There is a new version of this tutorial available for Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish).

How to Install Nagios Server Monitoring on Ubuntu 16.04

This tutorial exists for these OS versions

Prerequisites

2 Ubuntu 16.04 - 64bit servers
- 1 - Nagios Host with IP: 192.168.1.9
- 2 - Ubuntu Client with IP: 192.168.1.10
Root/Sudo access

What we will do in this tutorial:

Software the package dependencies like - LAMP etc.
User and group configuration.
Installing Nagios.
Configuring Apache.
Testing the Nagios Server.
Adding a Host to Monitor.

Installing the prerequisites

Nagios requires the gcc compiler and build-essentials for the compilation, LAMP (Apache, PHP, MySQL) for the Nagios web interface and Sendmail to send alerts from the server. To install all those packages, run this command (it's just 1 line):

sudo apt-get install wget build-essential apache2 php apache2-mod-php7.0 php-gd libgd-dev sendmail unzip

User and group configuration

For Nagios to run, you have to create a new user for Nagios. We will name the user "nagios" and additionally create a group named "nagcmd". We add the new user to the group as shown below:

useradd nagios
groupadd nagcmd
usermod -a -G nagcmd nagios
usermod -a -G nagios,nagcmd www-data

Installing Nagios

Step 1 - Download and extract the Nagios core

cd ~
wget https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagioscore/releases/nagios-4.2.0.tar.gz
tar -xzf nagios*.tar.gz
cd nagios-4.2.0

Step 2 - Compile Nagios

Before you build Nagios, you will have to configure it with the user and the group you have created earlier.

./configure --with-nagios-group=nagios --with-command-group=nagcmd

For more information please use: ./configure --help .

Now to install Nagios:

make all
sudo make install
sudo make install-commandmode
sudo make install-init
sudo make install-config
/usr/bin/install -c -m 644 sample-config/httpd.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/nagios.conf

And copy evenhandler directory to the nagios directory:

cp -R contrib/eventhandlers/ /usr/local/nagios/libexec/
chown -R nagios:nagios /usr/local/nagios/libexec/eventhandlers

Step 3 - Install the Nagios Plugins

Download and extract the Nagios plugins:

cd ~
wget https://nagios-plugins.org/download/nagios-plugins-2.1.2.tar.gz
tar -xzf nagios-plugins*.tar.gz
cd nagios-plugin-2.1.2/

Install the Nagios plugin's with the commands below:

./configure --with-nagios-user=nagios --with-nagios-group=nagios --with-openssl
make
make install

Step 4 - Configure Nagios

After the installation phase is complete, you can find the default configuration of Nagios in /usr/local/nagios/.

We will configure Nagios and Nagios contact.

Edit default nagios configuration with vim:

vim /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

uncomment line 51 for the host monitor configuration.

cfg_dir=/usr/local/nagios/etc/servers

Save and exit.

Add a new folder named servers:

mkdir -p /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers

The Nagios contact can be configured in the contact.cfg file. To open it use:

vim /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/contacts.cfg

Then replace the default email with your own email.

Configuring Apache

Step 1 - enable Apache modules

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod cgi

You can use the htpasswd command to configure a user nagiosadmin for the nagios web interface

sudo htpasswd -c /usr/local/nagios/etc/htpasswd.users nagiosadmin

and type your password.

Step 2 - enable the Nagios virtualhost

sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/nagios.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

Step 3 - Start Apache and Nagios

service apache2 restart
service nagios start

When Nagios starts, you may see the following error :

Starting nagios (via systemctl): nagios.serviceFailed

And this is how to fix it:

cd /etc/init.d/
cp /etc/init.d/skeleton /etc/init.d/nagios

Now edit the Nagios file:

vim /etc/init.d/nagios

... and add the following code:

DESC="Nagios"
NAME=nagios
DAEMON=/usr/local/nagios/bin/$NAME
DAEMON_ARGS="-d /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg"
PIDFILE=/usr/local/nagios/var/$NAME.lock

Make it executable and start Nagios:

chmod +x /etc/init.d/nagios
service apache2 restart
servuce nagios start

Testing the Nagios Server

Please open your browser and access the Nagios server ip, in my case: http://192.168.1.9/nagios.

Nagios Login with apache htpasswd.

