Nagios Remote Plugin Executor (NRPE) and xinetd on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

As per a few previous posts, I'm tinkering ( there's that word again, I must think of another simile ) with Nagios.

This time I'm looking to have my Nagios monitoring server ( which runs on Ubuntu ) execute an agent on a remote boxen running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Having installed the pre-requisites ( and I do need to document those steps more clearly ), I setup a NRPE script to be started using xinetd ( A Powerful Replacement For Inetd )

cat /etc/xinetd.d/nrpe 

# default: on
# description: NRPE (Nagios Remote Plugin Executor)
service nrpe
{
        flags           = REUSE
        socket_type     = stream    
port = 5666    
        wait            = no
        user            = nagios
group = nagios
        server          = /usr/local/nagios/bin/nrpe
        server_args     = -c /usr/local/nagios/etc/nrpe.cfg --inetd
        log_on_failure  += USERID
        disable         = no
# only_from       = 192.168.153.130
}

Having started the service: -

systemctl restart xinetd.service

I was expecting to see NRPE listening on port 5666: -

netstat -aon | grep LISTEN | grep 5666

but saw nothing alas.

I checked the logs: -

tail -f /var/log/messages

Dec  6 14:00:01 mfp systemd: Starting Session 222 of user root.
Dec  6 14:00:14 mfp xinetd[5771]: unexpected signal: 18 (Continued) in signal pipe
Dec  6 14:00:14 mfp systemd: Stopping Xinetd A Powerful Replacement For Inetd...
Dec  6 14:00:14 mfp xinetd[5771]: Exiting...
Dec  6 14:00:14 mfp systemd: Starting Xinetd A Powerful Replacement For Inetd...
Dec  6 14:00:14 mfp systemd: PID file /var/run/xinetd.pid not readable (yet?) after start.
Dec  6 14:00:14 mfp xinetd[6205]: service/protocol combination not in /etc/services: nrpe/tcp
Dec  6 14:00:14 mfp xinetd[6205]: xinetd Version 2.3.15 started with libwrap loadavg labeled-networking options compiled in.
Dec  6 14:00:14 mfp xinetd[6205]: Started working: 0 available services
Dec  6 14:00:14 mfp systemd: Started Xinetd A Powerful Replacement For Inetd.

which makes sense.

Following this: -

xinetd[11497]: service/protocol combination not in /etc/services: nrpe/tcp

I updated the services table: -

vi /etc/services

and changed it from: -

...
cfengine        5308/tcp                        # CFengine
cfengine        5308/udp                        # CFengine
cvsup           5999/tcp        CVSup           # CVSup file transfer/John Polstra/FreeBSD
cvsup           5999/udp        CVSup           # CVSup file transfer/John Polstra/FreeBSD
...

to: -

...
cfengine        5308/tcp                        # CFengine
cfengine        5308/udp                        # CFengine

nrpe            5666/tcp                        # NRPE

cvsup           5999/tcp        CVSup           # CVSup file transfer/John Polstra/FreeBSD
cvsup           5999/udp        CVSup           # CVSup file transfer/John Polstra/FreeBSD
...

Once I again restarted xinetd : -

systemctl restart xinetd.service

the nrpe service started listening on port 5666: -

netstat -aon | grep LISTEN | grep 5666

tcp6       0      0 :::5666                 :::*                    LISTEN      off (0.00/0/0)

with no issues in the logs: -

tail -f /var/log/messages

Dec  6 14:09:54 mfp systemd: Starting Xinetd A Powerful Replacement For Inetd...
Dec  6 14:09:54 mfp systemd: PID file /var/run/xinetd.pid not readable (yet?) after start.
Dec  6 14:09:54 mfp xinetd[6803]: xinetd Version 2.3.15 started with libwrap loadavg labeled-networking options compiled in.
Dec  6 14:09:54 mfp xinetd[6803]: Started working: 1 available service
Dec  6 14:09:54 mfp systemd: Started Xinetd A Powerful Replacement For Inetd.

Thanks, Google, you again served me well ...