Check_MK - The Official Documentation

Getting started

This is the official reference for Check_MK. It is organized as a collection of articles about the various aspects of monitoring with Check_MK. Before reading one the specialized articles you should first start with one of the introductions presented below:

• Getting Started - How to install and use Check_MK
• Turbostart Guide - A very compact Getting started for experienced users
• Migration Notes - Read this whenever you are updating to a new version

Basic Articles

Further reading and more detailed information about all aspects of Check_MK is found here:

• Inventory - How Check_MK automatically finds items to check
• Host Tags - Making your configuration easier with host tags
• Check Parameters - How to define levels and parameters of inventorized checks
• The Linux Agent - How to install and test the Linux agent
• Monitoring Windows - How to monitor Windows hosts with Check_MK
• SNMP Checks - Check_MK can be used for SNMP checking
• Filesystems - How to monitor Filesystems
• Logfiles - Monitoring of Logfiles on Windows and Linux/UNIX
• Local checks - How to integrate your own checks into Check_MK
• MK's Remote Plugin Executor - How to integrate standard Nagios into the agent
• Check_MK and OMD - NEW Some notes about using Check_MK in OMD
• Benchmarks - NEW Learn how many checks per second a well tuned system can do
• FAQ - Frequently asked questions

References

• Calling check_mk - An overview over all command line options of check_mk
• Configuration variables - An overview over all configuration variables for main.mk
• Table of Checks - Manual pages of most of the checks

Advanced Topics

The following articles cover advanced topics for those who are familiar with the basic operation of Check_MK:

• Legacy Checks - Using "normal" Nagios checks together with Check_MK
• Manually Configured Checks - How to configure checks that do not support inventory
• Configuration Files - How Check_MK reads its configuration files
• Service Dependencies - How to suppress redundant notifications when services depend upon each other
• Hosts' parents - How to define the parents of a host for Nagios
• Scanning for Parents - Check_MK can automatically detect your network topology
• Monitoring Clusters - Check_MK provides a solution for monitoring clustered services
• Service Aggregation - Combine a group of services into one new service
• Datasource Programs - How to use ssh or rsh for monitoring with Check_MK
• Inventory Checks - Let Check_MK make regular checks for new services
• Monitoring ORACLE - How to monitor ORACLE databases with Check_MK
• Cache Files - How Check_MK uses cache files to speed up inventory
• Backup & Restore - Backup and Restore of Check_MK's data
• Simulation Mode - All about dry running Check_MK
• Calling setup - Details of the setup script - useful also for packagers
• Donating host data - Help the project by providing agent data of hosts
• Monitoring FreeBSD - NEW How to monitor FreeBSD with Check_MK

Writing Extensions

Developing your own checks and other extensions for Check_MK is not as difficult as you might think. Our documentation for this is not yet complete. But we have already some good articles of how to write and package checks:

• Writing Checks (Introduction) - A tutorial for writing your own checks
• Agent based checks - Writing checks based on the Check_MK agent
• Error handling - How to (not) handle errors in checks
• SNMP based checks - Writing checks that use SNMP
• SNMP auto detection - Automatic detection of checks with cmk -I needs your help
• SNMP advanced features - How several problems specific to SNMP can be solved
• Working with stored SNMP walks - Developing checks for hardware you have no access to
• Working with counters - How to make use of performance data that comes as a counter
• Include files and shared sections - How to share code with other checks
• Dictionary based parameters - 1.1.11i2 How to handle complex check parameters
• Check Manpages - How to write a man pages for a check
• Check_MK Packages - How to create and work with extension packages
• Guidelines for Checks - Checks becoming official part of Check_MK must adher to our guidelines
• Multisite Perfometer - How to write perfometers for Multisite

Multisite

Version 1.1.3 of Check_MK introduces Multisite - a new and innovative GUI for viewing Nagios status information and controlling your monitoring system. It is based on MK Livestatus and aims at replacing the Nagios web GUI (also known as "the CGIs"). Multisite supports distributed monitoring in a very efficient way. Read more:

• Introduction - Learn what is making Multisite unique
• Setup - Setting up and configuring Multisite
• Multisite and mod_proxy - NEW Using mod_proxy for HTTP references to remote site
• Authorization - How to configure who may see and do what
• Limiting Queries - Multisite protects your system from too large queries
• Playing alarm sounds - How to play alarm sounds if hosts or services are critical
• Connectivity Monitoring - How to avoid timeouts when remote sites are unreachable
• High latency Connections - Multisite setup with slow or high latency network connections
• Custom Notes - How to display host and service specific notes in the GUI
• Configuration Variables - An overview over (not yet) all configuration variables for multisite.mk
• Host and Service Icons - How to make your icon_image work.
• Display Options - How to embed views into other applications
• Customize Layout - How to customize the layout of Multisite
• Sorting views - How to customize the sorting of Multisite views
• Connecting Nagstamon - How to connect Nagstamon to Multisite
• Dashboards - 1.1.12 How to create your own dashboards
• Custom Login Dialog - 1.1.13 How to use a HTML login dialog instead of basic auth
• Localization - NEW How to translate Check_MK Multisite into other languages

WATO - Check_MK's Web Administration Tool

The version 1.1.9i2 introduces a new application in the increasingly inaccurately named trilogy of components of Check_MK: WATO. WATO is a web based administration tool for Check_MK. It allows you to manage your hosts and services to be monitored and perfectly supports Check_MK's mechanism of inventory to autodetect services to be checked on a host. WATO allows to move a substantial part of the daily workload from the monitoring administrator to his collegues. Read more:

• Introduction - Ideas and concepts of WATO
• Setup - How to setup and configure WATO
• Using - Using WATO
• Configuration Variables - A reference of WATO settings in multisite.mk
• Controlling NagVis permissions - 1.1.13 How to manage NagVis permissions with WATO
• Logfile Pattern Analyzer - 1.1.2b2 How to debug/analyze logfile patterns

Check_MK Business Intelligence (BI)

Since version 1.1.11i1 Check_MK has a very interesting new addon: Check_MK BI. If you are impatient then you can try out the current versions in our GIT repository, which contains a development preview of BI.

• Introduction - Learn how BI can get more out of your monitoring data
• Aggregation Rules - How to configure business aggregations
• Creating BI Services - How to create Nagios services out of BI aggregates and do notifications

MK Livestatus and NEW Livecheck

MK Livestatus The fastest and easiest way of accessing status and historic data in Nagios and Icinga. It is now the default access method for NagVis, Check_MK Multisite and many other popular addons.

• Livestatus - Check_MK's Livestatus Module provides immediate access to Nagios' status and log data
• Livecheck - A feature new in 1.1.13i1 that dramatically speeds up the execution of active checks

Back home

• Back to the Check_MK Homepage