Finally after and long overdue is the new version here. This is a major update and a recommended one as there are memory leaks in the previous version.

The highlight in addition to all the fixes and minor things are the experimental new installer which allows you to configure some options while installing NSClient++. The installer should I hope work better and provide easier error handling and such. The only issue thus far are some reports on windows 2007 where it requires administrative privileges to install. I do not have windows 2007 so I cannot confirm this (if someone has windows a spare 2007 or want to sponsor this platform get in touch with me).

A few of the highlights:

 * Improved installer
 * A lot of bugfixes and improvements 
 * Serious memory leak fixed
 * