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check-vmware | check_vmware_snapshots_size plugin

Table of Contents

Overview

Nagios plugin used to monitor the cumulative size of snapshots for each Virtual Machine.

While individual snapshots are listed, it is the cumulative size for a Virtual Machine crossing a given size threshold that determines the overall check result.

The current design of this plugin is to evaluate all Virtual Machines, whether powered off or powered on. If you have a use case for evaluating only powered on VMs by default, please share it here providing some details for your use-case. In our environment, I have yet to see a need to only evaluate powered on VMs for old snapshots. For cases where the snapshots needed to be ignored, we added the VM to the ignore list. We then relied on datastore usage monitoring to let us know when space was becoming an issue.

Thresholds for CRITICAL and WARNING age values have usable defaults, but may require adjustment for your environment. See the configuration options section for details.

Output

The output for these plugins is designed to provide the one-line summary needed by Nagios for quick identification of a problem while providing longer, more detailed information for display within the web UI, use in email and Teams notifications (atc0005/send2teams).

See the main project README for details.

Performance Data

Background

Initial support has been added for emitting Performance Data / Metrics, but refinement suggestions are welcome.

Consult the list below for the metrics implemented thus far, the original discussion thread and the Add Performance Data / Metrics support project board for an index of the initial implementation work.

Please add to an existing Discussion thread or open a new one with any feedback that you may have. Thanks in advance!

Supported metrics

Metrics below are obtained in this order:

  1. Obtain count of all resource pools
  2. Obtain count of all folders
  3. Obtain count of all virtual machines
  4. Filter virtual machines
    1. by resource pools
    2. by folders
    3. by name
    4. by power state
  5. Evaluate virtual machines for snapshots which have exceeded the given size thresholds

For example, the count of virtual machines powered on is obtained based on VMs remaining after resource pool filtering is complete at the time of applying power state filtering.

NOTE: These metrics are based on the visibility of the service account used to login to the target VMware environment. If the service account cannot see a resource, it cannot evaluate the resource.

Metric Alias of Unit of Measurement Description
time milliseconds plugin runtime
vms vms_all all (visible) virtual machines in the inventory
vms_all vms all (visible) virtual machines in the inventory
vms_evaluated vms_after_filtering virtual machines after filtering, evaluated for plugin-specific threshold violations
vms_after_filtering vms_evaluated virtual machines after filtering, evaluated for plugin-specific threshold violations
vms_powered_on virtual machines powered on
vms_powered_off virtual machines powered off
vms_excluded_by_name virtual machines excluded based on fixed name values
vms_excluded_by_folder virtual machines excluded based on folder IDs
vms_excluded_by_power_state virtual machines excluded based on power state (powered off VMs are excluded by default)
vms_excluded_by_resource_pool virtual machines excluded based on resource pool name
folders_all all folders in the inventory
folders_excluded folders excluded by request
folders_included folders included by request (all non-listed folders excluded)
folders_evaluated folders remaining after inclusion/exclusion filtering logic is applied
resource_pools_all all resource pools in the inventory
resource_pools_excluded resource pools excluded by request
resource_pools_included resource pools included by request (all non-listed resource pools excluded)
resource_pools_evaluated resource pools remaining after inclusion/exclusion filtering logic is applied
vms_with_critical_snapshots virtual machines with snapshots which have exceeded the given CRITICAL size threshold
vms_with_warning_snapshots virtual machines with snapshots which have exceeded the given WARNING size threshold
snapshots total number of snapshots for virtual machines in the inventory
critical_snapshots virtual machine snapshots which have exceeded the given CRITICAL size threshold
warning_snapshots virtual machine snapshots which have exceeded the given WARNING size threshold

Installation

See the main project README for details.

Configuration options

Threshold calculations

Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, snapshots size within bounds.
WARNING Cumulative snapshots size for a VM crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL Cumulative snapshots size for a VM crossed user-specified threshold for this state.

