Problems

1. I am having problems where do I start?

NSCP has a built-in "test and debug" mode that you can activate with the following command

nsclient++ /test

What this does is two things.

1. it starts the daemon as "usual" with the same configuration and such.
2. it enables debug logging and logs to the console.

This makes it quite easy to see what is going on and why things go wrong.

2. Failed to open performance counters

• The first thing to check is the version. If you are using an old version (pre 0.3.x) upgrade!
• Second thing to check is whether the servers' performance counters working? Sometimes the performance counters end up broken and need to be rebuilt. See forum post: TODO topic - 78 here for details or Microsoft KB: ​http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300956 essentially you need to use the "lodctr /R" command.

3. Bind failed

• Usually this is due to running more then once instance of NSClient++ or possibly running another program that uses the same port.
  • Make sure you don't have any other instance NSCLient++ started.
  • Check if the port is in use (netstat -a look for LISTENING)

4. "EventlogBuffer?? is too small

• This is because you have one or more entries in your eventlog which are larger then the "default buffer size of 64k". The best way to fix this is to increase the buffer used.

  [EventLog]
  buffer_size=128000
  

NOTE: You should add it to the ini file by yourself.

There are hundreds of options not in the ini file (all covered in the docs though). The default .ini is more a "common ones" and not a complete set.

The ini file that comes with the installation does not contain this variable by default.

5. How do I properly escape spaces in strings

When you need to put spaces in a string you do the following:

• nagios:
  • As usual you can do it anyway you like but I prefer: check_nrpe ... 'this is a string'
• NSClient++ (inject, alias, external, etc...)
  • The parser is badly written so the only option is:

    CheckSomething "this is a string"
    CheckEventLog "filter-message=substr:Hello World"
    

  • Not for instance:

    filter-message="substr:Hello World"
    filter-message=substr:"Hello World"
    

6. How do I properly escape $ in strings

From:

• nagios:
  • $$ (you use two $ signs)
• from NSClient++
  • $ (you do not need to escape them at all)

7. System Tray does not work

NOTICE System tray is currently disabled and will be added back at some point

8. I get <insert random error from nagios here>

This information is usually useless to me since the error in nagios is not related to the problem. This is due to most protocols supported by nagios does not support reporting errors only status. To see the error do the following:

net stop nscp
nscp test --log info
... wait for errors to be reported ...
exit
net start nscp

To get the debug log do the following:

net stop nscp
nscp test --log debug
... wait for errors to be reported ...
exit
net start nscp

Please check and include this information before you submit questions and/or bug reports.

9. PDH Errors

First upgrade to 0.4.1 then run the following command:

nscp sys --validate

This will list the common PDH counters used for mem/cpu/* and check that they exists and are working. Please this check and include information before you ask a question and/or report a bug

10. I use version 0.3.9 or 0.2.7

please upgrade to 0.4.1 and see if the error still persist before you ask questions and/or report bugs

11. Rejected connection from: <ip address here>

This is due to invalid configuration. One important thing you NEED to configure is which hosts are allowed to connect. If this configuration is missing or invalid you will get the following error:

013-04-02 16:34:07: e:D:\source\nscp\trunk\include\check_nt/server/protocol.hpp:65: Rejected connection from: ::ffff:10.83.14.251

To resolve this please update your configuration:

[/settings/default]

; ALLOWED HOSTS - A coma separated list of hosts which are allowed to connect. You can use netmasks (/ syntax) or * to create ranges.
allowed hosts = <ADD YOUR NAGIOS 1 IP HERE>,<ADD YOUR NAGIOS 2 IP HERE>,10.11.12.0/24

12. Arguments via NRPE

See this page for details about using arguments and external scripts

13. Nasty metacharacters

If you get illegal metachars or similar errors you are sending characters which are considered harmful through NRPE. This is a security measure inherited from the regular NRPE client.

The following characters are considered harmful: |`&><'\"
[]{} To enable this in the NRPE server you can add the following (please notice the same issue is also valid for CheckExternalScripts if you are using scripts see question 12 for details):

[/settings/NRPE/server]
allow nasty characters=true