Nagios Admin Dashboard

Adding a Host to Monitor

In this tutorial, I will add an Ubuntu host to monitor to the Nagios server we have made above.

Nagios Server IP : 192.168.1.9
Ubuntu Host IP : 192.168.1.10

Step 1 - Connect to ubuntu host

ssh [email protected]

Step 2 - Install NRPE Service

sudo apt-get install nagios-nrpe-server nagios-plugins

Step 3 - Configure NRPE

After the installation is complete, edit the nrpe file /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg:

vim /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg

... and add Nagios Server IP 192.168.1.9 to the server_address.

server_address=192.168.1.9

Step 4 - Restart NRPE

service nagios-nrpe-server restart

Step 5 - Add Ubuntu Host to Nagios Server

Please connect to the Nagios server:

ssh [email protected]

Then create a new file for the host configuration in /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers/.

vim /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers/ubuntu_host.cfg

Add the following lines:

# Ubuntu Host configuration file

define host {
        use                          linux-server
        host_name                    ubuntu_host
        alias                        Ubuntu Host
        address                      192.168.1.10
        register                     1
}

define service {
      host_name                       ubuntu_host
      service_description             PING
      check_command                   check_ping!100.0,20%!500.0,60%
      max_check_attempts              2
      check_interval                  2
      retry_interval                  2
      check_period                    24x7
      check_freshness                 1
      contact_groups                  admins
      notification_interval           2
      notification_period             24x7
      notifications_enabled           1
      register                        1
}

define service {
      host_name                       ubuntu_host
      service_description             Check Users
      check_command           check_local_users!20!50
      max_check_attempts              2
      check_interval                  2
      retry_interval                  2
      check_period                    24x7
      check_freshness                 1
      contact_groups                  admins
      notification_interval           2
      notification_period             24x7
      notifications_enabled           1
      register                        1
}

define service {
      host_name                       ubuntu_host
      service_description             Local Disk
      check_command                   check_local_disk!20%!10%!/
      max_check_attempts              2
      check_interval                  2
      retry_interval                  2
      check_period                    24x7
      check_freshness                 1
      contact_groups                  admins
      notification_interval           2
      notification_period             24x7
      notifications_enabled           1
      register                        1
}

define service {
      host_name                       ubuntu_host
      service_description             Check SSH
      check_command                   check_ssh
      max_check_attempts              2
      check_interval                  2
      retry_interval                  2
      check_period                    24x7
      check_freshness                 1
      contact_groups                  admins
      notification_interval           2
      notification_period             24x7
      notifications_enabled           1
      register                        1
}

define service {
      host_name                       ubuntu_host
      service_description             Total Process
      check_command                   check_local_procs!250!400!RSZDT
      max_check_attempts              2
      check_interval                  2
      retry_interval                  2
      check_period                    24x7
      check_freshness                 1
      contact_groups                  admins
      notification_interval           2
      notification_period             24x7
      notifications_enabled           1
      register                        1
}

You can find many check_command in /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/commands.cfg file. See there if you want to add more services like DHCP, POP etc.

And now check the configuration:

/usr/local/nagios/bin/nagios -v /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

... to see if the configuration is correct.

Step 6 - Restart all services

On the Ubuntu Host start NRPE Service:

service nagios-nrpe-server restart

... and on the Nagios server, start Apache and Nagios:

service apache2 restart
service nagios restart

Step 7 - Testing the Ubuntu Host

Open the Nagios server from the browser and see the ubuntu_host being monitored.

The Ubuntu host is available on monitored host.

All services monitored without error.

Conclusion

Nagios is an open source application for monitoring a system. Nagios has been widely used because of the ease of configuration. Nagios in support by various plugins, and you can even create your own plugins. Look here for more information.

view as pdf | print

Share this page:

37 Comment(s)

Add comment

Comments

By: Alberto

Buenos días, he intentado configurar nagios en ubuntu 16.04 y no consigo que me muestre nada bien.. a ver si me puedes ayudar.

Gracias.

Te adjunto capturas de pantalla..

By: Vagner

When I'm running the following command, on Step 3 - Start Apache and Nagios, in the section Configuring Apache:

service nagios start, it returns:

Failed to start nagios.service: Unit nagios.service not found.

By: Tim

2 things:

Couldn't start nagios as a service. I didn't have a skeleton file./etc/init.d/nagios startworks.

