel in XI. Adapt your monitoring solution to
meet your exact specifications or upload custom
created plugins to m
onitor your network. Choose
from over 3500+ projects on the N
agios Exchange to m
ake your monitoring fit your environm
ent.
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CHAPTER FIVE: G
LOSSARY
If you are new to N
agios, you may not understand all of the term
inology. This glossary will give you a
better idea about what som
e of those terms m
ean. 5
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AA
ctive Check
A check that is initiated and performed by N
agios Core or Nagios XI - usually on a pre-determ
ined schedule. Plugins are used to perform
active checks.
Agent
Software that is installed on servers/w
orkstations so they can be monitored. Agents are available for W
indows and Linux m
achines/servers. In contrast, agentless m
onitoring refers to the ability to monitor a m
achine without having to install an agent on it - usually using
SNM
P or WM
I.
Alert
A check that is initiated and performed by N
agios Core or Nagios XI - usually on a pre-determ
ined schedule. Plugins are used to perform
Auto-D
iscovery Wizard
Nagios XI has a builtin Auto-D
iscovery wizard. W
hen running an Auto-Discovery job the user w
ill enter an network of addresses they w
ould like to scan and a job is created w
hich utilizes fping and nmap to scan the netw
ork defined for alive machines and then perform
s an nmap
scan on the host to determine w
hich ports it is listening on. The results of the Auto-Discovery scan additionally report the O
S of the m
achine discovered as well as all of the ports the host is listening on. A user can then optionally pass these results into a w
izard that will
monitor to m
ake sure all of these ports continue to be responsive.
CC
onfig Snapshots
When the configuration is applied in N
agios XI a snapshot is made of the current configuration. These configuration snapshot are stored and used
to automatically roll back to the last know
n good configuration if a configuration cannot be applied. Additionally, the configuration snapshots can be used to store good configurations and allow
users to roll back to previously know good configurations.
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Config W
izardsConfiguration w
izards guide users through the process of monitoring new
devices, services, and applications all without having to
understand complex m
onitoring concepts. You can download Config W
izards at the Nagios Exchange.
DD
ashboardIn N
agios XI: A customizable page on w
hich dashlets can be placed. Nagios XI offers each user the ability to have m
ultiple dashboards for custom
ized views of im
portant data.
Dashlet
A moveable container that can be placed on a dashboard in N
agios XI. Different dashlets provide perform
ance graphs, custom H
TML, and
other data.
Device
Any machine or com
ponent that attaches to a computer. Exam
ples of devices include disk drives, printers, mice, and m
odems.
HH
ostIn N
agios XI, a Host is a device that is m
onitored. Generally a server, VM
, switch/router, or other netw
ork device.
Host G
roupA host group is a collection of hosts that share access to storage array volum
es. Creating host groups lets administrators use the
combined processing pow
er of the host group computers to access the volum
es.
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NN
agios ExchangeN
agios Exchange is the central place where youll find all types of N
agios projects - plugins, addons, documentation, extensions, and
more. N
agios Exchange is designed for the Nagios Com
munity to share its N
agios creations. Have a new
project for Nagios that youd like
to share? Just create an account and add it to the directory.
Notification
Nagios supports optional escalation of contact notifications for hosts and services. Escalation of host and service notifications is
accomplished by defining host escalations and service escalations in your object configuration file(s). O
nce a notification is escalated, the contact/groups and notification options for the object w
ill be overridden by the escalations settings.
NRD
SN
RDS is a com
ponent pre-installed on a Nagios XI server that allow
s the administrator to create and m
anage configurations and plugins to be deployed w
ith a passive agent that can be installed on a variety of operating systems including W
indows, Linux, AIX &
Solaris. The passive agents dow
nloads the current configuration and the required plugin from the N
agios XI server and run the checks and posting the results to the XI server.
PPassive C
heckA check that is perform
ed by an external application, operating system, or device and is subm
itted to Nagios Core or N
agios XI for processing. Som
e monitoring agents - including N
SCA, NCPA, and N
RDP can be used to send passive checks to N
agios. An SNM
P trap is also considered a passive check.
PluginsPlugins allow
you to monitor anything and everything w
ith Nagios - databases, operating system
s, applications, network equipm
ent, protocols and m
ore. Nagios Plugins can be found on the N
agios Exchange.
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RReportN
agios XI provides users the ability to measure effectiveness of specific hosts, services, and business processes to determ
ine if service-level agreem
ents are being met. Schedule reports to be sent on a recurring basis for quick and accurate netw
ork performance
statistics.
SS
erviceA m
etric on a particular Host that is being m
onitored. For example, CPU
usage, Mem
ory usage, or HD
D space. N
agios XI pricing does not count the num
ber of services someone w
ants to monitor.
Service G
roupA service group definition is used to group one or m
ore services together for simplifying configuration w
ith object tricks or display purposes in the CG
Is.
SN
MP Trap
Simple N
etwork M
anagement Protocol (SN
MP) is a protocol-based netw
ork managem
ent system. SN
MP traps are alerts generated by
agents on a managed device.
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COM
PREHEN
SIVEM
ON
ITORIN
GALERTIN
G VIA
EMAIL &
MO
BILE U
NPARALLED
PERFORM
ANCE
INCREASED
VISIBILITYPRO
ACTIVEPLAN
NIN
GM
ULTI-TEN
ANT
CAPABILITIES
MO
NITO
R YOU
R ENTIRE IT IN
FRASTRUCTU
RE W
ITH N
AG
IOS
XI
RE
QU
ES
T A DE
MO