Command-line arguments

  • Use the -h or --help flag to display current usage information.
  • Flags marked as required must be set via CLI flag.
  • Flags not marked as required are for settings where a useful default is already defined, but may be overridden if desired.
Flag Required Default Repeat Possible Description
branding No false No branding Toggles emission of branding details with plugin status details. This output is disabled by default.
h, help No false No h, help Show Help text along with the list of supported flags.
v, version No false No v, version Whether to display application version and then immediately exit application.
ll, log-level No info No disabled, panic, fatal, error, warn, info, debug, trace Log message priority filter. Log messages with a lower level are ignored. Log messages are sent to stderr by default. See Output for more information.
p, port No 443 No positive whole number between 1-65535, inclusive TCP port of the remote ESXi host or vCenter instance. This is usually 443 (HTTPS).
t, timeout No 10 No positive whole number of seconds Timeout value in seconds allowed before a plugin execution attempt is abandoned and an error returned.
s, server Yes No fully-qualified domain name or IP Address The fully-qualified domain name or IP Address of the remote ESXi host or vCenter instance.
u, username Yes No valid username Username with permission to access specified ESXi host or vCenter instance.
pw, password Yes No valid password Password used to login to ESXi host or vCenter instance.
domain No No valid user domain (Optional) domain for user account used to login to ESXi host or vCenter instance. This is needed for user accounts residing in a non-default domain (e.g., SSO specific domain).
trust-cert No false No true, false Whether the certificate should be trusted as-is without validation. WARNING: TLS is susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks if enabling this option.
include-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pool names that should be exclusively used when evaluating VMs. Specifying this option will also exclude any VMs from evaluation that are outside of a Resource Pool. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pool names to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pool names that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pool names to include for evaluation.
include-folder-id No No comma-separated list of folder ID values Specifies a comma-separated list of Folder Managed Object ID (MOID) values (e.g., group-v34) that should be exclusively used when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Folder IDs to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-folder-id No No comma-separated list of folder ID values Specifies a comma-separated list of Folder Managed Object ID (MOID) values (e.g., group-v34) that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Folder Managed Object ID (MOID) values to include for evaluation.
ignore-vm No No comma-separated list of (vSphere) virtual machine names Specifies a comma-separated list of VM names that should be ignored or excluded from evaluation.
sc, size-critical No 40 No size in GB as positive whole number Specifies the cumulative size in GB of all snapshots for a Virtual Machine when a CRITICAL threshold is reached.
sw, size-warning No 20 No size in GB as positive whole number Specifies the cumulative size in GB of all snapshots for a Virtual Machine when a WARNING threshold is reached.

Configuration file

Not currently supported. This feature may be added later if there is sufficient interest.

Contrib

See the main project README for details.

Examples

CLI invocation

/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_snapshots_size --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com --size-warning 20 --size-critical 40 --trust-cert --log-level info

See the configuration options section for all command-line settings supported by this plugin along with descriptions of each. See the contrib section for information regarding example command definitions and Nagios configuration files.

Of note:

  • No Resource Pools are explicitly included or excluded
    • this results in all Resource Pools visible to the specified user account being used for evaluation
    • this also results in all VMs outside of a Resource Pool visible to the specified user account being used for evaluation
  • Certificate warnings are ignored.
    • not best practice, but many vCenter instances use self-signed certs per various freely available guides
  • Service Check results output is sent to stdout
  • Logging output is enabled at the info level.
    • logging output is sent to stderr by default
    • logging output is intended to be seen when invoking the plugin directly via CLI (often for troubleshooting)
      • see the Output section of the main README for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems

Command definition

# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-snapshots-size.cfg

# Look at all pools, all VMs, do not evaluate any VMs that are powered off.
# This variation of the command is most useful for environments where all VMs
# are monitored equally.
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_snapshots_size
    command_line    $USER1$/check_vmware_snapshots_size --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --size-warning '$ARG4$' --size-critical '$ARG5$' --trust-cert --log-level info
    }

See the configuration options section for all command-line settings supported by this plugin along with descriptions of each. See the contrib section for information regarding example command definitions and Nagios configuration files.

License

See the main project README for details.

References