nagios_downtime - Script based downtime scheduling

nagios_downtime can be used to schedule downtimes directly from monitored machines to automaticaly schedule downtimes in Nagios only with having access to the Nagios CGIs or Multisite with having access to the Web API. There is no additional connection needed.

You can schedule those downtimes automaticaly on system reboot by an init script. You could also run the script to schedule downtimes for special services e.g. during backups of databases. nagios_downtime can create a downtime in Nagios/Multisite before shuting down the database to start the backup (add mode) and delete the downtime again when the backup is finished (del mode).

Scheduling downtimes for planned downtimes gives you several advantages:

• No alerts are raised by planned downtimes
• The unplanned downtime in reporting is not affected by such downtimes

Currently the nagios_downtime Scripts are shipped for Linux (written in Perl) and Windows (written in VBS). The intention was to have two scripts for the different platforms to reach one goal. During time both scripts diverged a bit. I started development of these scripts back in 2005, so please don't be too strict with the coding style, I am a bit unhappy with this for myself, but currently don't have the time to fix this. Maybe I find the time to fix this one day. You are welcome to send improvements!

Linux (Perl script)

Prerequisites (Perl)

• Perl
• Perl Modules:
  • LWP
  • Switch
  • Net::Ping
  • Sys::Hostname
  • Getopt::Long

Usage

You can use the provided init script to set up a basic downtime scheduling. In some cases you may need to change the parameter in the init script calls or the options in the nagios_downtime file to fit your needs. For example the options for accessing the CGI files will be needed to be changed in most environments.

You basicaly have two ways to provide the options to the script:

a) via command line b) via editing the options in the script

For details about the single command line parameters please execute this:

# nagios_downtime -h

You may create a configuration file with the basic parameters like Nagios host, cgi path, cgi user and password using the options in the nagios_downtime script. This way you don't need to provide the parameters on each call.

Examples:

OMD with Multisite

This command can be used to schedule a downtime of 15 minutes on a OMD host (omd.my-domain.com) with Multisite enabled. The path /omdsite/check_mk, the user automationuser and its password automationpassword will be used to access the API. A host-downtime for the host webserver.my-domain.com will be scheduled.

# nagios_downtime -m add -t 15 -i multisite -S omd.my-domain.com -p /omdsite/check_mk \
                  -u automationuser -P automationpassword -H webserver.my-domain.com

With this command you can terminate the downtime. You need to have the saving of the downtime ids enabled.

# nagios_downtime -m del -i multisite -S omd.my-domain.com -p /omdsite/check_mk \
                  -u nagiosadmin -P nagiosadmin -H webserver.my-domain.com

Nagios

This command can be used to schedule a downtime of 15 minutes on the nagios host (nagios.my-domain.com). The CGIs are located at /nagios/cgi-bin. The CGIs can be accessed by the user nagiosadmin with password nagiosadmin. A host-downtime for the host webserver.my-domain.com will be scheduled.

# nagios_downtime -m add -t 15 -S nagios.my-domain.com -p /nagios/cgi-bin \
                  -u nagiosadmin -P nagiosadmin -H webserver.my-domain.com

With this command you can terminate the downtime. You need to have the saving of the downtime ids enabled.

# nagios_downtime -m del -S nagios.my-domain.com -p /nagios/cgi-bin \
                  -u nagiosadmin -P nagiosadmin -H webserver.my-domain.com

Init script installation (Should work on SuSE, RedHat, CentOS, Fedora)

Copy the file nagios_downtime to /usr/bin. And make sure it is executable.

# cp -p nagios_downtime /usr/bin
# chmod +x /usr/bin/nagios_downtime

Copy the init script nagios_downtime.init to /etc/init.d. Also make sure it is executable.

# cp -p nagios_downtime.init /etc/init.d
# chmod +x /etc/init.d/nagios_downtime.init

Activate the init script to be executed on system shutdown.

# chkconfig --add nagios_downtime
# chkconfig nagios_downtime on

Downtime deletion

The deletion of downtimes is a new feature in nagios_downtime 0.5.

You need to set the vars $storeDowntimeIds and $downtimePath in the head of the nagios_downtime file to be able to use the feature. Once enabled newly scheduled downtimes can be deleted by calling nagios_downtime in deletion mode (-m del).

Bugs and Support

I decided to use GitHub for managing project related communication, you can find the project at (https://github.com/LaMi-/nagios_downtime).

The nagios_downtime scripts were previously homed on my personal, a bit outdated, blog. You might find some useful information there in the related articles or commennts (http://larsmichelsen.com/nagios-downtime/).

Thanks

Thanks to all supporters of open source software. Keep up the great work!

Licensing

Copyright (C) 2014 Lars Michelsen lm@larsmichelsen.com

All outcome of the project is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL v2. Take a look at the LICENSE file for details.