What is a check ?
Checks or Plugins are standalone extensions to Shinken Enterprise that make it possible to monitor anything and everything are configuration elements that answer to such questions :
- How to monitor my Host ?
- How to monitor my application or service ?
- When to monitor ?
- What to do when states change ?
- Who will be notified and how ?
Checks use Commands to execute Plugins.
Plugins are command line tools performing tests, and returning Plugins process command-line arguments, perform a specific check, and then return the results to Shinken Enterprise. They Plugins can be compiled binaries (written in C, C++, etc) or executable scripts (shell, any form of executable program the operating system that will execute it can understand (Binaries, Python, Perl, PHP, Bash, VB etc.).
Commands are configuration elements making link between plugins and Shinken Enterprise. It is used to describe how plugins work, what arguments are necessary, and how to pass Shinken values (Data) to it.
Lots of plugins and commands are provided with Shinken Enterprise, responding to many cases of use :
- network checks like TCP, ICMP
- Systems plugins like Memory, CPU, Disks
- Service plugins like HTTP, Active Directory, DHCP
- High level plugins like Oracle, PostgreSQL, Tomcat
Accessing Checks Configuration
...