check-vmware

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

Table of Contents

• Project home
• Overview
  • Plugin index
  • Output
  • Performance Data
  • Optional evaluation
• Features
• Changelog
• Requirements
  • Building source code
  • Running
• Installation
  • From source
  • Using provided binaries
    • Linux
    • Windows
    • Other operating systems
• Configuration options
• Contrib
• Examples
• License
• References

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. Documentation for the project as a whole is available in this README file while details specific to a plugin are recorded in a dedicated file. See the plugin index for a quick reference.

Plugin index

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_space	Nagios plugin used to monitor datastore usage.
check_vmware_datastore_performance	Nagios plugin used to monitor datastore performance.
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.
check_vmware_vm_backup_via_ca	Nagios plugin used to monitor last backup date for VMs (via specified custom attribute).
check_vmware_vm_list	Nagios plugin used to list Virtual Machines in order to test include/exclude options.

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

Initial support has been added for emitting Performance Data / Metrics, but refinement suggestions are welcome.

Consult the list of available metrics for each plugin for details. See the plugin index for a quick reference of available plugins.

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.

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
  • Datastore performance
  • 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
  • Last Backup date for VMs (via specified custom attribute)
  • List Virtual Machines (test include/exclude filtering options)

• 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
  • see this project's go.mod file for preferred version
  • see upstream vmware/govmomi library for required version
• 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_space/
     • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_datastore_performance/
     • 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/
     • go build -mod=vendor ./cmd/check_vmware_vm_list/
   • 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_space/
     • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_datastore_performance/
     • 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/
     • look in /tmp/check-vmware/release_assets/check_vmware_vm_list/
   • if using go build
     • look in /tmp/check-vmware/
7. Review configuration options, examples and contrib sections usage details.

NOTE: Depending on which Makefile recipe you use the generated binary may be compressed and have an xz extension. If so, you should decompress the binary first before deploying it (e.g., xz -d check_vmware_tools-linux-amd64.xz).

Using provided binaries

Linux

1. Download plugins from the Latest release that you are interested in
2. Decompress binaries
   • e.g., xz -d check_vmware_tools-linux-amd64.xz
3. Review configuration options, examples and contrib sections usage details.

NOTE:

DEB and RPM packages are provided as an alternative to manually deploying binaries.

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

See the plugin index for a quick reference to each plugin's documentation.

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

See the plugin index for a quick reference to each plugin's documentation.

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

• Related projects

  • https://github.com/atc0005/send2teams
  • https://github.com/atc0005/check-cert
  • https://github.com/atc0005/check-illiad
  • https://github.com/atc0005/check-mail
  • https://github.com/atc0005/check-path
  • https://github.com/atc0005/check-statuspage
  • https://github.com/atc0005/check-whois
  • https://github.com/atc0005/nagios-debug
  • https://github.com/atc0005/go-nagios

• vSphere

  • Go library for the VMware vSphere API
  • vSphere Web Services API
  • VMware Tools | VersionStatus field
    • vCenter Data Structures
    • vCenter Storage Monitoring Service API Reference

• Logging

  • https://github.com/rs/zerolog

• Nagios

  • https://github.com/atc0005/go-nagios
  • https://nagios-plugins.org/doc/guidelines.html
  • https://www.monitoring-plugins.org/doc/guidelines.html
  • https://icinga.com/docs/icinga-2/latest/doc/05-service-monitoring/