Nagios

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide you with simple instructions on how to install Nagios from source (code) on openSUSE and have it monitoring your local machine inside of 20 minutes. No advanced installation options are discussed here - just the basics that will work for 95% of users who want to get started.

These instructions were written based on an openSUSE 10.2 installation.

Required Packages

Make sure you've installed the following packages on your openSUSE installation before continuing. You can use yast to install packages under openSUSE.

1. Create Account Information

Become the root user. 

su -l

Create a new nagios user account and give it a password. 

/usr/sbin/useradd -m nagios
passwd nagios

Create a new nagios group. Add the nagios user to the group. 

/usr/sbin/groupadd nagios
/usr/sbin/usermod -G nagios nagios

Create a new nagcmd group for allowing external commands to be submitted through the web interface. Add both the nagios user and the apache user to the group. 

/usr/sbin/groupadd nagcmd
/usr/sbin/usermod -a -G nagcmd nagios
/usr/sbin/usermod -a -G nagcmd wwwrun

2. Download Nagios and the Plugins

Create a directory for storing the downloads. 

mkdir ~/downloads
cd ~/downloads

Download the source code tarballs of both Nagios and the Nagios plugins (visit http://www.nagios.org/download/ for links to the latest versions). These directions were tested with Nagios 3.1.1 and Nagios Plugins 1.4.11. 

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/nagios/nagios-3.2.3.tar.gz
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/nagiosplug/nagios-plugins-1.4.15.tar.gz

3. Compile and Install Nagios

Extract the Nagios source code tarball. 

cd ~/downloads
tar xzf nagios-3.2.3.tar.gz
cd nagios-3.2.3

Run the Nagios configure script, passing the name of the group you created earlier like so: 

./configure --with-command-group=nagcmd

Compile the Nagios source code. 

make all

Install binaries, init script, sample config files and set permissions on the external command directory. 

make install
make install-init
make install-config
make install-commandmode

Don't start Nagios yet - there's still more that needs to be done...

4. Customize Configuration

Sample configuration files have now been installed in the /usr/local/nagios/etc directory. These sample files should work fine for getting started with Nagios. You'll need to make just one change before you proceed...

Edit the /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/contacts.cfg config file with your favorite editor and change the email address associated with the nagiosadmin contact definition to the address you'd like to use for receiving alerts. 

vi /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/contacts.cfg

5. Configure the Web Interface

Install the Nagios web config file in the Apache conf.d directory. 

make install-webconf

Create a nagiosadmin account for logging into the Nagios web interface. Remember the password you assign to this account - you'll need it later. 

htpasswd2 -c /usr/local/nagios/etc/htpasswd.users nagiosadmin

Restart Apache to make the new settings take effect. 

service apache2 restart

Note: Consider implementing the ehanced CGI security measures described here to ensure that your web authentication credentials are not compromised.

6. Compile and Install the Nagios Plugins

Extract the Nagios plugins source code tarball. 

cd ~/downloads
tar xzf nagios-plugins-1.4.15.tar.gz
cd nagios-plugins-1.4.15

Compile and install the plugins. 

./configure --with-nagios-user=nagios --with-nagios-group=nagios
make
make install

7. Start Nagios

Add Nagios to the list of system services and have it automatically start when the system boots. 

chkconfig --add nagios
chkconfig nagios on

Verify the sample Nagios configuration files. 

/usr/local/nagios/bin/nagios -v /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

If there are no errors, start Nagios. 

service nagios start

8. Login to the Web Interface

You should now be able to access the Nagios web interface at the URL below. You'll be prompted for the username (nagiosadmin) and password you specified earlier. 

http://localhost/nagios/

Click on the "Service Detail" navbar link to see details of what's being monitored on your local machine. It will take a few minutes for Nagios to check all the services associated with your machine, as the checks are spread out over time.

9. Other Modifications

Make sure your machine's firewall rules are configured to allow access to the web server if you want to access the Nagios interface remotely.

You can do this by:

Configuring email notifications is outside the scope of this documentation. Refer to your system documentation, search the web, or look to the Nagios Support Portal or Nagios Community Wiki for specific instructions on configuring your openSUSE system to send email messages to external addresses.

See Also See Also: the Quickstart Installation Guides for Fedora, OpenSuse or Ubuntu, Security Considerations

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