Nagios Support Forum

Hello!
I'm seeking some feedback and to see if anyone has gone about or have tackled the following scenario listed below. I'm hoping that someone has or would know the best way (and least amount of changes/outage) for this. See background below.

Background:
I have recently migrated to Nagios xi 5.7.5 and have added all new windows/linux/network & printer devices/ESxi hosts and service checks. We are around 500+ Host objects with around 3.7K service checks. We are relocating to a new data center and the requirements are that host names and IPs will need to be changed as well as a new instance of xi will be built. We have one instance per data center. With this being said, it seems there could be a few ways to handle this. The source xi PRD instance handles all notifications and alerting so this will be standing throughout the migration of all host objects.

1) Does a new xi instance makes sense and will it require a method to have brand new hosts and all its service checks to be imported although almost all of the hosts and services checks was created in CCM via configuration wizards?

2) Should I just migrate (Its a VM - vMotion) it over to the new DC and then use some defined process to rename the host objects so that it maintains all host assigned service checks? Is there a good method on doing a mass host object renaming? Once migrated, can the instance be renamed host name wise and re-ip'd? Although, this still has host object level renames to occur.

3) Use the native CCM export and edit manually the host.cfg and services.cfg and import them into the new DC xi instance? Does that keep the relation ship when importing?

All feedback/help/input is appreciated on this. Thanks!

Hi @jstormshak,

If the requirements are the same, you can use the migration process to copy over the configuration and make the required changes. Be sure to disable checks and notifications while you're making the changes. There are 3 tools you can leverage to help get the job done.

1. Bulk Cloning and Import Wizard. This works well if you have a bunch of servers with the same check requirements. For example, 500 Windows servers, and you just want to copy the checks from on server to the rest.

Doc link: https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nag ... Wizard.pdf

2. Bulk Mods Tool. There's an option to change config names.

Tutorial Video: https://www.nagios.com/videos/2017/07/n ... ation-tool

3. REST API. This fully documented in the GUI with example commands at Help > API Docs. If you plan to repeat the process again at a later date, it would make sense to script this out.

--Benjamin

Thanks and I'll check those links out this morning. One item to note is that I was informed that all Linux and now Windows servers will be completely rebuilt from scratch to conform to new data center standards. In an essence, these would in a sense be added fresh. however, there are many custom additional checks that vary from server to server. I checked out the Bulk Rename tool thinking it could rename host and its assigned services and it did for the host object and its services objects. However, it left the "Address" field as the old host DNS (or IP). That "Address" field isn't shown to be edited in my use case. Completely disappointed as I was hoping that that could be my course of action. I went into this as a vmotion and a change of host identity and an xi action and be done per host. Anyhow, If there's something that could handle this better let me know but let me review the links as they may lead into this solution.

The Bulk Host/Clone Tool will accomplish this when keeping the existing xi. The xi will be a new instance. I was going to use the full export/import bringing that into the new instance. Does that process handle exporting of "ALL" components; including Host/Services objects? If so, I could proceed with the new instance, import and then bulk clone/host and then eventually remove that original host from the new instance. Is there anything flawed or should be aware of in terms of relying on that export/import? In your opinion, would this be a best approach?

Sorry for an additional scope...
If I do the backup/recovery into that new xi instance, that new instance would have an new host name and IP. I'm questioning if any of the backup files would contain the original backed up host name and its IP address? Perhaps somewhere in the DBs that would be contained into the backup archive? If contained there, I imagine that would be a show stopper as to not have any to control it.

However, if that stores it in the archive, is there a way to rename the xi instance after the recovery/restore is done to eliminate any source host names of IPs of the local host of xi?

HI,

Here are the answers to your questions.

Does that process handle exporting of "ALL" components; including Host/Services objects?

Yep, the backup/restore feature will export everything.

Is there anything flawed or should be aware of in terms of relying on that export/import?

That's going to work but keep in mind it's going to bring over user accounts, historical data ..etc. This all detailed in the guide below. If just want to copy the configs over, there's another method for that but it's a manual process.

https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nag ... ios-xi.pdf

I'm questioning if any of the backup files would contain the original backed-up hostname and its IP address?

For migrating to a new server, it's usually necessary to update the IP address, see the section After the Restore on page 13 of the backup/restore guide. You can disable active/passive checks and alerts in the nagios.cfg before restoring the backup file to avoid any notifications being generated or checks being run on the new server.

Hope that helps answer your questions, let me know if you need clarification on anything.

Benjamin