BEWARE: The discovery part is depracted in the 2.4 version, and will be moved to a module in the next versions.
When Shinken is installed, the discovery script shinken-discovery can help you start your new monitoring tool and integrate a large number of hosts. This does not replace extracting data from an authoritative CMDB/IT reference for provisioning known hosts. It can be used to supplement the data from the authoritative references.
It is suggested to execute both discovery modules in one pass, because one module can use data from the other.
The network discovery scans your network and sets up a basic monitoring configuration for all your hosts and network services. It uses the nmap tool.
Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install nmap
RedHat/Centos:
yum install nmap
Windows: Not available at this time.
You need to setup the nmap targets in the file /etc/shinken/resource.d/nmap.cfg: For nmap:
$NMAPTARGETS$=localhost www.google.fr 192.168.0.1-254
This will scan the localhost, one of the numerous Google server and your LAN. Change it to your own LAN values of course!
Tip
This value can be changed without modifying this file with the -m discovery script argument
Tip
Of course, if you do not have a vCenter installation, skip this part ...
You will need the check_esx3.pl script. You can get it at http://www.op5.org/community/plugin-inventory/op5-projects/op5-plugins and install it in your standard plugin directory (should be /var/lib/plugins/nagios by default).
You need to setup vcenter acces in the file /etc/shinken/resource.d/vmware.cfg: Enter your server and credential (can be an account domain)
$VCENTER$=vcenter.mydomain.com
$VCENTERLOGIN$=someuser
$VCENTERPASSWORD$=somepassowrd
Now, you are ready to run the discovery tool:
This call will create hosts and services for nmap and vmware (vsphere) scripts in the /etc/shinken/discovery/discovery directory.
sudo shinken-discovery -o /etc/shinken/objects/discovery -r nmap,vsphere
If you are lazy and do not want to edit the resource file, you can set macros with the -m arguments:
sudo shinken-discovery -o /etc/shinken/objects/discovery -r nmap -m "NMAPTARGETS=192.168.0.1-254 localhost 192.168.0.1-254"
You can set several macros, just put them on the same -m argument, separated by a comma (,).
Tip
The scan can take quite a few minutes if you are scanning a large network, you can go have a coffee. The scan timeout is set to 60 minutes.
Once the scan is completed, you can restart Shinken and enjoy your new hosts and services:
sudo /etc/init.d/shinken restart
If you want to know more about the discovery process, like how to create a discovery script or define creation rules, consult the advanced discovery documentation.