Chat with Joerg Linge developer/maintainer of pnp4nagios

Today I got an opportunity to chat with developer/maintainer Joerg Linge of pnp4nagios.

Chat was mostly about the new feature of using multiple Data Sources for a service in pnp4nagos.

RRD_STORAE_TYPE = SINGLE means: Store every Datasource in one single RRD Database i.e. for check_icmp this is DS 'pl' and DS 'rta'

With RRD_STORAE_TYPE = MULTILPLE every DS is stored in its own RRD Database i.e. host/service_pl.rrd and host/service_rta.rrd

RRD_STORAE_TYPE = MULTILPLE should only used when a plugin is able to change the number of DS like check_disk does.

Me:  Is it ok to set  RRD_STORAE_TYPE = MULTIPLE globally in process_perfdata.cfg for new installation of Joerg? when one do not have any RRD data at all.
Me:  tomorrow i am going to deploy Joerg 0.6.x on our production nagios server.
Me:  thanks.
Joerg : it depends
Joerg : happy new year!
Me:  happy new year :)
Me:  ok,
Me:  going with MULTIPLE has no drawback ok?
Joerg : multiple mean more Disk I/O because of more RRDs to update

Joerg : on sytems with 10000+ rrds you have to look on your disk I/O clisely
Me:  well this really need very close monitoring of I/O which is hard to follow :s
Me:  better stick with SINGLE :)
Joerg : right
Joerg : there are some plugins with changing DS counts like check_disk
Joerg : in this case multiple is an option
Joerg : or check_oracle_health for tablespace monitoring
Me:  we are using check_disk extensively.
Me:  for checking servers partitions.
Joerg : one check for all filesystems?
Me:  well mostly separate check_disk for each fs, however we have some servers with lot of fs onthese servers we are using single check_disk to check multiple fs in one go.
Me:  with -p option
Me:  those are mostly HP-UX
Joerg : so check_disk can be used with multiple
Me:  ok to use multiple have to configure it globally?
Joerg : wenn you add a nw filesystem, rrdtool is not able to update the rrd databases
Joerg : lol german wenn
Joerg : english when
Joerg : sorry
Me:  np, i thought its typo :)
Me:  ok to use multiple have to configure it globally? or their is another way around?
Joerg : moment
Joerg : http://docs.Joerg.org/pnp-0.6/tpl_custom
Me:  looking.
Joerg : you can set RRD_STORAGE_TYPE per check_commands
Joerg : i.e. your command is check_disk
Joerg : create etc/check_commands/check_disk.cfg
Joerg : set RRD_STORAGE_TYPE = MULTIPLE within this file
Joerg : thats the same rrd_convert.pl --check_command=check_disk will do in its final version
Me:  ok but for most host we are doing the check_disk on remote host and then using check_nrpe on nagios host
Joerg : so your command is?
Joerg : check_nrpe?
Me:  yes
Joerg : create a new command nrpe_disk
Joerg : thats it
Me:  can you give me full example of nrpe_disk here?
Joerg : define command {
Joerg : command_name nrpe_disk
Joerg : command line $USER1$/check_nrpe -H $HOSTqADDRESS$ -c check_diks1
Joerg : }
Joerg : so your command is nrpe_disk and not check_nrpe
Joerg : and now you are able to define MULTIPLE for this command
Joerg : this is done by creating Joerg/etc/check_commands/nrpe_disk.cfg
Me: Thanks for your time very much appreciated.