Monitor

THE B

EGIN

NERS

GU

IDE TO

NA

GIO

S X

IAlert

Plan

Customize

PRESENTED

BY

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IOS XI // 2

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

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R ENTIRE IT

INFRASTRU

CTURE W

ITH

NA

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

THE BEG

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IOS XI // 3

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

THE BEG

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IOS XI // 4

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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IOS XI // 5

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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IOS XI // 7

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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IOS XI // 8

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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IOS XI // 9

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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IOS XI // 10

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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IOS XI // 11

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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IOS XI // 12

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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IOS XI // 13

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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IOS XI // 14

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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IOS XI // 15

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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IOS XI // 16

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

THE BEG

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IOS XI // 17

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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IOS XI // 18

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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IOS XI // 19

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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IOS XI // 20

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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IOS XI // 21

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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IOS XI // 22

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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IOS XI // 23

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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IOS XI // 24

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