check-vmware

command module
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check-vmware

Go-based tooling to monitor VMware environments; NOT affiliated with or endorsed by VMware, Inc.

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Table of Contents

Project home

See our GitHub repo for the latest code, to file an issue or submit improvements for review and potential inclusion into the project.

Just to be 100% clear: this project is not affiliated with or endorsed by VMware, Inc.

Overview

This repo contains various tools and plugins used to monitor/validate VMware environments.

Plugin or Tool Name Description
check_vmware_tools Nagios plugin used to monitor VMware Tools installations.
check_vmware_vcpus Nagios plugin used to monitor allocation of virtual CPUs (vCPUs).
check_vmware_vhw Nagios plugin used to monitor virtual hardware versions.
check_vmware_hs2ds2vms Nagios plugin used to monitor host/datastore/vm pairings.
check_vmware_datastore Nagios plugin used to monitor datastore usage.
check_vmware_snapshots_age Nagios plugin used to monitor the age of Virtual Machine snapshots.
check_vmware_snapshots_count Nagios plugin used to monitor the count of Virtual Machine snapshots.
check_vmware_snapshots_size Nagios plugin used to monitor the cumulative size of Virtual Machine snapshots.
check_vmware_rps_memory Nagios plugin used to monitor memory usage across Resource Pools.
check_vmware_host_memory Nagios plugin used to monitor memory usage for a specific ESXi host system.
check_vmware_host_cpu Nagios plugin used to monitor CPU usage for a specific ESXi host system.
check_vmware_vm_power_uptime Nagios plugin used to monitor VM power cycle uptime.
check_vmware_disk_consolidation Nagios plugin used to monitor VM disk consolidation status.
check_vmware_question Nagios plugin used to monitor VM interactive question status.
check_vmware_alarms Nagios plugin used to monitor for Triggered Alarms in one or more datacenters.
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).

By default, output intended for processing by Nagios is sent to stdout and output intended for troubleshooting by the sysadmin is sent to stderr.

For some monitoring systems or addons (e.g., Icinga Web 2), the stderr output is mixed in with the stdout output (GH-314) in the web UI for the service check. This may add visual noise when viewing the service check output. For those cases, you may wish to explicitly disable the output to stderr via the --log-level "disabled" CLI flag.

If this impacts you, please provide feedback here. Future releases of this project may modify plugins to not emit to stderr by default or the example command definitions may be updated to specify the --log-level "disabled" CLI flag.

Performance Data

Adding support for Performance Data / Metrics to plugins in this project is an ongoing effort.

Consult the table below (and the GH issues listed) for the metrics implemented thus far, the applicable GH issue for pending work and the Add Performance Data / Metrics support project board for a quick overview of work.

Please provide feedback on the applicable issue(s) if you have any, good or bad.

Plugin Emitted Performance Data / Metrics
check_vmware_tools time, vms, vms_excluded_by_name, vms_excluded_by_power_state, vms_with_tools_issues, vms_without_tools_issues, resource_pools_excluded, resource_pools_included, resource_pools_evaluated
check_vmware_vcpus TBD. See GH-355 for details.
check_vmware_vhw TBD. See GH-356 for details.
check_vmware_hs2ds2vms TBD. See GH-348 for details.
check_vmware_datastore time, datastore_usage, datastore_storage_remaining, vms, vms_powered_on, vms_powered_off
check_vmware_snapshots_age TBD. See GH-351 for details.
check_vmware_snapshots_count TBD. See GH-352 for details.
check_vmware_snapshots_size TBD. See GH-353 for details.
check_vmware_rps_memory TBD. See GH-350 for details.
check_vmware_host_memory TBD. See GH-347 for details.
check_vmware_host_cpu TBD. See GH-346 for details.
check_vmware_vm_power_uptime TBD. See GH-357 for details.
check_vmware_disk_consolidation TBD. See GH-345 for details.
check_vmware_question TBD. See GH-349 for details.
check_vmware_alarms TBD. See GH-344 for details.
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.

check_vmware_tools

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

check_vmware_vcpus

Nagios plugin used to monitor allocation of virtual CPUs (vCPUs).

Thresholds for CRITICAL and WARNING vCPUs allocation have usable defaults, but Max vCPUs allocation is required before this plugin can be used. See the configuration options section for details.

check_vmware_vhw

Nagios plugin used to monitor virtual hardware versions.

This plugin supports four monitoring modes:

  1. Homogeneous version check
  2. Outdated-by or threshold range check
  3. Minimum required version check
  4. Default is minimum required version check
Homogeneous version check

This monitoring mode applies an automatic baseline of "highest version discovered" across evaluated VMs. Any VMs with a hardware version not at that highest version are flagged as problematic.

Instead of trying to determine how far behind each VM is from the newest version, this monitoring mode assumes that any deviation is a WARNING state.

Outdated-by or threshold range check

This mode applies the standard WARNING and CRITICAL level threshold checks to determine the current plugin state. Any VM with virtual hardware older than the specified thresholds triggers the associated state. This mode is useful for catching VMs with outdated hardware outside of an acceptable range.

The highest version used as a baseline for comparison is provided using the same logic as provided by the "homogeneous" version check: latest visible hardware version.

Minimum required version check

This mode requires that all hardware versions match or exceed the specified minimum hardware version. This monitoring mode assumes that any deviation is considered a CRITICAL state.

Default is minimum required version check

This mode requires that all hardware versions match or exceed the host or cluster default hardware version. This monitoring mode assumes that any deviation is considered a WARNING state.

check_vmware_hs2ds2vms

Nagios plugin used to monitor host/datastore/vm pairings.