I had to addln -s /usr/local/nagios/share /var/www/html/nagiosin order to surf to it.

By: johannes patti

same issue what did you change??

By: Tony

Thanks for this guide.

I think your configuration for monitoring the remote host is wrong though.

Under step 5, you talk about configuring the remote host with this config file

vim /usr/local/nagios/etc/servers/ubuntu_host.cfg

However, all the check commands in your example are 'local' ones, meaning they are going to be checking the fog server rather than the client.

From my understanding, in most cases removing the word 'local' from the various check_commands should fix this, for example check_local_disk!20%!10%!/ becomes check_disk!20%!10%!/

By: Douglas7861

Hi Tony, i have problems to configure the remote host, can u help me?

By: Karl

I have used Nagios for years, I always look for an install guide for setup as I don't add enough setups to commit it to memory. At least I thought so, this is so clearly and concisely laid out that I will likely remember how. Great tutorial, thank you for writing it.

By: Michael Micthell

before doing a make all for Nagios, make sure unzip is installed. Error 127 occurs for angular-1.3.9.

sudo apt-get install unzip

By: DarthKegRaider

Hey buddy, great tutorial!

I found a typo in your script however. Just before the "Testing nagios server" you have:chmod +x /etc/init.d/nagiosservice apache2 restartservuce nagios start^^ Service .. I was copy / pasting and Ubuntu chucked a wobbly at me :) Anyway, I'll keep poking down the page, thanks!

By: DarthKegRaider

Sorry to pester again,

But I was unable to get the Daemon running, and the "service nagios restart" issued an error. I googled around first, like a good little nerd, and came back with a solution to make it work. Can you add this to your page of awesome please!? I found it at this site.("http://serverfault.com/questions/774498/failed-to-start-nagios-service-unit-nagios-service-failed-to-load-no-such-file")

sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/nagios.service

and added the following to the file:

[Unit] Description=Nagios BindTo=network.target [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target [Service] User=nagios Group=nagios Type=simple ExecStart=/usr/local/nagios/bin/nagios /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

Save, then type the following:

sudo systemctl enable /etc/systemd/system/nagios.service sudo systemctl start nagios sudo systemctl restart nagios

By: Carles

Great tutorial,

You need to add snmp package for Nagios Plugins to avoid

(No output on stdout) stderr: execvp(/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_snmp, ...) failed. errno is 2: No such file or directory

sudo apt-get install snmp snmp-mibs-downloadersudo download-mibssudo service nagios restart

By: Dirk

I think you need to add libssl-dev to your prerequisites. Without it, you can compile the plugins, but you'll see "--with-openssl: no" and the options requiring SSL will not work.

By: Srikant

thank you very much...it worked fine for me

can u post steps for monitoring mysql server on host

By: ricardo

Hello,

could you explain me, how i can add a plugging and executed or add to command_check.

By: Deepak1501

Thank you for a great tutorial. Only thing is the service Nagios did not start. /etc/init.d/nagios start does work. Everything else is perfect

By: sebastian

Thank you very much for this great and good working tutorial. I found the following issues and it's solution. Maybe you can add them to this tutorial.

1) on Step 3 - Install the Nagios Plugins the last command is missing an "s" on "cd nagios-plugins-2.1.2/"

2) on configuring apache on executing "service nagios start" I get the error message "Failed to start nagios.service: Unit nagios.service not found.". The solution is described here : http://serverfault.com/questions/774498/failed-to-start-nagios-service-unit-nagios-service-failed-to-load-no-such-file

By: LHammonds

According to the Nagios Install Manual, you need to run the command "update-rc.d nagios defaults" to make the service work properly on Ubuntu. Do it right after these steps which were also documented in the manual:

cp /etc/init.d/skeleton /etc/init.d/nagiosvi /etc/init.d/nagios (add the following lines)DESC="Nagios"NAME=nagiosDAEMON=/usr/local/nagios/bin/$NAMEDAEMON_ARGS="-d /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg"PIDFILE=/usr/local/nagios/var/$NAME.lock

By: thomas

Thanks a lot

By: Amer

Great tutorial.

