Who this book is for

This book is aimed at system and network administrators who are comfortable with basic Unix-like system administration via the command line. It is best suited for GNU/Linux administrators, but should work fine for BSD administrators too. It has particular focus on the kind of administrator identified in the preface: one who is comfortable working with their Unix-like system, may well have a basic Nagios Core installation ready with some PING checks, and now wants to learn how to use more of the framework's power and understand its configuration in more depth.

Administrators should be comfortable with installing library dependencies for the extensions, plugins, and add-ons discussed in the book. An effort is made to mention any dependencies; however, how these are best installed will depend on the system and its package repository. In almost all cases, this should amount to installing some common libraries and their headers from a packaging system. Debian and Ubuntu package names are given for some more complex cases.

The easier recipes in the first five chapters involve some recap of the basics of configuring Nagios Core objects. Users completely new to Nagios Core who have just installed it will almost certainly want to start with Chapter 1, Understanding Hosts, Services, and Contacts, after completing the Nagios Quickstart Guide, as the latter chapters assume a fair amount of knowledge.