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Nagios XI - Getting Started Tips

This Doc Hub article provides links to Nagios XI documentation on specific topics that will be of value as you get started with Nagios XI.

This article aims to prevent those "I wish I knew that when I started" moments, you'll find Nagios XI has many layers to it and having some quick tips can be a big help when learning and deploying it.

Installation Options and Server Considerations

Host Group / Service Group Planning

The Core Config Manager (CCM) is Nagios XI's advanced configuration GUI, and is where host groups and service groups are created. Putting some time into planning and creating your groups right out of the gate will pay dividends later by keeping things organized and enabling you to quickly filter, analyze, and report on meaningful subsets of your monitored infrastructure.


You can find details on creating groups in the guides linked here, in the Core Config Manager section of the Admin Guide.

This video provides a walk-through of creating Host Groups:

Parent / Child Topology Considerations

Parent child relationships are important for highlighting network blockages which prevent excessive notifications. In addition to this they help to easily visualize your network. This video provides details:



NagVis is a great reason to define these relationships and the following documentation demonstrates setting up the parent / child relationships.

Notifications

Agent Considerations

Nagios XI supports many agents and monitoring methods, they all do relatively the same thing but how do you choose the one you will use? The Nagios Cross Platform Agent (NCPA) is a great option for multiple operating systems and architectures, including Linux, Windows, OSX, Solaris, and AIX. You can learn more about NCPA here:

The Agents section of the Admin Guide is another great resource:

Best Practices

You can learn more about best practices here:

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