How to Set Up Nagios to monitor an EPICS network
HOWTO install and setup NAL (Nagios Alarm Handler) on Fedora Core 7
Here's how to install NAL using yum
NAGIOS INSTALLATION
=======
The default nagios installation can be done by doing like so
- yum -y install nagios
With that I've installed nagios.i386 0:2.9-1.fc7 version; this is the last stable version (the 3.0 is under development).
Optional, but recomended if you have enough disk space: install more Nagios plugins and addons.
- yum -y install nagios-plugins nagios-plugins-all
That is not necessary but should be useful if you use NAL like a regular NAGIOS server more than only NAL (to monitor EPICS PVs network).
Nagios Default Folder Locations
====================
By default Nagios yum installation, Nagios stores the following file location into your harddisk
* /etc/nagios/ - Nagios configuration folder locations * /var/log/nagios/ - Nagios log and messages folder locations * /usr/share/nagios/ - Nagios, docs, sounds, and image folder locations * /usr/lib/nagios/cgi-bin/ - Nagios CGI folder location * /usr/bin - Nagios binaries * /etc/httpd/conf.d/ - Nagios Apache folder files * /etc/logrotate.d/nagios/ - Nagios log rotation file
Insert the EPICS Nagios Plugins
==============
Going to www.nagiosexchange.org ; using the "search" botton, look to "epics". You will find a project named "NAgios plugins for EPICS". Scroll down that page, click over "check_caget_dev_gw.sh". Download it and save into the /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/ Change the permission to check_caget_dev_gw.sh
> chmod +x check_caget_dev_gw.sh
now verify that is usable with:
> ./check_caget_dev_gw.sh --help
verfing using camonitor a PV, ie for me giacchinHost:aiExample
> camonitor giacchinHost:aiExample
if everithings is good, now discover which is the IP number (for me it was 192.168.0.47) of your linux box by
- ifconfig
and test the plugin with the follow command:
> ./check_caget_dev_gw.sh -pv giacchinHost:aiExample -H 192.168.0.47
if that reply correctly the status of your PV you can continue the installation.
Now install the EPICS logos images.
==============
- cd /usr/share/nagios/html/images/logos
download there the usr.share.nagios.html.images.logo.tar availabe at same place in nagiosexchange.org that contains : EPICSlogo.gd2 EPICSlogo.gif EPICSlogoSmall.gif
Save the original Nagios setup and replace it.
==============
Go to /etc folder and save the original setup
- tar cvf nagios.or.tar ./nagios/
download there the etc.nagios.tar available at same place at nagiosexchange.org
and restore the nagios folder with that:
- tar xvf ./etc.nagios.tar
Note: Now looking around the files into /etc/nagios and adjust that to meet your network setup requirements.
NAGIOS CONFIG VERIFICATION
==============
For sanity checking, make sure you verify Nagios config files. This can be done like so
- nagios -v /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg
The above command would show you for any erroneous lines frin Nagios config file.
HTTPD configuration
==============
Check the presence of line: "include conf.d/*.conf"
in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Check the paths into the file : /etc/httpd/conf.d/nagios.conf
Make a file named .htaccess into /usr/lib/nagios/cgi-bin/ and /usr/share/nagios/html/ which will contains:
AuthName "Nagios Access" AuthType Basic AuthUserFile /etc/nagios/passwd require valid-user
Now create a nagios user with the following command:
- htpasswd -c /etc/nagios/passwd nagiosadmin
NAGIOS LINUX SERVICE
==============
Basically, at this point of basic Nagios configuration, restarting Nagios should be successful.
Reload your apache service together with your Nagios service like so
- service httpd restart
- service Nagios stop
- service Nagios start
- service Nagios status
Open your favourite web-browser on http://localhost/nagios/
login like "nagiosadmin", give your password and enjoy!
See my nagios screenshots in action:
NagiosServiceDetails
NagiosAlertHistogram
Theare a lot of other interesting feature that comes from free using NAGIOS, looking around you should find a lot yourself.
At this time Ralph Lange has realized a test to NAL at Bessy. A great aknowlegment to him, he has supported me since the idea of use Nagios born in my mind.
Thank you for your attention! Please, give me a your feedback, and fell free to drop me an email, I'll be happy to continue to work on this idea if someome is interested to use it.
Mauro.