3.1   Creating a hostgroup

The first thing you want to do is create a hostgroup that contains your blade enclosures. If you have very few enclosures you can skip this step and use hosts in the service definition instead, but I think hostgroups are always better:

# hostgroup for Dell blade enclosures
define hostgroup {
    hostgroup_name  dell-bladecenters
    alias           Dell bladecenters
}

3.2   Defining the hosts

You'll need a host definition for each of the enclosures. If you are an experienced Nagios admin you already know this, of course:

define host {
    host_name       my-bladecenter1.foo.org
    alias           my-bladecenter1
    address         192.168.10.12
    use             generic-host
    hostgroups      dell-bladecenters
    contact_groups  example@foo.org
}

3.3   Creating a servicegroup

Next you want to create a servicegroup for this service. This is not required, but it makes things easier when you want to inspect your Dell servers via Nagios' web interface. Creating a servicegroup is simple:

# Servicegroup for Dell blade enclosures
define servicegroup {
    servicegroup_name         dell-bladechassis
    alias                     Dell server health status
}

The servicegroup is used later in the service definition.

3.4   Defining a command

The next step is to define a command for check_dell_bladechassis:

# Dell blade enclosure check
define command {
    command_name    check_dell_bladechassis
    command_line    /path/to/check_dell_bladechassis -H $HOSTADDRESS$
}

Note that is is a very basic example of check_dell_bladechassis usage. Refer to the usage section for info about the different options that alters the behaviour of check_dell_bladechassis.

3.5   Defining the service

Finally, you define the service:

define service {
    use                       generic-service
    hostgroup_name            dell-bladecenters
    service_description       Dell blade enclosure health
    servicegroups             dell-bladechassis
    check_command             check_dell_bladechassis
    action_url                https://$HOSTNAME$/
    notes_url                 http://folk.uio.no/trondham/software/check_dell_bladechassis.html
}

The action_url and notes_url is optional.

4.1   Output control

The default behaviour of the plugin is to print all alerts on separate lines with no extra fuzz:

$ check_dell_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1
Blade subsystem health status is Critical
Global system health status is Critical

There are several options that allows you to alter this, as listed below.

$ check_dell_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -s
CRITICAL: Blade subsystem health status is Critical
CRITICAL: Global system health status is Critical

$ check_dell_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 --short-state
C: Blade subsystem health status is Critical
C: Global system health status is Critical

$ check_dell_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -i
[XXXXXXX] Blade subsystem health status is Critical
[XXXXXXX] Global system health status is Critical

$ check_dell_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -e
Blade subsystem health status is Critical
Global system health status is Critical
------ SYSTEM: PowerEdge M1000e, SN: XXXXXXX, FW: 2.00

$ check_dell_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -s -e
CRITICAL: Blade subsystem health status is Critical
CRITICAL: Global system health status is Critical
------ SYSTEM: PowerEdge M1000e, SN: XXXXXXX, FW: 2.00

4.2   Debug output

If supplied the option -d or --debug, check_dell_bladechassis will output messages about all the checked components, along with their respectible alert states. If supported by the enclosure (i.e. M1000e) the plugin will also output power supply data and total power usage. An example debug output from a M1000e is given below.

