[op5-users] where to go from here

[Andreas Ericsson]

On 09/10/2009 05:32 AM, Russell Jennings wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I installed merlin on a test box, read through the readme, and it
> seems like it's up and running. but i'm not sure where to go from
> here.
>

Then it's actually time to ask: Where do YOU want to go today?

> What I want to do now: have a noc and a poller, just to see it work.
> What I want to do eventually : central NOC which has info for all
> sites, and then pollers at each site to do the checks, ideally, some
> with a local NOC for that particular hostgroup of hosts.
>
> Also, what IS a peer? i understand a NOC is the headend, the poller
> does the checks, where does the peer come into play?
>

Peer, n.: one that is equal to another in status, achievement, or value

Imagine that you have a world-wide network to monitor. You set up your
"super-NOC" somewhere, and set it up in a redundant fashion so you have
3 noc nodes at the super-NOC site. Those 3 noc nodes are peers to each
other and will share all information.

You then go on to subdivide the network further, making one smaller NOC
for each of USA, Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. On each of
those sites, you'll want to set up two nodes that work redundantly, so
you make sure to do that. Those two nodes are peers to each other, but
pollers to the super-NOC nodes.

You can continue to subdivide the network in this manner indefinitely.

> I guess what I'm not sure of, to setup a new poller, would I need to
> install nagios in full (or just the check plugins?), and then a full
> blown merlin install? or would the merlin install use the NOC's mysql
> DB?
>

The peer requires setting up a full nagios installation and also a
full merlin installation. You can, mostly, clone the two machines,
only replacing ip addresses to the peer systems in your merlin.conf
for each peer you set up.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson at op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231

Considering the successes of the wars on alcohol, poverty, drugs and
terror, I think we should give some serious thought to declaring war
on peace.