Multi-Tenancy in Nagios XI

What is Multi-Tenancy?

Multi-Tenancy is an architecture where there is one instance of a computer or software serving multiple tenants. Each tenant is given the ability to customize parts of their user interface but cannot have full control over the software. One Nagios XI instance monitoring all infrastructure while a tenant can have the ability to see critical hosts and services for their specific environment.

Creating Users/Contacts in XI

When logging in, go to Admin on the left side then under Users find and click Manage Users. From here you have the ability to see what users were created, their name, email, phone number, Authorization level and type, last login, and actions such as edit, clone, masquerade as, disable, or delete.

After clicking Add New User, you will create a Username, Password, Alias (Name), and Email Address. Make sure Create as Monitoring Contact is checked and then click Add User. Once your user has been created, hover to the Gear Icon on the left side and click Core Config Manager (CCM). Then go to the Monitoring drop down and click hosts or host groups.

Click on the host that you want to share with this user. If you click the Alert Settings at the top you will be able to select a Contact or Contact Group to the host you selected. A good example is having multiple users in the same contact group, for instance, “Emma” in the “Marketing Team” contact group.

When logging into your new user, you will get a License Agreement that you will have to read through and accept, then click Submit. Emma will be able to see the host you just added, but all other hosts will not be visible on her end.

How is Multi-Tenancy Useful?

One use case might be if you had specific departments using a TV or projector showing the Hosts and Services tailored to which servers they need running. For instance, Marketing might need to see if any APs in their department are offline. Or you can add a Network-Attached-Storage they can view at a quick glance to see if it is operating correctly with the right bandwidth. Multi-Tenancy is very useful for users and departments to see tailored hosts and services critical to them.

From a MSP (Managed Services Provider) perspective, you might have multiple clients logging into the same Nagios XI instance to look at dashboards for their devices. Multi-Tenancy would make sure they only see their devices, and not other customers’ devices. 

Additional Resources

We have more awesome content on our YouTube Channel. For additional help, visit our Support Forum, our Knowledge Base, or or Tech Tips section in Library.

Also, check out our step-by-step guide on Multi-Tenancy or our video guide.