This is a functional plugin responsible for verifying that each VM is housed on a datastore (best) intended for the host associated with the VM.

By default, the evaluation is limited to powered on VMs, but this can be toggled to also include powered off VMs.

The association between datastores and hosts is determined by a user-provided Custom Attribute. Flags for this plugin allow specifying separate Custom Attribute names for hosts and datastores along with optional separate prefixes for the provided Custom Attributes.

This allows for example, hosts to use a Location Custom Attribute that shares a datacenter name with datastores using the same Location Custom Attribute. If not specifying a prefix separator, the plugin assumes that a literal, case-insensitive match of the Location field is required. If a prefix separator is provided, then the separator is used to retrieve the common prefix for the Location Custom Attribute for both hosts and datastores.

This is intended to work around hosts that may include both the datacenter name and rack location details in their Custom Attribute (e.g., Location).

This plugin optionally allows ignoring a list of datastores, and both hosts and datastores that are missing the specified Custom Attribute.

In addition to specifying separate Custom Attribute names (required) and prefix separators (optional), the plugin also accepts a single Custom Attribute used by both hosts and datastores and an optional prefix separator, also used by both hosts and datastores.

If specifying a shared Custom Attribute or prefix, per-resource Custom Attribute flags are rejected (error condition).

check_vmware_datastore

Nagios plugin used to monitor datastore usage.

In addition to reporting current datastore usage, this plugin also reports which VMs reside on the datastore along with their percentage of the total datastore space used.

check_vmware_snapshots_age

Nagios plugin used to monitor the age of Virtual Machine snapshots.

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.

check_vmware_snapshots_count

Nagios plugin used to monitor the number of snapshots per Virtual Machine.

Monitor the number of snapshots for each Virtual Machine. VMware recommends using no more than 3 or 4 snapshots per Virtual Machine and only for a limited duration. A maximum of 32 snapshots per Virtual Machine are supported. See https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1025279 for more information.

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 count values have usable defaults, but may require adjustment for your environment. See the configuration options section for details.

check_vmware_snapshots_size

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.

check_vmware_rps_memory

Nagios plugin used to monitor memory usage across Resource Pools.

In addition to reporting memory usage for each Resource Pool, this plugin also reports the ten most recently booted VMs along with their memory usage. This is intended to help spot which VM is responsible for a state change alert.

Thresholds for CRITICAL and WARNING memory usage have usable defaults, but max memory usage is required before this plugin can be used. See the configuration options section for details.

check_vmware_host_memory

Nagios plugin used to monitor ESXi host memory.

In addition to reporting current host memory usage, this plugin also reports which VMs are on the host (running or not), how much memory each VM is using as a fixed value and as a percentage of the host's total memory.

Thresholds for CRITICAL and WARNING memory usage have usable defaults, but max memory usage is required before this plugin can be used. See the configuration options section for details.

check_vmware_host_cpu

Nagios plugin used to monitor ESXi host CPU usage.

In addition to reporting current host CPU usage, this plugin also reports which VMs are on the host (running or not), how much CPU each VM is using as a fixed value and as a percentage of the host's total CPU capacity.

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

check_vmware_vm_power_uptime

Nagios plugin used to monitor Virtual Machine (power cycle) uptime.

This is essentially the time since the VM was last powered off and then back on (e.g., for a snapshot).

In addition to reporting current power cycle uptime, this plugin also reports:

  • which VMs have crossed thresholds (if any) and the uptime for each
  • which VMs have yet to cross thresholds (only if there are not any which have) and the uptime for each
  • the ten most recently booted VMs

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

check_vmware_disk_consolidation

Nagios plugin used to monitor Virtual Machine disk consolidation status.

The status of this property indicates whether one or more disks for a Virtual Machine require consolidation. This can happen when a snapshot is deleted, but its associated disk is not committed back to the base disk. This situation can cause backup failures and performance issues.

By default, this plugin does not trigger a state reload for each Virtual Machine that it evaluates, instead evaluating the disk consolidation status as currently reflected in the vSphere environment. The state data appears to only be updated during vMotion and Fault Tolerant related methods, when a VM is first added to inventory or when manually reloaded via the vSphere web UI. If not refreshed by one of these tasks or a custom job configured on the cluster the consolidation status may be stale.

You can work around this potentially stale state by specifying a --trigger-reload flag for this plugin. This flag enables a state reload for each evaluated Virtual Machine. This reload will refresh state data for the Virtual Machine to ensure that the disk consolidation status reflects the actual state of the VM. This option does not come without a cost however.

Due to the time required for each reload operation to complete, this plugin can require a much longer timeout value than other plugins which only evaluate (and not refresh) existing state data for vSphere objects. You should configure the --timeout value for this plugin accordingly and also configure the timeout settings in your monitoring system (e.g., service_check_timeout within nagios.cfg for Nagios) to permit longer plugin execution times.

Instead of enabling this flag, you may wish to schedule a job on the cluster or an "admin box" that handles the reload/refresh of each Virtual Machine. This will be significantly faster than evaluating the state of each VM every time the associated service check executes and depending on the frequency of the job should be "fresh enough" to allow this plugin to accurately detect disk consolidation needs.

check_vmware_question

Nagios plugin used to monitor whether a Virtual Machine is blocked from execution due to one or more Virtual Machines requiring an interactive response.

This plugin monitors the question property of evaluated Virtual Machines. The status of this property indicates whether an interactive question is blocking the virtual machine's execution. While a Virtual Machine is in this state it is not available for normal use.

check_vmware_alarms

Nagios plugin used to monitor for Triggered Alarms in one or more datacenters.

