nrpe Nagios Remote Process Execution

manager Tue, 05/18/2010 - 10:28

nrpe - Daemon and plugin for executing plugins on remote hosts

Overview: Allows you to execute plugins on remote hosts in a relatively easy and transparent manner.
Files:
check_nrpe - Plugin used to send execution requests to the nrpe agent on the remote host
nrpe - Agent that runs on the remote host and processes plugin execution requests
nrpe.cfg - Configuration file for the remote host agent
Description:

This addon is designed to provide a way for executing plugins on a remote host. The check_nrpe plugin runs on the Nagios host and is used to send plugin execution requests to the nrpe agent on the remote host. The nrpe agent will then run an appropriate plugins on the remote host and return the plugin output and return code to the check_nrpe plugin on the Nagios host. The check_nrpe plugin then passes the remote plugin's output and return code back to Nagios as if it were its own. This allows for a rather transparent method of executing plugins on remote hosts. The nrpe agent can either be run as a standalone daemon or as a service under inetd.
Notes:
  • When running in daemon mode, the nrpe agent authenticates plugin execution requests by doing a rudimentary comparison of the IP address of the calling host against a list of allowed IP addresses in the configuration file.
  • When running under inetd, TCP wrappers can be employed to restrict access to the nrpe agent

Subject

Hosting
Nagios