Prev Chapter 2. Getting Started Next
Monitoring Network Printers
Introduction
This document describes how you can monitor the status of networked printers. Specifically, HP printers that have internal/external JetDirect cards/devices, or other print servers (like the Troy PocketPro 100S or the Netgear PS101) that support the JetDirect protocol.
The check_hpjd plugin (which is part of the standard Nagios plugins distribution) allows you to monitor the status of JetDirect-capable printers which have SNMP enabled. The plugin is capable of detecting the following printer states:
Paper Jam Out of Paper Printer Offline
Intervention Required Toner Low
Insufficient Memory Open Door
Output Tray is Full and more...
Note
These instructions assume that you’ve installed Icinga according to the quickstart guide. The sample configuration entries below reference objects that are defined in the sample config files (commands.cfg, templates.cfg, etc.) that are installed if you follow the quickstart.
Monitoring Network Printers
Overview
Monitoring the status of a networked printer is pretty simple. JetDirect-enabled printers usually have SNMP enabled, which allows Icinga to monitor their status using the check_hpjd plugin.
Important
The check_hpjd plugin will only get compiled and installed if you have the net-snmp and net-snmp-utils packages installed on your system. Make sure the plugin exists in /usr/local/icinga/libexec before you continue. If it doesn’t, install net-snmp and net-snmp-utils and recompile/reinstall the Nagios plugins after issuing "make clean" in the source directory. Take a look at the Quickstart Guide for details.
Steps
There are several steps you’ll need to follow in order to monitor a new network printer. They are:
1. Perform first-time prerequisites
2. Create new host and service definitions for monitoring the printer 3. Restart the Icinga daemon
What’s Already Done For You
To make your life a bit easier, a few configuration tasks have already been done for you:
A check_hpjd command definition has been added to the commands.cfg file. This allows you to use the check_hpjd plugin to monitor network printers.
A printer host template (called generic-printer) has already been created in the templates.cfg file. This allows you to add new printer host definitions in a simple manner.
The above-mentioned config files can be found in the /usr/local/icinga/etc/objects/ directory. You can modify the definitions in these and other definitions to suit your needs better if you’d like.
However, we’d recommend waiting until you’re more familiar with configuring Icinga before doing so. For the time being, just follow the directions outlined below and you’ll be monitoring your network printers in no time.
Prerequisites
The first time you configure Icinga to monitor a network printer, you’ll need to do a bit of extra work. Remember, you only need to do this for the *first* printer you monitor.
Overview
Edit the main Icinga config file.
#> vi /usr/local/icinga/etc/icinga.cfg
Remove the leading hash (#) sign from the following line in the main configuration file:
#cfg_file=/usr/local/icinga/etc/objects/printer.cfg
Save the file and exit.
What did you just do? You told Icinga to look to the /usr/local/icinga/etc/objects/printer.cfg to find additional object definitions. That’s where you’ll be adding host and service definitions for the printer. That configuration file already contains some sample host, hostgroup, and service definitions. For the *first* printer you monitor, you can simply modify the sample host and service definitions in that file, rather than creating new ones.
Configuring Icinga
You’ll need to create some object definitions in order to monitor a new printer.
Open the printer.cfg file for editing.
#> vi /usr/local/icinga/etc/objects/printer.cfg
Add a new host definition for the networked printer that you’re going to monitor. If this is the
*first* printer you’re monitoring, you can simply modify the sample host definition in printer.cfg. Change the host_name, alias, and address fields to appropriate values for the printer.
define host{
Now you can add some service definitions (to the same configuration file) to monitor different aspects of the printer. If this is the *first* printer you’re monitoring, you can simply modify the sample service definition in printer.cfg.
Note
Replace "hplj2605dn" in the example definitions below with the name you specified in the host_name directive of the host definition you just added.
Add the following service definition to check the status of the printer. The service uses the check_hpjd plugin to check the status of the printer every 10 minutes by default. The SNMP community string used to query the printer is "public" in this example.
define service{
Add the following service definition to ping the printer every 10 minutes by default. This is
Configuring Icinga
define service{
use generic-service host_name hplj2605dn service_description PING
check_command check_ping!3000.0,80%!5000.0,100%
check_interval 10 retry_interval 1 }
Save the file.
Restarting Icinga
Once you’ve added the new host and service definitions to the printer.cfg file, you’re ready to start monitoring the printer. To do this, you’ll need to verify your configuration and restart Icinga.
If the verification process produces any errors messages, fix your configuration file before continuing. Make sure that you don’t (re)start Icinga until the verification process completes without any errors!
Prev Up Next
Monitoring Netware Servers Home Monitoring Routers and Switches
© 2009-2013 Icinga Development Team, http://www.icinga.org
Restarting Icinga