[Nagiosplug-devel] more info on network management plugins

[Guy Van Den Bergh]

Hi there,

It took a while, but here is some more info on the network management
plugins I submitted to the list about a week ago.

1. What has check_xinterface to offer over check_ifoperstatus.pl?
(I have developed check_xinterface because check_ifoperstatus didn't
really do what I wanted.)

*) check_xinterface considers also the administrative status of the
interface: when the interface is admin down, only a WARNING status is
returned (CRITICAL when admin up & operational down).

*) check_xinterface needs the ifIndex as well as the ifName as input
options. This offers a method to detect when interface indices have
changed, e.g. after a reboot (recent Cisco IOS versions support ifIndex
persistence, but this is not always available; I do not know what a
Juniper router does with the indices after a reboot).

*) check_xinterface returns UNKNOWN when the snmp poll fails
(check_ifoperstatus returns critical). SNMP implementations on
commercial routers are pretty stable. Most of the time an SNMP poll
failure means the router is down, and this is detected with the
check-host-alive command.

2. The router environment plugins.
It is indeed a good idea to fold both check_cisco_env and
check_juniper_env into a single plugin, but I will need some more time
to implement this. This way it should be easily extensible with other
proprietary environment MIBs (Foundry, Unisphere, Alcatel, ...)