Check manual page of services

services

Author: Mathias Kettner

License: GPL

Distribution: official part of Check_MK

Supported Agents: Windows

Check the current state of a Windows service. Each service is either running or stopped or in a transitional state like starting or stopping. This check becomes critical if the service in question is not in the state running. It is getting UNKNOWN if the service is missing on the system at all.

If you have just a small number of Windows hosts to monitor, manual check configuration with checks += will probably do. With a larger number of hosts we propose using inventory_services. This allows auto-detection of services according to their names, current states and start types. The auto-detection can also make use of host tags in order to use different rules on different sets of hosts (for example for monitoring certain services only on production servers). Inventory and manual checks can be used in parallel.

Item

The name of the service as string. Please note, that the agent replaces spaces in the service names with underscores. If you are unsure about the correct spelling of the name then please look at the output of the agent (cmk -d HOSTNAME). The service names are in the first column of the section <<>>. Please do not mix up the service names with the display names of the services. Those are just being displayed as a further information.

Check parameters

None.

Performance data

None.

Inventory

The inventory function of this check helps you to auto-detect then services that should be monitored on your hosts. Because Check_MK cannot know, which services are important for you, you have to configure some rules.

As of version 1.1.10i2 it is very flexible, while still being compatible with the old simple-style format. In the variable inventory_services you specify a list of inventory declarations. In the easiest form, such a declaration is simply a string: the name of a service. On every host that service is found running, a check for that service will be created during inventory.

If you prefix the name with a tilde ~, then the string is interpreted as a regular expression matching the beginning of the service name. So the declaration "~Audio" will mach AudioSrv, and ".*Mobile" will match all services containing the work Mobile. All patterns are case sensitive. Please note: the check being created will not contain the regular expression but the precise spelling of the service. One rule with a regular expression can create several checks.

It is also possible to depend on the current state and/or the start type of the service when deciding whether to create a check. States and start types are appended and separated by a space. For example "LanmanServer auto" will match all services with the name LanmanServer which have the start type auto. Other possible start types are boot, demand, disabled and system. Please look at the agent output if you want to know, which kind of start types exist in your environment. The declaration "Browser running" means the same as just ommitting running, since that is the default. If you want to combine a state and start type, do this like the agent does, by using a slash: "LmHosts running/auto" will create a check for the service LmHosts, if that service if found running and has the start type auto.

If you need your inventory rules to depend on properties of the host or just apply on some selected hosts, you can use "tuple"-entries instead of strings. Such an entries consist of an optional list of host tags, the keyword ALL_HOSTS or an explicit list of hosts and a list of service declarations like the one discussed above. Please consult the examples for details.

Configuration variables

Variable	Type	Description
inventory_services	list of entries	List of service declarations. For each matching service found on the target host, one check will be added to your monitoring.

Examples

# inventory will add checks for the following services
# if found running on the target host:

inventory_services = [
  # Monitor "MySQL_Server" if found running on a host
  "MySQL_Server",
  # Monitor "TSMMgR" if start type is auto (regardless if running)
  "TSMMgR auto",
  # Monitor "LmHosts", if found running and start type is auto
  "LmHosts running/auto",
  # Monitor all services containing "OraLsnr", if start type auto
  "~.*OraLsnr auto",
  # Pick *all* services with start type auto (a lot!)
  "~ auto",

  # Rules based on host tags (service declarations are in a list!)
  # On all hosts with the tag prod look for "Browser" and "CiSvc":
  ( [ "prod" ], ALL_HOSTS, [
      "Browser running",
      "CiSvc running/auto",
    ]
  ),

  # On super mega important hosts, monitor all services
  # with start type auto as separate checks!
  ( [ "super", "mega" ], ALL_HOSTS, [ "~ auto" ] ),
  ]

# Manual checks without inventory. Those checks will be created
# without calling cmk -I - regardless of whether those services
# exist and that hosts.
checks += [
 # make sure, that service "cimlistener" is running on all hosts
 # with the tag "win"
 ( [ "win" ], ALL_HOSTS, "services", "cimlistener", None ),
 # The service "Apache" should is monitored only on two specific hosts
 ( ["websrv01", "websrv02"], "services", "Apache", None ),
]