Summary
When creating or extending Nagios configuration to monitor a large number of resources, spend some time planning the layout of your configuration. Some people recommend one file for each single definition, while others recommend storing things in a single file per host. We recommend keeping similar things in the same file and maintaining a directory-based set of files.
In this chapter we have learned the following things:
Setting up efficient directory structure and file naming standards
Where to put objects depending on the type and hosts it is configured for
How to define dependencies so that Nagios can then detect root causes of problems
Using templates to ease defining a large number of objects
Accessing host, service, or contact-specific information with custom variables
What state flapping is and how Nagios detects when flapping occurs
The next chapter describes notifications and events in more detail. It will help us set up an efficient way to let the IT department know about errors...
