How can I debug why Munin won’t talk to Nagios?

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I’ve followed the instructions to connect Munin to Nagios. NSCA is installed, echo -e "foo.example.com\ttest\t0\t0" | /usr/sbin/send_nsca -H localhost -c /etc/send_nsca.cfg works when run as the munin user, and I’ve added contacts nagios and the contact.nagios.command /usr/bin/send_nsca -H your.nagios-host.here -c /etc/send_nsca.cfg command to the Munin configuration.

But I don’t get any NSCA messages in the logs. Not for failing to send messages on the Munin side, or receiving messages on the Nagios side. Here’s my questions:

  1. How can I trigger alerts for Munin to be able to test?
  2. How can I determine what step is failing?
  3. What should I be seeing in the logs if Munin fails to send NSCA messages?
  4. What should I be seeing in the Nagios logs if Munin succeeds in sending messages?

Answer

It is not very clear from the instructions, but NSCA is only necessary if Nagios is not running on the same machine as Munin, and I see your NSCA is sending to localhost. This makes things much easier to setup and debug.

1) How can I trigger alerts for Munin to be able to test?

No idea, but will investigate and update the answer if I discover a quick method.

2) How can I determine what step is failing?

First, make sure you have the following lines in nagios.cfg:

accept_passive_service_checks=1
check_external_commands=1
command_file=/var/lib/nagios3/rw/nagios.cmd

To further debug Nagios issues, enable the debug log in nagios.cfg:

debug_level=256
debug_verbosity=2

Restart the Nagios service and keep an eye on the following logs:

/var/log/nagios3/nagios.*
/var/log/munin/munin-*

You can manually send passive notification to a specific host and service via:

sudo -u nagios echo "[$(date +%s)] PROCESS_SERVICE_CHECK_RESULT;$host;$service;$result;$notes" >> $command_file

More info here.

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Chris B. , Answer Author : mrucci

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