  • Explicit exclusions take priority over either implicit or explicit inclusions.
  • All filtering is currently applied in batches/bulk.

It helps to think of the process working this way for each filter in the "pipeline":

  1. Explicit inclusions are applied, marking matching triggered alarms as explicitly included and non-matches as implicitly excluded
  2. Explicit exclusions are applied, marking matching triggered alarms as explicitly excluded, permanently "dropping" the triggered alarm from further evaluation
  3. After all filters have finished processing, any triggered alarms marked as excluded (implicit or explicit) are removed from final evaluation (i.e., ignored and not reported as a problem).

Filtering is available for explicitly including or excluding based on:

  • Acknowledged status
  • Managed Entity type (e.g., Datastore, VirtualMachine) associated with the Triggered Alarm
  • Inventory object name (e.g., node1.example.com, vc1.example.com) associated with the Triggered Alarm
  • Alarm Name field substring match
  • Alarm Description field substring match
  • Triggered Alarm Status (e.g., red, yellow, gray)
  • Resource Pool for the Managed Entity type (e.g., ResourcePool, VirtualMachine) associated with the Triggered Alarm

Features

  • Multiple plugins for monitoring VMware vSphere environments (standalone ESXi hosts or vCenter instances) for select (or all) Resource Pools.

    • VMware Tools
    • Virtual CPU allocations
    • Virtual hardware versions (multiple modes)
      • homogeneous version check
      • outdated-by or threshold range check
      • minimum required version check
      • default is minimum required version check
    • Host/Datastore/Virtual Machine pairings (using provided Custom Attribute)
    • Datastore usage
    • Snapshots age
    • Snapshots count
    • Snapshots size
    • Resource Pools: Memory usage
    • Host Memory usage
    • Host CPU usage
    • Virtual Machine (power cycle) uptime
    • Virtual Machine disk consolidation status
      • with optional forced refresh of Virtual Machine state data
    • Virtual Machine interactive question status
    • Triggered Alarms in one or more datacenters

  • Optional, leveled logging using rs/zerolog package

    • JSON-format output (to stderr)
    • choice of disabled, panic, fatal, error, warn, info (the default), debug or trace.

  • Optional, user-specified timeout value for plugin execution.

Changelog

See the CHANGELOG.md file for the changes associated with each release of this application. Changes that have been merged to master, but not yet an official release may also be noted in the file under the Unreleased section. A helpful link to the Git commit history since the last official release is also provided for further review.

Requirements

The following is a loose guideline. Other combinations of Go and operating systems for building and running tools from this repo may work, but have not been tested.

Building source code
  • Go 1.14+
    • dependent on current upstream vmware/govmomi library
  • GCC
    • if building with custom options (as the provided Makefile does)
  • make
    • if using the provided Makefile
Running
  • Windows 10
  • Ubuntu Linux 16.04+

Installation

From source
  1. Download Go
  2. Install Go
    • NOTE: Pay special attention to the remarks about $HOME/.profile
  3. Clone the repo
    1. cd /tmp
    2. git clone https://github.com/atc0005/check-vmware
    3. cd check-vmware
  4. Install dependencies (optional)
    • for Ubuntu Linux
      • sudo apt-get install make gcc
    • for CentOS Linux
      • sudo yum install make gcc
    • for Windows
      • Emulated environments (easier)
        • Skip all of this and build using the default go build command in Windows (see below for use of the -mod=vendor flag)
        • build using Windows Subsystem for Linux Ubuntu environment and just copy out the Windows binaries from that environment
        • If already running a Docker environment, use a container with the Go tool-chain already installed
        • If already familiar with LXD, create a container and follow the installation steps given previously to install required dependencies
      • Native tooling (harder)
        • see the StackOverflow Question 32127524 link in the References section for potential options for installing make on Windows
        • see the mingw-w64 project homepage link in the References section for options for installing gcc and related packages on Windows
  5. Build binaries
    • for the current operating system, explicitly using bundled dependencies in top-level vendor folder
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_tools/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_vcpus/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_vhw/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_hs2ds2vms/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_datastore/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_snapshots_age/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_snapshots_count/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_snapshots_size/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_rps_memory/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_host_memory/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_host_cpu/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_vm_power_uptime/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_disk_consolidation/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_question/
      • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_alarms/
    • for all supported platforms (where make is installed)
      • make all
    • for use on Windows
      • make windows
    • for use on Linux
      • make linux
  6. Copy the newly compiled binary from the applicable /tmp subdirectory path (based on the clone instructions in this section) below and deploy where needed.
    • if using Makefile
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_tools/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_vcpus/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_vhw/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_hs2ds2vms/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_datastore/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_snapshots_age/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_snapshots_count/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_snapshots_size/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_rps_memory/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_host_memory/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_host_cpu/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_vm_power_uptime/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_disk_consolidation/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_question/
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_alarms/
    • if using go build
      • look in /tmp/check-vmware/
  7. Review configuration options, examples and contrib sections usage details.
Using provided binaries
Linux
  1. Download plugins from the Latest release that you are interested in
  2. Review configuration options, examples and contrib sections usage details.
Windows

Note: As of the v0.13.0 release, precompiled Windows binaries are no longer provided. This change was made primarily due to the lengthy build times required and the perception that most users of this project would not benefit from having them. If you do use Windows binaries or would like to (e.g., on a Windows system within a restricted environment that has access to your vSphere cluster or hosts), please provide feedback on GH-178.

Other operating systems

As of the v0.13.0 release, only Linux precompiled binaries are provided. If you would benefit from precompiled binaries for other platforms, please let us know by opening a new issue or responding to an existing issue with an up-vote. See https://golang.org/doc/install/source for a list of supported architectures and operating systems.

Configuration options

Threshold calculations
check_vmware_tools

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.
check_vmware_vcpus
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, vCPU allocations within bounds.
WARNING vCPU allocations crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL vCPU allocations crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
check_vmware_vhw

This plugin supports multiple modes. Each mode applies slightly different logic for determining plugin state.

Homogeneous version check
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, homogenous hardware versions.
WARNING Non-homogenous hardware versions.
CRITICAL Not used by this monitoring mode.
Outdated-by or threshold range check
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, hardware versions within tolerance.
WARNING Hardware versions crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL Hardware versions crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
Minimum required version check
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, hardware versions within tolerance.
WARNING Not used by this monitoring mode.
CRITICAL Hardware versions older than the minimum specified value present.
Default is minimum required version check
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, hardware versions within tolerance.
WARNING Hardware versions older than the host or cluster default value present.
CRITICAL Not used by this monitoring mode.
check_vmware_hs2ds2vms
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, no mismatched Host/Datastore/Virtual machine pairings detected.
WARNING Not used by this plugin.
CRITICAL Any errors encountered or Hosts/Datastores/VM mismatches.
check_vmware_datastore
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, Datastore usage within bounds.
WARNING Datastore usage crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL Datastore usage crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
check_vmware_snapshots_age
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, snapshots age within bounds.
WARNING Snapshots age crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL Snapshots age crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
check_vmware_snapshots_count
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, snapshots count per VM within bounds.
WARNING Snapshots count per VM crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL Snapshots count per VM crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
check_vmware_snapshots_size
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.
check_vmware_rps_memory
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, memory usage across Resources Pools within bounds.
WARNING Memory usage crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL Memory usage crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
check_vmware_host_memory
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, memory usage for the specified ESXi host system is within bounds.
WARNING Memory usage crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL Memory usage crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
check_vmware_host_cpu
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, CPU usage for the specified ESXi host system is within bounds.
WARNING CPU usage crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL CPU usage crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
check_vmware_vm_power_uptime
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, VM power cycle uptime is within bounds.
WARNING VM power cycle uptime crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
CRITICAL VM power cycle uptime crossed user-specified threshold for this state.
check_vmware_disk_consolidation
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, VM disk consolidation not needed.
WARNING Not used by this plugin.
CRITICAL Disk consolidation needed for one or more VMs.
check_vmware_question
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, no VMs require an interactive response.
WARNING Not used by this plugin.
CRITICAL An interactive response is required for one or more VMs.
check_vmware_alarms
Nagios State Description
OK Ideal state, no non-excluded Triggered Alarms detected.
WARNING One or more non-excluded alarms with a yellow status.
CRITICAL One or more non-excluded alarms with a red status.
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.
check_vmware_tools
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
check_vmware_vcpus
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
vcma, vcpus-max-allowed Yes 0 No positive whole number of vCPUs Specifies the maximum amount of virtual CPUs (as a whole number) that we are allowed to allocate in the target VMware environment.
vc, vcpus-critical No 100 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of vCPUs allocation (as a whole number) when a CRITICAL threshold is reached.
vw, vcpus-warning No 95 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of vCPUs allocation (as a whole number) when a WARNING threshold is reached.
check_vmware_vhw

This plugin supports multiple monitoring modes. Each mode has options which are incompatible with the others. As of this writing these monitoring modes are not implemented as subcommands, though this may change in the future based on feedback.

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.
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.
dc-name No No valid vSphere datacenter name Specifies the name of a vSphere Datacenter. If not specified, applicable plugins will attempt to use the default datacenter found in the vSphere environment. Not applicable to standalone ESXi hosts.
host-name No No valid ESXi host name ESXi host/server name as it is found within the vSphere inventory.
cluster-name No No valid vSphere cluster name Specifies the name of a vSphere Cluster. If not specified, applicable plugins will attempt to use the default cluster found in the vSphere environment. Not applicable to standalone ESXi hosts.
include-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
obw, outdated-by-warning Maybe No positive whole number 1 or greater If provided, this value is the WARNING threshold for outdated virtual hardware versions. If the current virtual hardware version for a VM is found to be more than this many versions older than the latest version a WARNING state is triggered. Required if specifying the CRITICAL threshold for outdated virtual hardware versions, incompatible with the minimum required version flag.
obw, outdated-by-critical Maybe No positive whole number 1 or greater If provided, this value is the CRITICAL threshold for outdated virtual hardware versions. If the current virtual hardware version for a VM is found to be more than this many versions older than the latest version a CRITICAL state is triggered. Required if specifying the WARNING threshold for outdated virtual hardware versions, incompatible with the minimum required version flag.
mv, minimum-version Maybe No positive whole number greater than 3 If provided, this value is the minimum virtual hardware version accepted for each Virtual Machine. Any Virtual Machine not meeting this minimum value is considered to be in a CRITICAL state. Per KB 1003746, version 3 appears to be the oldest version supported. Incompatible with the CRITICAL and WARNING threshold flags.
dimv, default-is-min-version Maybe No positive whole number greater than 3 If provided, this value is the minimum virtual hardware version accepted for each Virtual Machine. Any Virtual Machine not meeting this minimum value is considered to be in a CRITICAL state. Per KB 1003746, version 3 appears to be the oldest version supported. Incompatible with the CRITICAL and WARNING threshold flags.
check_vmware_hs2ds2vms
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
ignore-ds No No comma-separated list of (vSphere) datastore names Specifies a comma-separated list of Datastore 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.
ca-name Maybe No valid Custom Attribute name Custom Attribute name for host ESXi systems and datastores. Optional if specifying resource-specific custom attribute names.
ca-prefix-sep Maybe No valid Custom Attribute prefix separator character Custom Attribute prefix separator for host ESXi systems and datastores. Skip if using Custom Attribute values as-is for comparison, otherwise optional if specifying resource-specific custom attribute prefix separator, or using the default separator.
ignore-missing-ca No false No true, false Toggles how missing specified Custom Attributes will be handled. By default, ESXi hosts and datastores missing the Custom Attribute are treated as an error condition.
host-ca-name Maybe No valid Custom Attribute name Custom Attribute name specific to host ESXi systems. Optional if specifying shared custom attribute flag.
host-ca-prefix-sep Maybe No valid Custom Attribute prefix separator character Custom Attribute prefix separator specific to host ESXi systems. Skip if using Custom Attribute values as-is for comparison, otherwise optional if specifying shared custom attribute prefix separator, or using the default separator.
ds-ca-name Maybe No valid Custom Attribute name Custom Attribute name specific to datastores. Optional if specifying shared custom attribute flag.
ds-ca-prefix-sep Maybe No valid Custom Attribute prefix separator character Custom Attribute prefix separator specific to datastores. Skip if using Custom Attribute values as-is for comparison, otherwise optional if specifying shared custom attribute prefix separator, or using the default separator.
check_vmware_datastore
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.
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.
dc-name No No valid vSphere datacenter name Specifies the name of a vSphere Datacenter. If not specified, applicable plugins will attempt to use the default datacenter found in the vSphere environment. Not applicable to standalone ESXi hosts.
ds-name Yes No valid datastore name Datastore name as it is found within the vSphere inventory.
dsuc, ds-usage-critical No 95 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of a datastore's storage usage (as a whole number) when a CRITICAL threshold is reached.
dsuw, ds-usage-warning No 90 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of a datastore's storage usage (as a whole number) when a WARNING threshold is reached.
check_vmware_snapshots_age
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
ac, age-critical No 2 No age in days as positive whole number Specifies the age of a snapshot in days when a CRITICAL threshold is reached.
aw, age-warning No 1 No age in days as positive whole number Specifies the age of a snapshot in days when a WARNING threshold is reached.
check_vmware_snapshots_count
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
cc, count-critical No 4 No count as positive whole number Specifies the number of snapshots per VM when a CRITICAL threshold is reached.
cw, count-warning No 25 No count as positive whole number Specifies the number of snapshots per VM when a WARNING threshold is reached.
check_vmware_snapshots_size
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
check_vmware_rps_memory
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools to include for evaluation.
mma, memory-max-allowed Yes 0 No positive whole number of vCPUs Specifies the maximum amount of memory that we are allowed to consume in GB (as a whole number) in the target VMware environment across all specified Resource Pools. VMs that are running outside of resource pools are not considered in these calculations.
mc, memory-use-critical No 95 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of memory use (as a whole number) across all specified Resource Pools when a CRITICAL threshold is reached.
mw, memory-use-warning No 100 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of memory use (as a whole number) across all specified Resource Pools when a WARNING threshold is reached.
check_vmware_host_memory
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.
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.
dc-name No No valid vSphere datacenter name Specifies the name of a vSphere Datacenter. If not specified, applicable plugins will attempt to use the default datacenter found in the vSphere environment. Not applicable to standalone ESXi hosts.
host-name Yes No valid ESXi host name ESXi host/server name as it is found within the vSphere inventory.
mc, memory-usage-critical No 95 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of memory use (as a whole number) when a CRITICAL threshold is reached.
mw, memory-usage-warning No 80 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of memory use (as a whole number) when a WARNING threshold is reached.
check_vmware_host_cpu
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.
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.
dc-name No No valid vSphere datacenter name Specifies the name of a vSphere Datacenter. If not specified, applicable plugins will attempt to use the default datacenter found in the vSphere environment. Not applicable to standalone ESXi hosts.
host-name Yes No valid ESXi host name ESXi host/server name as it is found within the vSphere inventory.
cc, cpu-usage-critical No 95 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of CPU use (as a whole number) when a CRITICAL threshold is reached.
cw, cpu-usage-warning No 80 No percentage as positive whole number Specifies the percentage of CPU use (as a whole number) when a WARNING threshold is reached.
check_vmware_vm_power_uptime
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
uc, uptime-critical No 90 No days as positive whole number Specifies the power cycle (off/on) uptime in days per VM when a CRITICAL threshold is reached.
uw, uptime-warning No 60 No days as positive whole number Specifies the power cycle (off/on) uptime in days per VM when a WARNING threshold is reached.
check_vmware_disk_consolidation
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
trigger-reload No false No true, false Trigger a reload operation for each VM evaluated. This option ensures that the most current state data is evaluated, but increases plugin runtime. If using this, you should also adjust the --timeout value and potentially your monitor system's service check timeout setting.
check_vmware_question
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.
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 Pools 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 Pools to ignore or exclude from evaluation.
exclude-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names Specifies a comma-separated list of Resource Pools that should be ignored when evaluating VMs. This option is incompatible with specifying a list of Resource Pools 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.
check_vmware_alarms
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.
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.
dc-name No No comma-separated list of valid vSphere datacenter names Specifies the name of one or more vSphere Datacenters. If not specified, applicable plugins will attempt to evaluate all visible datacenters found in the vSphere environment. Not applicable to standalone ESXi hosts.
include-entity-type No No comma-separated list of valid managed object type keywords If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the associated entity type (e.g., Datastore) matches one of the specified values; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
exclude-entity-type No No comma-separated list of valid managed object type keywords If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the associated entity type (e.g., Datastore) does NOT match one of the specified values; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
include-entity-name No No comma-separated list of vSphere inventory object names If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the associated entity name (e.g., node1.example.com) matches one of the specified values; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
exclude-entity-name No No comma-separated list of vSphere inventory object names If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the associated entity name (e.g., node1.example.com) does NOT match one of the specified values; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
include-entity-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the associated entity is part of one of the specified Resource Pools (case-insensitive match on the name) and is not explicitly excluded by another filter in the pipeline; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
exclude-entity-rp No No comma-separated list of resource pool names If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the associated entity is NOT part of one of the specified Resource Pools (case-insensitive match on the name) and is not explicitly excluded by another filter in the pipeline; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
eval-acknowledged No false No true, false Toggles evaluation of acknowledged triggered alarms in addition to unacknowledged triggered alarms. Evaluation of acknowledged alarms is disabled by default.
include-name No No valid custom or default alarm names If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the alarm name (e.g., Datastore usage on disk) case-insensitively matches one of the specified substring values (e.g., datastore or datastore usage) and is not explicitly excluded by another filter in the pipeline; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
exclude-name No No valid custom or default alarm names If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the alarm name (e.g., Datastore usage on disk) DOES NOT case-insensitively match one of the specified substring values (e.g., datastore or datastore usage) and is not explicitly excluded by another filter in the pipeline; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
include-desc No No valid custom or default alarm descriptions If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the alarm description (e.g., Default alarm to monitor datastore disk usage) case-insensitively matches one of the specified substring values (e.g., datastore disk or monitor datastore) and is not explicitly excluded by another filter in the pipeline; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
exclude-desc No No valid custom or default alarm descriptions If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the alarm description (e.g., Default alarm to monitor datastore disk usage) DOES NOT case-insensitively match one of the specified substring values (e.g., datastore disk or monitor datastore) and is not explicitly excluded by another filter in the pipeline; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
include-status No No valid managed entity status (excluding green) or Nagios state (excluding OK) (WARNING, CRITICAL , UNKNOwN) If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the alarm status (e.g., yellow) case-insensitively matches one of the specified keywords (e.g., yellow or warning) and is not explicitly excluded by another filter in the pipeline; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
exclude-status No No valid managed entity status If specified, triggered alarms will only be evaluated if the alarm status (e.g., yellow) DOES NOT case-insensitively match one of the specified keywords (e.g., yellow or warning) and is not explicitly excluded by another filter in the pipeline; while multiple explicit inclusions are allowed, explicit exclusions have precedence over explicit inclusions and will exclude the triggered alarm from further evaluation.
Configuration file

