step by step installation for NRPE and PNP4nagios

NRPE allows you to remotely execute Nagios plugins on other Linux/Unix machines. This allows you to monitor remote machine metrics (disk usage, CPU load, etc.). NRPE can also communicate with Windows agent addons like NSClient++, so you can check metrics on remote Windows machines as well.

Download the required plugin from the below url’s,

Download link for NRPE : 

http://exchange.nagios.org/directory/Addons/Monitoring-Agents/NRPE--2D-Nagios-Remote-Plugin-Executor/details

Download link for Nagios plugins:

http://www.nagios.org/download/plugins

NRPE INSTALLATION STEPS

1. To install Nagios plugins

Nagios user is needed for every end system so that the nagios server will prompt the end systems to execute the commands/plugins as the nagios user, 

Note:  Please  follow the below steps as a root user 

         #sudo su (or) su - root 

# useradd nagios  

# passwd nagios 

ssl libraries are required as a dependency to nrpe addon, and we can install it by providing the below command

# yum install openssl openssl-devel

Traverse to the downloaded plugin directory, and follow the steps

# cd nagios-plugins-2.*/

# ./configure

# make

# make install

# chown nagios:nagios /usr/local/nagios

# chown nagios:nagios /usr/local/nagios/libexec/ -R

# yum install xinetd

2. To Install NRPE addon

Traverse to the downloaded nrpe directory, and follow the steps

# cd nrpe-2.15

# ./configure

# make all

# make install-plugin

# make install-daemon

# make install-daemon-config

# make install-xinetd

Open the below file and add the nagios server ip to allow the nrpe request:

# vim /etc/xinetd.d/nrpe 

Add the following entry for the NRPE daemon to the /etc/services file:

nrpe 5666/tcp # NRPE

Restart the xinetd service:

# service xinetd restart (or) /etc/init.d/xinetd restart

check whether the nrpe port (5666) is listening 

# netstat -at | grep nrpe 

Verify the NRPE add-on it should provide output like below:

# /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nrpe -H 127.0.0.1

NRPE v2.15

After all that,  configure your own scripts to monitor the instances or download the checks from nagios exchange

After Downloading and editing the scripts, you can edit /usr/local/nagios/etc/nrpe.cfg file to add monitoring for the services

PNP4NAGIOS INSTALLATION STEPS

PNP is an addon to nagios which analyzes performance data provided by plugins and stores them automatically into RRD-databases.

Prerequisites:

# yum -y install rrdtool rrdtool-perl php-gd

Downloading and compiling pnp4nagios:

# cd ~/Downloads

# wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/pnp4nagios/files/PNP-0.6/pnp4nagios-0.6.21.tar.gz

Installation of pnp4nagios:

# tar -zxvf pnp4nagios-0.6.21.tar.gz

# cd pnp4nagios-0.6.21

# ./configure

# ./configure --with-rrdtool=/usr/local/rrdtool/bin/rrdtool --with-perl_lib_path=/usr/local/rrdtool/lib/perl/5.10.1/x86_64-linux-thread-multi

# make all

# make install

# make install-webconf

# make install-config

Change the Main Configuration file nagios.cfg to work with pnp4nagios:

# vim /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

1.Add the below lines in nagios.cfg

process_performance_data=1

#

# service performance data

#

service_perfdata_file=/usr/local/pnp4nagios/var/service-perfdata

service_perfdata_file_template=DATATYPE::SERVICEPERFDATA\tTIMET::$TIMET$\tHOSTNAME::$HOSTNAME$\tSERVICEDESC::$SERVICEDESC$\tSERVICEPERFDATA::$SERVICEPERFDATA$\tSERVICECHECKCOMMAND::$SERVICECHECKCOMMAND$\tHOSTSTATE::$HOSTSTATE$\tHOSTSTATETYPE::$HOSTSTATETYPE$\tSERVICESTATE::$SERVICESTATE$\tSERVICESTATETYPE::$SERVICESTATETYPE$

service_perfdata_file_mode=a

service_perfdata_file_processing_interval=15

service_perfdata_file_processing_command=process-service-perfdata-file

#

# host performance data starting with Nagios 3.x

#

host_perfdata_file=/usr/local/pnp4nagios/var/host-perfdata

host_perfdata_file_template=DATATYPE::HOSTPERFDATA\tTIMET::$TIMET$\tHOSTNAME::$HOSTNAME$\tHOSTPERFDATA::$HOSTPERFDATA$\tHOSTCHECKCOMMAND::$HOSTCHECKCOMMAND$\tHOSTSTATE::$HOSTSTATE$\tHOSTSTATETYPE::$HOSTSTATETYPE$

host_perfdata_file_mode=a

host_perfdata_file_processing_interval=15

host_perfdata_file_processing_command=process-host-perfdata-file

2.Add commands in object configuration.

# vim usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/commands.cfg

define command{

command_name process-service-perfdata-file

command_line /bin/mv /usr/local/pnp4nagios/var/service-perfdata /usr/local/pnp4nagios/var/spool/service-perfdata.$TIMET$

}

define command{

command_name process-host-perfdata-file

command_line /bin/mv /usr/local/pnp4nagios/var/host-perfdata /usr/local/pnp4nagios/var/spool/host-perfdata.$TIMET$

}

To create shortcut for pnp near host with popup  in Web UI

Prerequisites:

PNP is installed

Copy the file status-header.ssi from the contrib/ssi/ folder of the PNP package to /usr/local/nagios/share/ssi/.

Attention: This file must NOT be executable. Otherwise it will be treated as a CGI which will result in an error.

Add action_url directive to the templates

# vim /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/templates.cfg

For Host templates:

action_url /pnp4nagios/index.php/graph?host=$HOSTNAME$&srv=_HOST_'class='tips'rel='/pnp4nagios/index.php/popup?host=$HOSTNAME$&srv=_HOST_

For Service Templates:

action_url

/pnp4nagios/index.php/graph?host=$HOSTNAME$&srv=$SERVICEDESC$'class='tips'rel='/pnp4nagios/index.php/popup?host=$HOSTNAME$&srv=$SERVICEDESC$

Run the below command to collect the data:

/usr/local/pnp4nagios/bin/npcd -d -f /usr/local/pnp4nagios/etc/npcd.cfg

Restart apache and nagios to run with new changes:

# /etc/init.d/nagios restart

# /etc/init.d/httpd restart

Open pnp4nagios web page by entering

http://localhost/pnp4nagios/

After your environment passed all requirements . You need to delete install.php file.

# rm -rf /usr/local/pnp4nagios/share/install.php

You have successfully installed NRPE addon and PNP4Nagios.