[chef] Re: Nagios cookbook requires non-standard attributes within the "users" data bag for admins?

[Erik Sabowski < >]

On 09/22/2011 05:52 PM, Brad Knowles wrote:
> Folks,
>
> This is another one where I had opened a discussion on this subject at 
> help.opscode.com, and where I am now moving this thread to this list instead.
>
>
> Anyway, I have been following as best I can the Nagios quick start tutorial 
> (seeing as I'm on CentOS 5.6 and not Ubuntu, this means there's a lot of 
> stuff I have to do differently), and it seems that the file 
> nagios/templates/default/contacts.cfg.erb requires some non-standard 
> attributes to be defined for the admins (I added line numbers to make it 
> easier to see what error was happening where):
>
>   25<% @admins.each do |a| -%>
>   26 define contact {
>   27   use          default-contact
>   28   contact_name<%= a['id'] %>
>   29   email<%= a['nagios']['email'] %>
>   30 }
>
> However, in the "users" data bag, the attribute ['nagios']['email'] is not 
> defined for any of our admins. So, this value is nil, and we get this error when trying 
> to install this cookbook:
>
> [Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:52:14 +0000] INFO: Processing 
> template[/etc/nagios3/conf.d/contacts.cfg] action create (nagios::server line 
> 28)
> [Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:52:14 +0000] ERROR: 
> template[/etc/nagios3/conf.d/contacts.cfg] (nagios::server line 28) has had 
> an error
> [Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:52:14 +0000] ERROR: 
> template[/etc/nagios3/conf.d/contacts.cfg] 
> (/var/chef/cache/cookbooks/nagios/definitions/nagios_conf.rb:28:in `block in 
> from_file') had an error:
> Chef::Mixin::Template::TemplateError (undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass) 
> on line #29:
>
>   27:   use          default-contact
>   28:   contact_name<%= a['id'] %>
>   29:   email<%= a['nagios']['email'] %>
>   30: }
>   31:
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this template assuming that all admins should 
> get all nagios notices sent by e-mail? What if we have several admins defined 
> on the machine but who should not get the notices?
>
> Assuming I'm correct, then shouldn't you test a['nagios']['email'] != nil 
> before you try to use it in an assignment on line 29, and if it is nil then 
> skip over this particular admin?
>
>
> Unfortunately, this issue is preventing me from installing the Nagios 
> cookbook from the Opscode repository.  I'm now moving on to try the icinga 
> cookbook, to see if that works any better.
>
> Any and all advice or suggestions would be appreciated.  Thanks!

It really shouldn't be too hard to change that. You could add another 
field to the data bag indicating if this person should get 
notifications. Then add some logic to add only those people to the 
contact group. The rest of the users in the data bag will still be able 
to log in to the interface because that access is set somewhere else.

Note that those users would still have admin access to the server. If 
you want to create read-only users you'd have to modify it a bit more 
and create a separate contact group for read only users.

I don't think that these community cookbooks are meant to be everything 
to everyone, but rather a good starting point for most people to build on.

-erik