If you have a Dell server you would be crazy not to have OpenManage Server Administrator on it. It provides a web interface to keep an eye on the system including hardware and the RAID health. Ideally we will be notified via email if a disk in an array pops and even though OpenManage has a built in tool that can be scripted to do this it can get hacky and inconsistent. After trying a few ways for Nagios to monitor OpenManage I came across the incredible check_openmanage plugin by Trond Hasle Amundsen. Take one look at his detailed tutorial and it might be intimidating to someone new to Nagios, but its actually very easy to get a simple check set up that will cover all of the important stuff. Soon you will have lovely Dell hardware alerts in your email inbox.
This how-to is going to cover getting check_openmanage working on a Dell server with Windows (Part 2) and a Dell server with CentOS (Part 3). On the Windows box we will use the NSClient++ program to pass NRPE checks from the Nagios server to the windows client. On the CentOS server we will also use NRPE, but the NRPE service from a yum repository.
1. nagios server
Since we are using NRPE all we need to do is set up our configs so the Nagios server can pass a check_nrpe request to the Dell server. That's it, assuming check_nrpe is already installed on the Nagios server and a host config for the Dell server is made, we should be good, no additional plugins needed on the Nagios server. Inside my host config I will define the check_openmanage service:
define service{
use generic-service
host_name servername.local
service_description Dell OpenManage
check_command check_nrpe!check_openmanage!30
} define command{
command_name check_nrpe
command_line $USER1$/check_nrpe -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -c $ARG1$ -t $ARG2$
} 2. windows server host
Now that the Nagios server is set up we can take care of the Dell servers. First we will implement a solution for Windows Server. Here is what we will need on our Windows box:
The plugin requires OpenManage Server Administrator, if you don't have it installed go ahead and grab the latest version and install, the x86 has always worked for me. The install takes a while, be patient and once it's done pull up the panel (https://localhost:1311) to test it out, you will get cert errors, that's OK.
Install NSClient++. I wrote a quick and dirty guide here on it. Next we will install the check_openmanage plugin. Download the bits from the above link, technically for the windows box you only need the exe file, but I downloaded the zip so I can store it on my file server for use on the CentOS box, the zip contains the exe you need. Extract the zip, and put the exe in in your NSClient++ directory:
With the plugin in place we can open a command prompt and test it. We can run the plugin by hand and pass it the location of omreport.exe (which is installed with OpenManage) and have it return the omreport data in a pretty console line. My omreport.exe is located at: C:\Program Files x86)\Dell\SysMgt\oma\bin\omreport.exe. If you installed 64 bit OpenManage then you will use Program Files and not Program Files x86 within your omreport.exe location.
As you can see I am getting an output from omreport.exe, it is telling me I am using non-certified hard drives, shame on me! Now we know that check_openmanage works we can tell NSClient++ to run it. Edit the nsclient.ini that is in the NSClient++ folder. Add the following:
[/settings/external scripts/scripts]
check_openmanage = check_openmanage.exe -b pdisk_cert=all --omreport "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\SysMgt\oma\bin\omreport.exe" Make sure CheckExternalScripts = 1 in the same file, and restart the nsclient service:
If there are any issues at this point you can pass check_nrpe with the check_openmanage plugin from the Nagios server to the Windows server by running the following from your on Nagios server (make sure to browse to the plugins directory that has check_nrpe):
# ./check_nrpe -H 192.168.1.100 -c check_openmanage -t 30
3. centos host
Since we can't use check_openmanage.exe on our CentOS server, we need to use the check_openmanage script, which is in the zip download from before, its the one that has NO .exe extension. Of course we will need OpenManage Server Administrator installed, which comes packaged in a repository provided by Dell, how nice! Log into your CentOS server and run the following, this comes right from the Dell page here, which may be updated so check that first.
# wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/latest/bootstrap.cgi | bash
# yum install srvadmin-all
# /opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/srvadmin-services.sh start
The Dell binaries are stored in /opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/. In this directory we will find our omreport script, which is what the check_openmanage script will use. Now install NRPE and the nagios-plugin package, if you haven't already.
# rpm -Uvh http://epel.mirror.net.in/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
# yum install nrpe nagios-plugins-all
OK... good to know I need to fix some things!
Next we need to modify /etc/nagios/nrpe.conf. Under the Allowed Host Addresses section add the IP of your nagios server like so:
allowed_hosts=127.0.0.1,192.168.1.18
command[check_openmanage]=/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/check_openmanage -b pdisk_cert=all
Now we need to start the NRPE service and add it to chkconfig so it runs on boot. Also open port 5666, so the Nagios server can communicate to the CentOS server.
# service nrpe start
# chkconfig nrpe on
At this point, with nrpe listening and port 5666 open we can manually run check_nrpe on the Nagios server to test the connection to our CentOS server:
Now, similar to testing the Windows server above, we can take it one step further and pass check_nrpe with a check_openmanage request:
Since our Nagios server is all set up from part 1, open your Nagios admin panel and look for some win:
Now need to get back to fixing servers...
resources:
