this is obsolete doc -- see http://doc.nethence.com/ instead

Enabling nagios nrpe scripts on targets (running the nrpe service) 

On the target (nrpe server) 

Install the NRPE service & plugins, on Debian, 

apt-get install \ 

nagios-nrpe-server \ 

nagios-nrpe-plugin \ 

nagios-plugins-basic \ 

nagios-plugins-standard 

update-rc.d nagios-nrpe-server defaults 

on RHEL6 (EPEL is needed), 

  wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-6.noarch.rpm 

  rpm -ivh epel-release-latest-6.noarch.rpm 

yum install \ 

nrpe \ 

nagios-plugins-nrpe \ 

nagios-plugins-disk \ 

nagios-plugins-load \ 

nagios-plugins-swap \ 

nagios-plugins-procs \ 

nagios-plugins-time \ 

nagios-plugins-uptime \ 

nagios-plugins-users 

  chkconfig nrpe on 

The provided nagios plugins are installed there: 

  (Debian) /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/ 

  (RHEL) /usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/ 

Fetch and authorize additional custom scripts for example there, 

  (custom) /root/bin/ 

See http://pbraun.nethence.com/net/nagios_custom_scripts.html 

Check that everything is working locally, calling the scripts/plugins directly e.g., 

  (custom) /root/bin/diskusage4nagios.bash 

  (Debian) /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_disk -w 10% -c 5% 

  (RHEL) /usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/check_disk -w 10% -c 5% 

Allow the server to connect and enable the scripts and plugins into NRPE configuration, 

cp /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg.dist 

vi /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg 

allowed_hosts=127.0.0.1, NAGIOS_SERVER 

(custom) command[diskusage4nagios]=/root/bin/diskusage4nagios.bash 

(custom) command[check_omreport]=/root/bin/omreport.bash 

(RHEL) command[disk]=/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/check_disk -w 10% -c 5% 

(RHEL) command[load]=/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/check_load -r -w 15,10,5 -c 30,25,20 

(RHEL) command[swap]=/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/check_swap -w 90 -c 80 

(RHEL) command[memsh]=/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/check_mem.sh -W 10 -C 20 

(RHEL) command[check_memory]=/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/check_mem -w 80 -c 90 

reload the NRPE service, on Debian, 

/etc/init.d/nagios-nrpe-server restart 

on RHEL, 

service nrpe restart 

Make sure port TCP 5666 is open or disable the firewall on the system. 

On the nagios server (nrpe client) 

target=hostname 

Check that remote commands executes calling check_nrpe manually, 

  /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_nrpe -H $target 

  /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_nrpe -H $target -c diskusage4nagios 

  /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_nrpe -H $target -c disk 

Configure the NRPE global wrapper, 

define command{ 

command_name nrpe 

command_line $USER1$/check_nrpe -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -c $ARG1$ 

} 

Configure the host and add the service, 

define host{ 

use generic-host 

host_name $target 

alias Cliff - Integration server 

address 10.0.0.59 

} 

define service{ 

use generic-service 

host_name $target 

service_description mount point usage 

check_command nrpe!diskusage4nagios 

} 

define service{ 

use generic-service 

host_name $target 

service_description disk usage 

check_command nrpe!disk 

} 

reload the nagios service, on Debian, 

  /etc/init.d/nagios3 reload