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check-vmware | check_vmware_tools plugin

Table of Contents

Overview

Nagios plugin used to monitor VMware Tools installations. See the configuration options section for details regarding how the various Tools states are evaluated.

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 VMware Tools issues

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_tools_issues virtual machines with detected VMware Tools issues
vms_without_tools_issues virtual machines without detected VMware Tools issues

Optional evaluation

Some plugins provide optional support to limit evaluation of VMs to specific Resource Pools (explicitly including or excluding) and power states (on or off). Other plugins support similar filtering options (e.g., Acknowledged state of Triggered Alarms). See the configuration options, examples and contrib sections for more information.

Installation

See the main project README for details.

Configuration options

Threshold calculations

This plugin evaluates two fields from the GuestInfo Data Object vSphere API:

  • toolsRunningStatus
  • toolsVersionStatus2

The overall state of the service check is determined based on these fields, the power state of an evaluated VM and whether the powered-off flag has been specified:

  • If it has not, then powered off VMs are ignored.
  • If it has, then powered off VMs are evaluated for combinations of field values that appear to be relevant.
    • For example, this plugin does not consider VMware Tools with a "not running" status to be a problem if the Virtual Machine is powered off.

To simplify this table, most entries assume that the powered-off flag has been specified. If it is not specified in your Nagios instance, then powered off Virtual Machines will be ignored; the details of this table will not apply to those Virtual Machines.

VM Power State powered-off flag API Field Name API Field Value Nagios State Description
Powered Off Yes toolsRunningStatus guestToolsNotRunning OK Virtual Machine is not running, so VMware Tools is not expected to run either.
Powered On N/A toolsRunningStatus guestToolsNotRunning CRITICAL VMware Tools (or open-vm-tools) not currently running. It likely crashed or was terminated due to low memory scenario.
N/A Yes toolsVersionStatus2 guestToolsNotInstalled CRITICAL VMware Tools is not installed.
N/A Yes toolsVersionStatus2 guestToolsCurrent OK Ideal state, no problems with VMware Tools (or open-vm-tools) detected.
N/A Yes toolsVersionStatus2 guestToolsUnmanaged OK Assumed to be an OK state; VMware Tools is installed, but it is not managed by VMware (e.g., open-vm-tools).
N/A Yes toolsVersionStatus2 guestToolsTooOld CRITICAL VMware Tools is installed, but the version is too old.
N/A Yes toolsVersionStatus2 guestToolsSupportedOld WARNING VMware Tools is installed, supported, but a newer version is available.
N/A Yes toolsVersionStatus2 guestToolsNeedUpgrade WARNING VMware Tools is installed, but the version is not current. Assumed to be roughly equivalent to guestToolsSupportedOld.
N/A Yes toolsVersionStatus2 guestToolsSupportedNew OK VMware Tools is installed, supported, and newer than the version available on the host.
N/A Yes toolsVersionStatus2 guestToolsTooNew CRITICAL VMware Tools is installed, and the version is known to be too new to work correctly with this virtual machine.
N/A Yes toolsRunningStatus2 guestToolsBlacklisted CRITICAL VMware Tools is installed, but the installed version is known to have a grave bug and should be immediately upgraded.
N/A Yes toolsVersionStatus2 Unknown to this plugin UNKNOWN This field in the vSphere API has been extended and this library hasn't been updated to account for those changes.

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.
powered-off No false No true, false Toggles evaluation of powered off VMs in addition to powered on VMs. Evaluation of powered off VMs is disabled by default.

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_tools --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com --exclude-rp "Desktops" --ignore-vm "test1.example.com,redmine.example.com,TESTING-AC,RHEL7-TEST" --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:

  • The resource pool named Desktops is excluded from evaluation.
    • this results in all other 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
  • Multiple Virtual machines (vSphere inventory name, not OS hostname), are ignored, regardless of which Resource Pool they are part of.
    • test1.example.com
    • redmine.example.com
    • TESTING-AC
    • RHEL7-TEST
  • 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-tools.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_tools
    command_line    $USER1$/check_vmware_tools --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$'  --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