The Industry Standard In Infrastructure Monitoring
Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
Purpose
This document describes how to configure passive service checks within Nagios XI. Check
results received from external devices / applications is what defines a Passive check.
It is the responsibility of the external devices / applications to send the check results through, all Nagios XI
does is wait for the results (as opposed to Active checks where Nagios XI is responsible for performing the
check on a schedule).
Passive checks reduce the load on your Nagios XI server by reducing the number of actives checks run.
Passive checks are also useful for security-related and asynchronous events you wish to monitor.
Target Audience
This document is intended for use by Nagios XI administrators who wish to integrate alerts from external
sources into their monitoring system.
Passive Check Overview
Nagios does not actively check the status of a service that is
configured only for passive checks. Instead, Nagios waits for
external devices / applications to submit a check result for a
particular service.
Passive checks are commonly used for integrating security alerts
and event log data into Nagios, and are also used in distributed
monitoring environments.
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
A comparison between an active check and a passive check might also help:
UPS device loses input power and is running on batteries.
• With an active check, if Nagios XI was checking the device on a 5 minute interval then it might be up to 5
minutes before Nagios XI is aware that the device is on batteries.
• With a passive check, the device immediately sends an SNMP Trap to Nagios XI when it is running on
batteries.
This example scenario used an SNMP Trap as the method for receiving a passive check. This document does
not focus on SNMP Traps however it is a good example to demonstrate the differences between active and
passive checks.
Sending Passive Checks To Nagios
In order to send passive service checks from external applications and servers to Nagios, you'll need to use
the NSCA or NRDP addon to facilitate the transfer of data to the Nagios XI server. Instructions on using NSCA
with Nagios XI can be found at:
• Using NSCA With XI
• NRDP Overview
Configuring Passive Services Within Nagios XI
Each host or device that you wish to receive and process passive checks from must have a corresponding
passive check service defined in Nagios XI. Nagios XI has the Passive Check wizard that makes the
configuration of these passive checks quick and simple.
The Passive Check wizard should already be installed on your system. If you need to install the Passive
Check wizard it can be download from:
http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagiosxi/wizards/passivecheck.zip
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
To install the wizard in Nagios XI, navigate to Admin > System Extentions > Manage Config Wizards. Use
the Browse button and the Upload Wizard button to upload the passivecheck.zip wizard.
To begin using the Passive Check wizard navigate via the top menu bar to Configure > Run a configuring
wizard, and select the Passive Check Wizard. In the following screenshot you can see how the search field
allows you to quickly find a wizard.
When you run the passive check
wizard, it will first ask you for the
Address of the host that is
associated with the passive
checks.
You can also specify the Check Type for the passive check by selecting Security-Related Check, or
Other Check Type from the drop-down.
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
The next screen of the wizard allows you to define one or more Service Names that should be defined as
passive checks. The following screenshot shows several services have been added.
You can specify Volatility and Stalking options for the services to match your monitoring requirements. Both
of these options are useful when monitoring security-related events.
Volatile events generate alerts each time anything other than an OK state event is received. (i.e. Critical,
Warning, Unknown)
Stalking services will have their own output data (textual alert information) logged by Nagios each time newly
received output differs from the most recent previously received output.
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
Step 3 of the wizard has no options as there
are no monitoring settings for passive checks.
Steps 4 and 5 have the standard options
available in configuration wizards,
please populate the settings as required.
Once you've reached the Final Step click
Apply to add the new passive objects.
When the configuration is successfully applied, click the View status details for xxx link which should direct
you to a screen like the following.
If the server is successfully receiving passive check results you should start to see these services receive
data:
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
Manually Submitting A Passive Check Result
Sometimes you will want to manually submit a passive check result for a service. This capability is particularly
useful for resetting services to an OK state once the issue has been handled.
You can do this by navigating to Home > Details > Service Detail and clicking your passive check to bring up
the Service Status Detail screen. Select the Advanced tab and click on Submit passive check result. The
following example is from the Windows Update Status service shown above that is in a critical state.
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
You can specify the Check Result (service
state) from the drop down, enter Check
Output (textual data) for the passive check
and any Performance Data collect by the
check.
Click the Commit button to submit the
passive check to Nagios.
Once the passive check is processed, the status of the passive check will be updated. This will remain until
the next passive check result is received.
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
Extending Passive Checks With Freshness Checks
As explained earlier, it's the responsibility of the external devices / applications to send the check results
through, all Nagios XI does is wait for the passive check results. With this in mind, if Nagios XI stops receiving
passive check results from a device / application then Nagios XI will not know this has happened, it still has
services in the state they were in the last time a passive check results is received.
Nagios XI has the ability to keep an eye on passive check results for host and service objects, if Nagios XI
hasn't heard from the passively monitored device / application for a specified amount of time then it can take
action. The most common action is to submit a check result to Nagios XI with a critical state, this ensures that
notifications are triggered and it appears as critical in the monitoring interface.
This process is called freshness checking, and this section will show you how to setup freshness checks for
your individual needs. This guide is going to demonstrate how to configure freshness for the Drive C: Disk
Usage service. We will configure it so that if no passive check result has been received in 15 minutes (900
seconds) then it will put the service into a critical state.
Navigate to Configure > Core Config Manager > Monitoring Services and click the appropriate service to
be edited.
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
First we'll start by defining the freshness threshold and other relevant settings, click the Check Settings tab.
On this screen you'll need to specify a few options:
Active checks enabled
Off
This ensures that the check
command on the Common
Settings tab used to put the
service into a critical state will
NOT be executed unless the
freshness threshold is exceeded.
The check command will be
defined in the next step.
Passive checks enabled
On
This ensures the service is
receiving passive check results.
If this is already on Skip then it
may already be inheriting the
setting from a template.
Freshness threshold
900
If Nagios XI does not hear from the specified host or service in the specified freshness threshold period, it
will execute the check command that will be defined on the Common Settings tab.
Check freshness
On
This enables the freshness checks for the host or service object.
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
Next we'll define the check
command to be executed
when the freshness threshold
is exceeded, click the
Common Settings tab.
On this screen you'll need to
specify a few options:
Check command
check_dummy
This is the plugin that is executed when the freshness threshold is exceeded. check_dummy is a
simple command that allows you to provide a return code ($ARG1$ field) and the status text to
provide ($ARG2$ field).
$ARG1$
2
The number 2 is how Nagios XI knows a service is in the critical state.
$ARG2$
"No check result received in the past 15 minutes"
This is the status that will be shown in Nagios XI.
Once you've made these changes click the Save button and then Apply Configuration.
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Nagios XI Configuring Passive Services With Nagios XI
The following screenshot shows that the freshness threshold was exceeded for this service.
In this example we used the check_dummy plugin, however you could use any plugin that is available in
Nagios XI.
Unconfigured Objects
The following documentation describes how to configure monitoring of previously unconfigured hosts and
services that a Nagios XI server has received passive check results for.
Monitoring Unconfigured Objects With XI
Finishing Up
This completes the documentation on how to configure passive service checks within Nagios XI.
If you have additional questions or other support related questions, please visit us at our Nagios Support
Forums:
https://support.nagios.com/forum
The Nagios Support Knowledgebase is also a great support resource:
https://support.nagios.com/kb
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