NSCA module

The NSCA daemon module is used to receive NSCA packets and submit them to the Shinken command pipe. The NSCA module can be loaded by the Receiver (best solution) or Arbiter process. It will listen on port TCP/5667 for NSCA packets.

Tip

Passive checks can be submitted natively to the Shinken command pipe <thebasics/passivechecks> or from remote hosts to modules, such as NSCA, AMQP or collectd, loaded in the Shinken Arbiter or Receiver process. AMQP is implemented for integration with the Canopsis Hypervisor, but could be re-used for generic messaging.

Note

The Shinken NSCA module implementation is currently limited to the "xor" obfuscation/encryption.

To append the NSCA module to the Shinken receiver daemon, simply add (or uncomment) in the receiver configuration:

define receiver {
    receiver_name   receiver-master
    address         localhost
    port            7773
    spare           0

    ## Optional parameters
    timeout             3   ; Ping timeout
    data_timeout        120 ; Data send timeout
    max_check_attempts  3   ; If ping fails N or more, then the node is dead
    check_interval      60  ; Ping node every N seconds

    ## Modules for Receiver
    # - named-pipe             = Open the named pipe nagios.cmd
    # - nsca                    = NSCA server
    # - TSCA                    = TSCA server
    # - ws-arbiter              = WebService for pushing results to the arbiter
    # - Collectd                = Receive collectd perfdata
    modules   nsca

    # Enable https or not
    use_ssl             0
    # enable certificate/hostname check, will avoid man in the middle attacks
    hard_ssl_name_check  0

    ## Advanced Feature
    direct_routing      0   ; If enabled, it will directly send commands to the
                            ; schedulers if it know about the hostname in the
                            ; command.
    realm   All
}

This daemon is totally optional. Its main goal is to get all passive "things" (checks but why not other commands) in distant realms. It will act as a "passive receive buffer" and will then dispatch the data or commands directly to the appropriate Scheduler or Arbiter process.

Data can be received from any Realm, thus the Realm option is nonsensical.

It is launched like all other daemons:

/etc/init.d/shinken-receiver start

Tip

Alternatively, for small installations you can configure an NSCA module inside your Arbiter instead of the Receiver. It will listen the TCP/5667 port for NSCA packets.

To configure the NSCA module in your Arbiter instead of Receiver, add the NSCA module to the arbiter configuration.

define arbiter {
    ... 

    modules        ..., nsca

}

The NSCA module configuration is defined in the module configuration file: nsca.cfg.

Default configuration is convenient for 'recent' NSCA client implementing NSCA version 3. This configuration has been tested with Linux send_nsca 2.9.1 and with Windows NSClient versions 0.4.1 and 0.4.2.

Note

Received NSCA packets which are not containing version 3 information are dropped by the module!

## Module:      nsca
## Loaded by:   Arbiter, Receiver
# Receive check results sent with NSCA protocol.
define module {
  module_name         nsca
  module_type         nsca_server

  # Default is listening on all address, TCP port 5667
  host                      *
  port                      5667

  # Encryption method:
  # 0 for no encryption (default)
  # 1 for simple Xor
  # No other encryption method available!
  encryption_method   0
  password                  helloworld

  # Maximum packet age defines the maximum delay
  # (in seconds) for a packet to be considered as staled
  max_packet_age        60

  # If check_future_packet attribute is defined, packets
  # more recent than current timestamp are dropped
  check_future_packet 

  # Payload length is length of effective data sent :
  # . -1 to accept any payload length
  # . 512 or 4096 depending upon NSCA client configuration
  # If packet payload is not the right size, packet is dropped
  payload_length      -1

  # Buffer length is maximum length of received data :
  # should be greater than payload length
  # Default is 8192
  buffer_length         8192
}