Nagios Support Forum

After supporting Nagios Core for about a year, and setting up three Nagios xi instances, I have a list of potential enhancements for future releases:

First off, Nagios xi is much easer to configure, and test monitoring solutions that Nagios Core, so Good Work!

Current Nagios xi version: 5.7.5

Enhancement suggestions to help make Nagios more useable (i.e. less frustrating…)

For installs - Please add pre-check to the Nagios xi install script to find and alert on potential issues that could cause the installation to fail, prior to making any changes.

Recommended checks:
Test access to key URL's and report pass/fail (pre-install checks)

Proxy entries we added to allow bypass:
.nagios.com Need for most everything else
exchange.nagios.org Need for Wizards
??? What else do we need?
 
Ensure "required" optional software channel has been added:
https://support.nagios.com/kb/article.php?id=155
  
Ensure repo info for current Nagios version has been added to server:
https://repo.nagios.com/nagios/7
https://repo.nagios.com/nagiosxi-deps/7
 
Add proxy info to /etc/wgetrc & /etc/yum.conf
https://support.nagios.com/kb/article.php?id=147
 
Ask how many hosts are being monitored: ?
Based on response, check disk space requirements and recommend file systems, and space needed based on number of hosts:
Note: We expanded /var from 4GB to 8GB (after VM Server default build) and created the following file systems.
Recommended File Systems:
/var/lib/mysql
/usr/local/nagiosxi
/store/backups

Test for Nagios repos access, based on version

Ensure SELinux is disabled and recommend reboot if needed
Reminder to take a VM snapshot prior to Nagios installation, in case things go wrong
Reminder to verify server backups are configured and working
Reminder to create rules for Symantec Endpoint Protection (if used) to prevent unplanned outages due to intrusion detection counter measures (happened while running Nagios Auto Discovery)

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1) Recommend adding a "prefix" field to "Scheduled Backups" so backup file name can have a default prefix (i.e. Prod, Staging, Test, DR) for each tab:
FTP, SSH, & Local

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3) Recommend adding an option to allow customers to "hide" areas not available based on the license purchased

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4) Recommend adding "Status" column under "CCM Hosts" and "CCM Services" to show configurations with issues, and those that are OK

Also, please add columns for configured Host Group (i.e. OS "Windows", "Linux", "Network") to "CCM Hosts" view

Maybe, give customer option to select what columns they want to see on "CCM Hosts & Services"

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5) Under "User Sessions" add option to send a message to one or multiple sessions (i.e. "Taking Nagios xi down for database maintenance…")

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6) During initial Nagios xi install step via the GUI, setting the time zone took way longer than it should have, default value was just "EST" in field, but it complained that it wasn't correct, and 3-4 attempts later I finally got things configured. Recommend not preloading a value unless it matches the validation check.

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7) Add informational bubbles for configuration fields, especially where selecting the wrong check box could have unintended consequences (like System Settings).

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8) Under "Proxy Configuration" add a test button to validate the configuration works or not, and alert on URL's Nagios xi expects to see, but can't reach.

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9) On the "Operations Screen" please only display "RED" when there is a problem, maybe default to White, or give the users an option to select colors.

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10) On the "Mass Acknowledge" page, please add option to mass disable/enable notifications (using the "Sticky" flag doesn't display the notifications off icon)

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11) Recommend storing checkpoint "snapshots" under /store/backups/checkpoints (instead of the current path: /usr/local/nagiosxi/nom/checkpoints)

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12) Provide an option from the GUI to report/export configs in Excel/CSV format (host/services), like we could in older versions of Nagios

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13) Recommend default setting for notifications set to "disabled" when activating new hosts/services to prevent unwanted notifications

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14) Recommend adding columns to display associated "Host Groups" and "Service Groups" under CCM Hosts and Services

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15) Please provide ability to sort "Favorites" in Nagios xi GUI

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16) Under Service Management - Alert Settings, please add ability to delay Second notifications to give support time to login, research, and resolve issue.

