NAME

nsca-ng - monitoring command acceptor

SYNOPSIS

nsca-ng [-FSs] [-b listen] [-C file] [-c file] [-l level] [-P file]

nsca-ng -h | -V

DESCRIPTION

The nsca-ng server makes the Nagios command file accessible from remote systems. This allows for submitting passive check results, downtimes, and many other commands to Nagios (or compatible monitoring solutions). The communication with clients is TLS encrypted and authenticated using pre-shared keys (as per RFC 4279). The nsca-ng server supports per-client passwords and fine-grained authorization control.

The server process rereads its configuration file when it receives a hangup signal (SIGHUP) by executing itself with the name and arguments it was started with.

When compiled with systemd(1) support, the nsca-ng server auto-detects whether it was socket activated. If so, it behaves as if the -F option was specified, while it ignores the -b option and the listen setting in the nsca-ng.cfg(5) file. The nsca-ng server supports systemd(1)'s notify process startup type as well as the WatchdogSec feature (see the systemd.service(5) manual).

OPTIONS

-b listen: Bind to the specified listen address or host name. The default setting is “*”, which tells nsca-ng to listen on all available interfaces. A colon (“:”) followed by a service name or port number may be appended in order to override the default port (5668) used by nsca-ng. If this option is specified, the listen setting in the nsca-ng.cfg(5) file is ignored.
-C file: Submit monitoring commands into the specified file. This should be the named pipe (FIFO) that Nagios checks for external commands to process. By default, nsca-ng submits commands into /var/spool/nagios/nagios/rw/nagios.cmd. This option takes precedence over the command_file setting in the nsca-ng.cfg(5) file.
-c file: Read the configuration from the specified file instead of using the default configuration file /usr/local/etc/nsca-ng.cfg. If a directory is specified instead of a file, the configuration will be read from all files with a .cfg or .conf extension in this directory and all subdirectories. Symbolic links are followed.
-F: Don't detach from the controlling terminal, and write all messages to the standard error output (unless the -s option is specified).
-h: Print usage information to the standard output and exit.
-l level: Use the specified log level, which must be an integer value between 0 and 5 inclusive. A value of 0 tells nsca-ng to generate only fatal error messages, 1 adds non-fatal error messages, 2 adds warnings, 3 additionally spits out every submitted monitoring command (plus startup and shutdown notices), 4 also logs each message sent or received at the protocol level, and 5 generates additional debug output. The default log level is 3. If this option is specified, the log_level setting in the nsca-ng.cfg(5) file is ignored.
-P file: During startup, try to create and lock the specified file and write the process ID of the nsca-ng daemon into it. Bail out if another process holds a lock on the file. By default, no such PID file is written. This option takes precedence over the pid_file setting in the nsca-ng.cfg(5) file.
-S: Write all messages to the standard error output and (with the exception of startup messages) to the system logger. This option may only be specified together with the -F option.
-s: Send all messages to the system logger, except for startup messages. This is the default behaviour (unless the -F option is specified).
-V: Print version information to the standard output and exit.

FILES

/usr/local/etc/nsca-ng.cfg: The nsca-ng.cfg(5) configuration file.

AUTHOR