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

Contrib

Example Nagios configuration files are provided in an effort to illustrate usage of plugins provided by this project. See the Contrib README and directory contents for details.

Examples

While entries in this section attempt to provide a brief overview of usage, it is recommended that you review the provided command definitions and other Nagios configuration files within the contrib directory for more complete examples.

See the configuration options section for all command-line settings supported by this plugin along with descriptions of each.

check_vmware_tools Nagios plugin
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 Output 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    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/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.

check_vmware_vcpus Nagios plugin
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" --vcpus-warning 97 --vcpus-critical 100  --vcpus-max-allowed 160 --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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-vcpus.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_vcpus
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vcpus --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --vcpus-warning '$ARG4$' --vcpus-critical '$ARG5$' --vcpus-max-allowed '$ARG6$' --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.

check_vmware_vhw Nagios plugin

This plugin supports four monitoring modes. Each is incompatible with the other, so an example is provided for each mode. See the overview section for further information.

Homogeneous version check
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vhw --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:

  • This monitoring mode asserts that all hardware versions match.
  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-virtual-hardware.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_vhw_homogeneous
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vhw --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.

Outdated-by or threshold range check
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vhw --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" --outdated-by-warning 1 --outdated-by-critical 5 --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:

  • Assuming that the latest hardware version is 15, this monitoring mode permits hardware versions as old as 14 without WARNING state and as old as 10 without CRITICAL state change.
  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-virtual-hardware.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_vhw_thresholds
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vhw --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --outdated-by-warning '$ARG4$' --outdated-by-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.

Minimum required version check
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vhw --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" --minimum-version 15 --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 minimum hardware version 15 is required, while newer versions are permitted, older versions will trigger a plugin state change.
  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-virtual-hardware.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_vhw_minreq
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vhw --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --minimum-version '$ARG4$' --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.

Default is minimum required version check
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vhw --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" --default-is-min-version --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 default host or cluster hardware version is required
    • while newer versions are permitted, older versions will trigger a plugin state change.
  • Neither a host name nor a cluster name is provided
    • the plugin will attempt to use the default ComputeResource in order to determine the default hardware version
  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-virtual-hardware.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_vhw_defreq
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vhw --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --cluster-name '$ARG4$' --default-is-minimum-version --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.

check_vmware_hs2ds2vms Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_hs2ds2vms --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" --ca-name "Location" --ca-prefix-sep "-" --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
  • The Custom Attribute named Location is used to dynamically build pairs of Hosts and Datastores. Any Host or Datastore missing that Custom Attribute is reported as an error condition unless the appropriate CLI flag is provided. See the Configuration options section for the flag name and further details.
  • The Custom Attribute prefix separator - is provided in order to "split" the value found for the Custom Attribute named Location into pairs. The second value is thrown away, leaving the first to be used as the Location value for comparison. VMs running on a host with one value have their datastores checked for the same value. If a mismatch is found, this is assumed to be a CRITICAL level event and reported as such.
  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-host-datastore-vms-pairings.cfg

