Nagios RPM installation

If you would like to install Nagios from an RPM distribution here are some pointers.

• I use Fedora core 4 for my test bed
• I initially downloaded my nagios RPMs from Dag Wieers's site. The FC3 packages seemed to work fine on my FC4 system.
• then I started compiling my own suite of RPMs. I did this in order to separate the various modules of Nagios and install only what I needed on each machine.

Here is what happens when you install from the RPM (at least this is what happens on Fedora). I expect that most RPM installs will behave similarly.

1. Install what you need on each machine. This makes things easier and more secure. The basic system consists of the Nagios engine and its plugins (nagios-plugins). If you want to view the Nagios monitoring outputs you will need the Nagios web interface (nagios-www).
2. The installation is done in the following directories:
   • /etc/nagios --- for configuration files
   • /usr/bin --- for the Nagios core program binary
   • /usr/share/nagios -- HTML files for the web interface
   • /usr/lib/nagios -- CGI's and plugins
   • /var/log/nagios -- log files, status file, retention file etc.
   • /var/log/nagios/archive -- archived logs
   • /var/lock/subsys/nagios -- lock file
   • /etc/rc.d/init.d/nagios -- the deamon startup file
3. You can do the following to start, stop and reload the Nagios deamon
   • service nagios stop
   • service nagios start
   • service nagios reload
4. Of course you will not get far if you do not install any plugins for your installation. So download and install the official plugin RPM package to get started. The plugins will go where they are supposed to be (/usr/lib/nagios/plugins) during the installation.
5. You will eventaully (probably) need other packages to go with the entire system. Here is a list with their source for download:
• Nagios NRPE
• Nagios NSCA
• fping
• mrtg, rrdtool
• QuickTime plugin for your browser if you want to get audio alert
6. It is very likely that you will run into prerequisite problems when to attempt to install Nagios RPMs. You can get the prerequistes from here or install from your favourite CD or yum server for your OS.
7. Other things that you will have to set up to get the system working properly:
   • NTP (network time protocol) to get the correct time on your system. It always helps to know that Nagios midnight is the true midnight.

___________________________
Last updated: February 3, 2006
© Andreas Kasenides 2005-2006