$ check_dell_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -d
   System:      PowerEdge M1000e
   ServiceTag:  XXXXXXX
   Firmware:    2.00
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   System Component Status
=============================================================================
  STATE  |  MESSAGE TEXT
---------+-------------------------------------------------------------------
      OK | IO Module (IOM) subsytem health status is Ok
      OK | KVM subsystem health status is Ok
      OK | Redundancy status is Ok
      OK | Power subsystem health status is Ok
      OK | Fan subsystem health status is Ok
CRITICAL | Blade subsystem health status is Critical
      OK | Temperature sensor subsystem health status is Ok
      OK | Chassis Management Controller (CMC) health status is Ok
CRITICAL | Global system health status is Critical
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   System Power Readings
=============================================================================
   Power Supply 1 (PS-1) voltage reading: 231.5 V
   Power Supply 2 (PS-2) voltage reading: 233.8 V
   Power Supply 3 (PS-3) voltage reading: 229.2 V
   Power Supply 4 (PS-4) voltage reading: 240.5 V
   Power Supply 5 (PS-5) voltage reading: 240.5 V
   Power Supply 6 (PS-6) voltage reading: 241.8 V
------------------------------------------------------------
   Power Supply 1 (PS-1) amperage reading: 4.66 A
   Power Supply 2 (PS-2) amperage reading: 0.25 A
   Power Supply 3 (PS-3) amperage reading: 0.25 A
   Power Supply 4 (PS-4) amperage reading: 4.61 A
   Power Supply 5 (PS-5) amperage reading: 0.31 A
   Power Supply 6 (PS-6) amperage reading: 0.27 A
------------------------------------------------------------
   Total chassis power usage: 2300 W
   Total chassis current usage: 10.406 A

Debug output from a 1855/1955 chassis is depressing in comparison:

$ check_dell_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter2 -d
   System:      DRAC/MC
   ServiceTag:  XXXXXXX
   Firmware:    1.5.0 (Build 10.01)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   System Component Status
=============================================================================
  STATE  |  MESSAGE TEXT
---------+-------------------------------------------------------------------
      OK | Global system health status is Ok

The limited output from the 1855/1955 is due to limitations in available information via SNMP.

4.3   Multiple line output, turn off escaping HTML tags

The output from check_openmanage contains multiple lines separated by HTML linebreaks (<br/>) if run as a command within Nagios, via NRPE etc. If run from a console which has a TTY, i.e. if you log in via SSH or similar and run check_openmanage manually, the linebreaks will be regular linebreaks.

Nagios 3.x allows the following option in cgi.cfg:

# ESCAPE HTML TAGS
# This option determines whether HTML tags in host and service
# status output is escaped in the web interface.  If enabled,
# your plugin output will not be able to contain clickable links.

escape_html_tags=1

The default, as seen above in the sample cgi.cfg from the distribution, is that HTML tags are escaped. My advice is to turn this off. If not, you will see output like this in your Nagios console:

Blade subsystem health status is Critical<br/>Global system health status is Critical

instead of this:

Blade subsystem health status is Critical
Global system health status is Critical

With Nagios 3.x, plugins are allowed to output multiple lines with regular linebreaks, but only the first line is shown in the web interface (status.cgi).

4.4   Full usage information

Usage information gathered with check_dell_bladechassis -h:

Usage: check_dell_bladechassis -H <HOSTNAME> [OPTION]...

OPTIONS:
   -H, --hostname      Hostname or IP of the enclosure
   -C, --community     SNMP community string
   -P, --protocol      SNMP protocol version
   --port              SNMP port number
   -p, --perfdata      Ouput performance data
   -t, --timeout       Plugin timeout in seconds
   -i, --info          Prefix any alerts with the service tag
   -e, --extinfo       Append system info to alerts
   -s, --state         Prefix alerts with alert state
   --short-state       Prefix alerts with alert state (abbreviated)
   -d, --debug         Debug output, reports everything
   -h, --help          Display this help text
   -V, --version       Display version info

For more information and advanced options, see the manual page.

6.1   Latest version

• Gzipped tarball: check_dell_bladechassis-1.0.0.tar.gz
• Zip archive: check_dell_bladechassis-1.0.0.zip
• Binary rpm file (i386): check_dell_bladechassis-1.0.0-1.el5.i386.rpm
• Binary rpm file (x86_64): check_dell_bladechassis-1.0.0-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
• Source rpm file: check_dell_bladechassis-1.0.0-1.el5.src.rpm

You can also download the plugin and the manpage separately.

6.2   Changelog / Old versions