# Look at all pools, all VMs, do not evaluate any VMs that are powered off.
# Use the same Custom Attribute for hosts and datastores. Use the same Custom
# Attribute prefix separator for hosts and datastores.
#
# This variation of the command is most useful for environments where all VMs
# are monitored equally.
define command{
    command_name   check_vmware_hs2ds2vms
    command_line   /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_hs2ds2vms --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --ca-name '$ARG4$' --ca-prefix-sep '$ARG5$' --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.

check_vmware_datastore Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_datastore --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com --ds-name "HUSVM-DC1-vol6" --ds-usage-warning 95 --ds-usage-critical 97 --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:

  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-datastores.cfg

# Look at specific datastore and explicitly provide custom WARNING and
# CRITICAL threshold values.
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_datastore
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_tools --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --ds-usage-warning '$ARG4$' --ds-usage-critical '$ARG5$' --ds-name '$ARG6$' --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.

check_vmware_snapshots_age Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_snapshots_age --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com --age-warning 1 --age-critical 2 --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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-snapshots-age.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_age
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_snapshots_age --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --age-warning '$ARG4$' --age-critical '$ARG5$' --trust-cert --log-level info
    }
check_vmware_snapshots_count Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_snapshots_count --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com --count-warning 4 --count-critical 25 --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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-snapshots-count.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_count
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_snapshots_count --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --count-warning '$ARG4$' --count-critical '$ARG5$' --trust-cert --log-level info
    }
check_vmware_snapshots_size Nagios plugin
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 Output 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    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/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.

check_vmware_rps_memory Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_rps_memory --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com --exclude-rp "Desktops" --memory-use-warning 80 --memory-use-critical 95  --memory-max-allowed 320 --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
    • VMs outside of a Resource Pool (visible to the specified user account or not) do not contribute to memory usage calculations
  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition

NOTE: This is the inverse of the command-line example for this plugin; only specified Resource Pools are evaluated.

# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-resource-pools.cfg

# This variation of the command does not allow exclusions
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_resource_pools_include_pools
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_rps_memory --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --memory-use-warning '$ARG4$' --memory-use-critical '$ARG5$' --memory-max-allowed '$ARG6$' --include-rp '$ARG7$' --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.

check_vmware_host_memory Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_host_memory --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com --host-name "esx1.example.com" --memory-usage-warning 80 --memory-usage-critical 95 --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 host name is specified (via host-name flag) using the exact value shown in the vSphere inventory (e.g., esx1.example.com)
  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-host-memory.cfg

# Look at a specific host and explicitly provide custom WARNING and CRITICAL
# threshold values.
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_host_memory
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_host_memory --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --memory-usage-warning '$ARG4$' --memory-usage-critical '$ARG5$' --host-name '$ARG6$' --trust-cert  --log-level info
    }
check_vmware_host_cpu Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_host_cpu --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com --host-name "esx1.example.com" --cpu-usage-warning 80 --cpu-usage-critical 95 --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 host name is specified (via host-name flag) using the exact value shown in the vSphere inventory (e.g., esx1.example.com)
  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-host-cpu.cfg

# Look at a specific host and explicitly provide custom WARNING and CRITICAL
# threshold values.
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_host_cpu
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_host_cpu --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --cpu-usage-warning '$ARG4$' --cpu-usage-critical '$ARG5$' --host-name '$ARG6$' --trust-cert  --log-level info
    }
check_vmware_vm_power_uptime Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vm_power_uptime --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com --uptime-warning 60 --uptime-critical 90 --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:

  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-vm-power-uptime.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_vm_power_uptime
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_vm_power_uptime --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --uptime-warning '$ARG4$' --uptime-critical '$ARG5$' --trust-cert  --log-level info
    }
check_vmware_disk_consolidation Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_disk_consolidation --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com  --trust-cert --log-level info --trigger-reload --timeout 110

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:

  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
  • A forced state data reload/refresh is triggered for each evaluated Virtual Machine
    • NOTE: this operation is expensive, omit to rely on existing (potentially stale) state data
    • see check_vmware_disk_consolidation section for additional details, including potential alternatives to the use of this flag
  • A custom timeout value is specified
    • NOTE: in order for this timeout value to be respected, you may need to adjust the service check timeout value in your monitoring system (e.g., service_check_timeout value in your nagios.cfg file)
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-disk-consolidation.cfg

# Look at all pools, all VMs.  Use existing (potentially stale) state data for
# evaluation of disk consolidation status instead of triggering (potentially
# expensive) reload/refresh of state data.
#
# This variation of the command is most useful for environments where all VMs
# are monitored equally and no filtering based on pool membership or VM name
# is needed.
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_disk_consolidation
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_disk_consolidation --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$'  --trust-cert --log-level info
    }

# Look at all pools, all VMs, trigger potentially expensive reload operation
# on each evaluated VM.
#
# This variation of the command is most useful for environments where all VMs
# are monitored equally and where the time required to reload/refresh data
# data for each VM is acceptable.
#
# The tradeoff in having current state data comes at the cost of increased
# execution time. If this proves too expensive for your environment, you may
# wish to schedule a job on the cluster to handle refreshing state data.
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_disk_consolidation_trigger_reload
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_disk_consolidation --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$'  --trust-cert --log-level info --trigger-reload --timeout 110
    }
check_vmware_question Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_question --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com  --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:

  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-interactive-question.cfg

# Look at all pools, all VMs. This variation of the command is most useful for
# environments where all VMs are monitored equally.
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_question
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_question --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$'  --trust-cert --log-level info
    }
check_vmware_alarms Nagios plugin
CLI invocation
/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_alarms --username SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME --password "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD" --server vc1.example.com  --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:

