Installing NRPE for Nagios on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

If you are planning to monitor Windows servers, it’s highly advised to install NRPE module. On windows side, I generaly use NSCLIENT++ for host check.

You’ll be able to execute remote commands on hosts.

Installation process:

cd /usr/local/src
sudo wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/nagios/nrpe-2.x/nrpe-2.12/nrpe-2.12.tar.gz?use_mirror=kent
sudo tar xzfv nrpe-2.12.tar.gz
cd nrpe-2.12/
sudo ./configure --with-ssl=/usr/bin/openssl --with-ssl-lib=/usr/lib
sudo make all
sudo make install-plugin

This will give you the additionnal command: check_nrpe

NRPE Plugin for Nagios
Copyright (c) 1999-2008 Ethan Galstad (nagios@nagios.org)
Version: 2.12
Last Modified: 03-10-2008
License: GPL v2 with exemptions (-l for more info)
SSL/TLS Available: Anonymous DH Mode, OpenSSL 0.9.6 or higher required

Usage: check_nrpe -H <host> [-n] [-u] [-p <port>] [-t <timeout>] [-c <command>] [-a <arglist...>]

Options:
 -n         = Do no use SSL
 -u         = Make socket timeouts return an UNKNOWN state instead of CRITICAL
 <host>     = The address of the host running the NRPE daemon
 [port]     = The port on which the daemon is running (default=5666)
 [timeout]  = Number of seconds before connection times out (default=10)
 [command]  = The name of the command that the remote daemon should run
 [arglist]  = Optional arguments that should be passed to the command.  Multiple
              arguments should be separated by a space.  If provided, this must be
              the last option supplied on the command line.

Note:
This plugin requires that you have the NRPE daemon running on the remote host.
You must also have configured the daemon to associate a specific plugin command
with the [command] option you are specifying here.  Upon receipt of the
[command] argument, the NRPE daemon will run the appropriate plugin command and
send the plugin output and return code back to *this* plugin.  This allows you
to execute plugins on remote hosts and 'fake' the results to make Nagios think
the plugin is being run locally.