To avoid an error on restarting nagios service, please add a line under Configuring Apache.

chmod +x /etc/init.d/nagiosservice apache2 restart

systemctl daemon-reloadservice nagios start

By: Bill Ward

awesome post! got my nagios server up and running quick. Thanks for posting this

By: Justin

Hi,

While this guide was about 90% helpful, I came across the error that nagios.service wasn't found. I found another post on google that helps with that problem.

https://serverfault.com/questions/774498/failed-to-start-nagios-service-unit-nagios-service-failed-to-load-no-such-file

Doing the extra steps in the answer on that page allowed me to get Nagios up and running.

By: Ruben

Thanks for this article, it's very usefull!

I have some suggestions for this manual:

* In line 'cd nagios-plugin-2.1.2/' the real value in my computer was 'cd nagios-plugins-2.1.2/'

* When you said 'When Nagios starts, you may see the following error :' I had this error instead:

'Failed to start nagios.service: Unit nagios.service not found.', I fixed it with this:

https://serverfault.com/questions/774498/failed-to-start-nagios-service-unit-nagios-service-failed-to-load-no-such-file

* Last one is a mistake in line 'servuce nagios start', obviously it's 'service'

Regards.

By: gagan

Thanks, very helpfull.

By: Timothy Tucker

The "Creating an Ubuntu Host" section doesn't actually monitor the disks, users, or procs of the remote system. All your config does is create another host definition, ping it, then Very misleadingly monitors its own disk, users, and procs but labels them as the properties of the remote server.

check_local_disk, check_local_procs, check_local_users

By: Henry A. Castro

Great Tutorial. I had my nagios online within an hour or so following the tutorial. only issue I had was the nagios service would not restart and I ended up using the comments to figure out resolution to the error.

By: shashi kant

Thanks a lot friend . i have successfully installed nagios through this guide.

Need one changes in serction "

Configuring Apache Step 3 - Start Apache and Nagios

Add below comment:-

sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/nagios.service

[Unit]

Description=Nagios

BindTo=network.target

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Service]

User=nagios

Group=nagios

Type=simple

ExecStart=/usr/local/nagios/bin/nagios /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

or follow below link:-

http://serverfault.com/questions/774498/failed-to-start-nagios-service-unit-nagios-service-failed-to-load-no-such-file

By: shashi kant

HI Team,

Thanks for guidence, its working fine. now i want to monitor Linux and windows host from Ubuntu-Nagios server.

So please help me.

By: Culip

This tutorial works. Now I can see the Nagois Web UI on my browser. I am using Ubuntu 16.04.4 native, standalone.

"Installing Nagois: Step 4" and "Configuring Apache: Step 1 & 2", which don't present in Nagois' official installation guide, seem to be a key. Thanks!!

By: ravi

u r awesome

By: Thevarx

#!/bin/shapt updateapt-get install wget build-essential apache2 php apache2 php apache2-mod-php7.0 php-gd libgd-dev sendmail unzipuseradd nagiosgroupadd nagcmdusermod -a -G nagcmd nagiosusermod -a -G nagios, nagcmd www-datacd ~wget https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagioscore/releases/nagios-4.2.0.tar.gztar -zxvf nagios-4.2.0.tar.gzcd nagios-4.2.0./configure --with-nagios-group=nagios --with-command-group=nagcmdmake allmake installmake install-commandmodemake install-initmake install-config/usr/bin/install -c -m 644 sample-config/httpd.conf /etc/apache2/site-available/nagios.confcp -R contrib//eventhandlers/ /usr/local/nagios/libexewchown -R nagios:nagios /usr/local/nagios/libexec/eventhandlerscd ~wget https://nagios-plugins.org/download/nagios-plugins-2.1.2.tar.gztar -zxvf nagios-plugins-2.1.2.tar.gzcd nagios-plugins-2.1.2./configure --with-nagios-user=nagios --with-nagios-group=nagios --with-opensslmakemake install

By: Cosmin

Everything worked . Great tutorial :)

By: jackson

Bind to port 5666 on 192.168.2.28 failed: Cannot assign requested address

By: Cody

step three should be:

cd nagios-plugins-2.1.2/There is an s that needs to be added onto plugin(s)

By: Henry

I have a problem running the apache service it say`s (unit nagios.service not found) I wish someone can help me thanks!

By: Pink

Thanks so much!

By: Beginner to be per

i cant created a symbolic link in sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/nagios.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ could u help ?

By: redd9

Thank you, worked great!

Log in or Sign up