[Nagios-devel] services on virtual hosts

[Mark E. <mar...@cb...>]

Hello all, I am new to nagios and have found it ideal for monitoring our =
network except for this one detail. I am hoping someone familiar with the =
structure of nagios can comment on which would be the more elegant =
solution.
In my network most of our boxes have our services listening on diferent =
aliased ip's on the same host. One suggestion from this email: http://sourc=
eforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=3D1278813&forum_id=3D1873  and =
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=3D1163502&forum_id=
=3D1873

Basically, they suggest the followng two options, make a host entry for =
each virtual ip or set up a services that use custom commands that takes =
an ip as an argument. Both of these are basically hacks to allow the =
desired functionality, however to have all the default plugins work and =
not get many alerts when there is a host problem.=20

I can think of two soultions that would be backward compatible with the =
current configs:
1. create host entries for each ip. One is the main entry, the rest are =
virtual host entries which  add an optional  Directive  (for example: =
virtual_host_parent [hostname] ). This  would indicate the host entry was =
actually part of the host parent [hostname] and would be associated =
accordingly. The advantage of this plan is the current nagios would behave =
the the same as now, and simply create a host entry for each and not =
associate it to the main host entry.

2. The second method would be to create a new definition called a =
VirtualHost definition. this would functionaly be the same relationship to =
the Host definition as the Host is to the HostGroup definition. It would =
still need the new directive virtual_host_parent (or a better fitting =
name) that would point at the main host entry.

Does anyone have any thoughts, based on their knowledge of how nagios =
functions, as to which would be the better solution to proceed with?

I realize that this seems similar to simply using individual host entries =
for each ip, but it would give much more flexability in allowing nagios to =
understand the relationships that exist. Performance data can be polled =
for just the main host entry, and only one host alert will be sent when =
there is a whole host problem (also they would be nicely combined into one =
host in the graphical network maps)
The advantage against using the service definitions to poll the services =
on ip's different than the host is one would be able to use the default =
plugins without having to pass which ip to check. (which isn't a terrable =
solution but not super elegant)
THanks everyone for any constructive comments.=20
Mark.