  • Triggered alarms are evaluated for all detected datacenters
    • due to lack of specified datacenter name (or names)
  • Triggered alarms are not filtered based on associated managed object (aka, managed entity) type
    • due to lack of explicit exclusions or inclusions
  • Triggered alarms are not filtered based on associated managed object (aka, managed entity) name
    • due to lack of explicit exclusions or inclusions
  • Triggered alarms are not filtered based on associated managed object (aka, managed entity) resource pool
    • due to lack of explicit exclusions or inclusions
  • Triggered alarms that were previously acknowledged are ignored
  • Triggered alarms are not filtered based on defined Alarm name
    • due to lack of explicit exclusions or inclusions
  • Triggered alarms are not filtered based on defined Alarm description
    • due to lack of explicit exclusions or inclusions
  • Triggered alarms are not filtered based on Triggered Alarm status
    • due to lack of explicit exclusions or inclusions
  • 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 Output for potential conflicts with some monitoring systems
Command definition
# /etc/nagios-plugins/config/vmware-alarms.cfg

# Look at triggered alarms across all detected datacenters, do not evaluate
# any triggered alarms which have been previously acknowledged.
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_alarms
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_alarms --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --trust-cert --log-level info
    }

# Look at triggered alarms within specified datacenters. Do not evaluate any
# triggered alarms which have been previously acknowledged.
define command{
    command_name    check_vmware_alarms_specific_dc
    command_line    /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_vmware_alarms --server '$HOSTNAME$' --domain '$ARG1$' --username '$ARG2$' --password '$ARG3$' --dc-name '$ARG4$' --trust-cert --log-level info
    }

License

From the LICENSE file:

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2021 Adam Chalkley

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

References

Documentation

Overview

Go-based tooling to monitor VMware environments; **NOT** affiliated with or endorsed by VMware, Inc.

PROJECT HOME

See our GitHub repo (https://github.com/atc0005/check-vmware) for the latest code, to file an issue or submit improvements for review and potential inclusion into the project.

PURPOSE

Monitor VMware environments

FEATURES

Nagios plugins for monitoring VMware vSphere environments (standalone ESXi hosts or vCenter instances).

• VMware Tools

• Virtual CPU allocations

• Virtual hardware versions: homogenous, outdated-by threshold range, minimum required and default is minimum required checks

• Host/Datastore/Virtual Machine pairings (using provided Custom Attribute)

• Datastore usage

• Snapshots age

• Snapshots count

• Snapshots size

• Resource Pools: Memory usage

• Host Memory usage

• Host CPU usage

• Virtual Machine (power cycle) uptime

• Virtual Machine disk consolidation status (with optional forced refresh of Virtual Machine state data)

• Virtual Machine interactive question status

• Triggered Alarms in one or more datacenters

USAGE

See our main README for supported settings and examples.

Source Files

View all Source files

Directories

Path Synopsis
cmd
check_vmware_alarms
Nagios plugin used to monitor for Triggered Alarms in one or more datacenters.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor for Triggered Alarms in one or more datacenters.
check_vmware_datastore
Nagios plugin used to monitor datastore usage.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor datastore usage.
check_vmware_disk_consolidation
Nagios plugin used to monitor Virtual Machine disk consolidation status.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor Virtual Machine disk consolidation status.
check_vmware_host_cpu
Nagios plugin used to monitor ESXi host CPU usage.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor ESXi host CPU usage.
check_vmware_host_memory
Nagios plugin used to monitor ESXi host memory.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor ESXi host memory.
check_vmware_hs2ds2vms
Nagios plugin used to monitor host/datastore/vm pairings.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor host/datastore/vm pairings.
check_vmware_question
Nagios plugin used to monitor whether a Virtual Machine is blocked from execution due to one or more Virtual Machines requiring an interactive response.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor whether a Virtual Machine is blocked from execution due to one or more Virtual Machines requiring an interactive response.
check_vmware_rps_memory
Nagios plugin used to monitor memory usage across Resource Pools.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor memory usage across Resource Pools.
check_vmware_snapshots_age
Nagios plugin used to monitor the age of Virtual Machine snapshots.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor the age of Virtual Machine snapshots.
check_vmware_snapshots_count
Nagios plugin used to monitor the number of snapshots per Virtual Machine.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor the number of snapshots per Virtual Machine.
check_vmware_snapshots_size
Nagios plugin used to monitor the cumulative size of snapshots for each Virtual Machine.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor the cumulative size of snapshots for each Virtual Machine.
check_vmware_tools
Nagios plugin used to monitor VMware Tools installations.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor VMware Tools installations.
check_vmware_vcpus
Nagios plugin used to monitor allocation of virtual CPUs (vCPUs).
 Nagios plugin used to monitor allocation of virtual CPUs (vCPUs).
check_vmware_vhw
Nagios plugin used to monitor virtual hardware versions.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor virtual hardware versions.
check_vmware_vm_power_uptime
Nagios plugin used to monitor Virtual Machine (power cycle) uptime.
 Nagios plugin used to monitor Virtual Machine (power cycle) uptime.
internal
config
Package config provides types and functions to collect, validate and apply user-provided settings.
 Package config provides types and functions to collect, validate and apply user-provided settings.
textutils
Package textutils provides common helper functions for text manipulation or output used by applications in this module.
 Package textutils provides common helper functions for text manipulation or output used by applications in this module.
vsphere
Package vsphere provides various wrapper functions and types for interacting with and monitoring VMware vSphere environments.
 Package vsphere provides various wrapper functions and types for interacting with and monitoring VMware vSphere environments.

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