How To Install NRPE Client on Linux Mint

NRPE (Nagios Remote Plugin Executor) is a tool that allows you to remotely execute Nagios plugins on remote Linux or Unix servers. It enables you to monitor the remote host’s resources, such as CPU usage, disk space, and other performance metrics, and report the results to a central Nagios monitoring server.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install NRPE on Linux Mint.

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Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following:

• A Linux Mint server or desktop with sudo privileges
• A running Nagios monitoring server that can communicate with the Linux Mint server

Step 1: Installing NRPE

First, you need to install the NRPE package on your Linux Mint server. You can do this by running the following command:

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install nagios-nrpe-server nagios-plugins 

This will download and install the NRPE package and its dependencies.

Step 2: Configure NRPE

Once the installation is complete, you need to configure NRPE to work with Nagios. You can do this by editing the NRPE configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg 

In this file, you need to update the following settings:

Replace “IP_OF_NAGIOS_SERVER” with the IP address of your Nagios monitoring server. These settings tell NRPE to allow connections only from the Nagios server.

You can also configure NRPE to run specific Nagios plugins by adding the following line to the configuration file:

This line tells NRPE to run the “check_users” Nagios plugin when it receives a request from the Nagios server.

Save and close the file when you are done.

Step 3: Start NRPE

With NRPE installed and configured, you can start the NRPE service using the following command:

sudo systemctl start nagios-nrpe-server 

You can also enable NRPE to start automatically on system startup using the following command:

sudo systemctl enable nagios-nrpe-server 

Step 4: Test NRPE

To test if NRPE is running correctly, you can use the check_nrpe plugin from the Nagios server. You can do this by running the following command on the Nagios server:

/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_nrpe -H IP_OF_LINUX_MINT_SERVER -c check_users 

Replace “IP_OF_LINUX_MINT_SERVER” with the IP address of your Linux Mint server. This command tells Nagios to connect to the NRPE server on the Linux Mint server and run the “check_users” plugin.

If NRPE is working correctly, you should see the results of the “check_users” plugin in the output.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have shown you how to install and configure NRPE on Linux Mint. With NRPE, you can remotely execute Nagios plugins on your Linux Mint server and monitor its resources and performance metrics from a central Nagios monitoring server. By following the steps in this tutorial, you can set up NRPE and begin monitoring your Linux Mint server with Nagios.