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 HP blade enclosures
define hostgroup {
    hostgroup_name  hp-bladecenters
    alias           HP 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      hp-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 HP enclosures via Nagios' web interface. Creating a servicegroup is simple:

# Servicegroup for HP blade enclosures
define servicegroup {
    servicegroup_name         hp-bladechassis
    alias                     HP 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_hp_bladechassis:

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

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

3.5   Defining the service

Finally, you define the service:

define service {
    use                       generic-service
    hostgroup_name            hp-bladecenters
    service_description       HP blade enclosure health
    servicegroups             hp-bladechassis
    check_command             check_hp_bladechassis
    action_url                https://$HOSTNAME$/
    notes_url                 http://folk.uio.no/trondham/software/check_hp_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_hp_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1
Fan 2 condition is Failed

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

$ check_hp_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -s
CRITICAL: Fan 2 condition is Failed

$ check_hp_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 --short-state
C: Fan 2 condition is Failed

$ check_hp_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -i
[XXXXXXXXXX] Fan 2 condition is Failed

$ check_hp_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -v
Fan 2 condition is Failed [part: n/a, spare: n/a, sn: n/a]

$ check_hp_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -e
Fan 2 condition is Failed
------ SYSTEM: BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure G2, SN: XXXXXXXXXX, FW: 2.52

$ check_hp_bladechassis -H my-bladecenter1 -s -e
CRITICAL: Fan 2 condition is Failed
------ SYSTEM: BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure G2, SN: XXXXXXXXXX, FW: 2.52

4.2   Debug output

If supplied the option -d or --debug, check_hp_bladechassis will output messages about all the checked components, along with their respectible part numners and alert states. If supported by the enclosure the plugin will also output total power usage. An example debug output from a c7000 is given below.

4.3   Multiple line output, turn off escaping HTML tags

The output from this plugin 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 the plugin 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:

CRITICAL: example error message 1<br/>WARNING: example error message 2

instead of this:

CRITICAL: example error message 1
WARNING: example error message 2

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_hp_bladechassis -h:

Usage: check_hp_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 alerts with the enclosure's serial number
   -v, --verbose       Append extra info to alerts (part no. etc.)
   -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 or URL:
http://folk.uio.no/trondham/software/check_hp_bladechassis.html

6.1   Latest version

• Gzipped tarball: check_hp_bladechassis-1.0.1.tar.gz
• Zip archive: check_hp_bladechassis-1.0.1.zip
• Binary rpm file (i386): check_hp_bladechassis-1.0.1-1.el5.i386.rpm
• Binary rpm file (x86_64): check_hp_bladechassis-1.0.1-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
• Source rpm file: check_hp_bladechassis-1.0.1-1.el5.src.rpm

You can also download the plugin and the manpage separately.

6.2   Changelog / Old versions