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17) When using NCPA, the "Run Check Command" fails Disk Usage on Linux servers due to syntax errors (but it works otherwise)

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19) Recommend adding a validation pop-up to ask if the contact should be removed when users are deleted. May want to add users with different name so they are NOT linked to contacts as workaround to prevent contacts from getting deleted unless you want them to be removed (i.e. contacts first initial + last name, users last name + first name) - I had a contact removed from multiple contact groups when their GUI user was removed

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20) Adding contacts to groups should be controlled from the groups side (and not be able to be added from contacts), please make only viewable from the contact side (drove me crazy tying to keep the in sync)

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21) When managing assignments (to hosts/services), selections not available (already assigned or not active) are grayed out, recommend making the text color different:
Red - when item is not Active (else just hide from the list)
When item is already assigned, only show in the "Assigned" column (or make Blue if assigned from a different location) - in the case of a contact getting added to a group, host, or service notification

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22) When nodes are configured as a "parent", only show those selections under the "Host Parents" tab, and not all the children (or at least gray the children out)
a. (i.e. to eliminate IP's in alerts/notifications, I have used the FQDN for the host "address" and added our domain servers as parents)

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23) When clicking on links under "Help" from the Nagios xi GUI, I get a pop-up about cookies (running browser from a jump server, and I can't modify settings)

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24) Please make the "Config Name" field searchable, or add a search window for each column (like ServiceNow does with a searchable row below column headers)

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25) Please add the "Alias" info to the Config Name on the CCM Hosts & Services config pages, like the Host & Service Status pages have

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26) When using the NCPA Configuration Wizard, please add the OS name (Windows, Linux, etc.) in the "Icon image 'alt' text" field under Host Management -> Misc Settings

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1) Please add a default configuration switch on each of the NCPA Configuration Wizard pages so the values can be changed/locked

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27) NCPA Configuration Wizard (Step 2) resets the fields to default when the "Host Name" field is blank, not nice

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28) NCPA Configuration Wizard, when the fully qualified device name is added to the Address Field (Step 1) please auto load the short name in "Host Name" field (Step 2)

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29) NCPA Configuration Wizard, please add separate monitoring settings for Hosts and Services where appropriate with a default switch to lock changed values

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30) NCPA Configuration Wizard, please make it remember the last values used (maybe just for the current session) for Token and System/OS on (Step 1) page

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32) NCPA Configuration Wizard, move the "Manage Templates" link up to the first page (Step 1) so you don't lose the configurations just entered when clicking

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33) On the Service Status page, the column "Attempt" does not sort properly

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34) Please add a way to schedule vacations (start/end) or on call rotations for contacts so pager and email notifications can be turned off/on per schedule

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35) On the Nagios xi GUI, please highlight tab/screen you are currently viewing (i.e. Home, Views, Dashboards, Reports, Configure, Tools, Help, Admin)

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36) Would be nice for the search field on the GUI header (above) that also helps find items in the frames, and takes you to the page view/selection

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37) The NCPA Wizard doesn't check the database to see if you have previously configured things, and probably should so values don't get wiped when the Wizard is rerun to add services/drives, etc.

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I wasn't sure how to present these ideas, and there may be work arounds for some of these I have yet to discover, so I apologize, but please share!

Hopefully someone else will see the value some of these suggestions could have? Please let me know if any of the above ideas needs explanation, and I'll try to submit a screen grab, or draw something on a napkin.

Is there a way to vote here?

Just a thought...

Craig

There isn't currently a way to vote on anything. That is quite the list, thanks for the feedback!

I have submitted these to our feature-requests channel with a link back to this thread, please keep in mind that the decision to implement the enhancements is at the discretion of our development team.

Other than the default repos for your OS that it needs access to, it also needs access to these:
You can modify the host/service templates that they use and set them to disabled, then you can switch to a different template when you want it to go live for notifications.

27) NCPA Configuration Wizard (Step 2) resets the fields to default when the "Host Name" field is blank, not nice

I have submitted a bug report for this so development can fix it:

NEW TASK ID 15427 created - Nagios xi Bug Report: xi - NCPA Wizard - Thresholds/Settings not stored when Host Name is blank and you click Next on page 2

I currently have updates working in production from the GUI through our proxy with these domains only:

.nagios.com
exchange.nagios.org

Plus having firewall updates done, things auto-magically started working.

Doubt I'll be able to get the other paths approved for the proxy.

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Thanks for the suggestion for #13, easy enough to do

And thanks for submitting the bug fix.

Happy Holidays!

Craig

Ok no problem, I was just listing them from the last time I ran a wireshark and saw what it was trying to reach out to. If it's working, it's working.

Happy Holidays to you as well! Thanks!

Nire feature request list

Just wanted to add that this should be configurable:

20) Adding contacts to groups should be controlled from the groups side (and not be able to be added from contacts), please make only viewable from the contact side (drove me crazy tying to keep the in sync)

As me and others are using both way or only from contacts.

Grtz

Willem

Thanks, I agree we should have flexibility in configuring our tools, but we should also be able to lock things down as needed to fit our particular wants/needs.

Guess I should have worded that one differently...

Happy New Year!

Great ideas! I included a link back to this post so development will see the discussion.

Thank you!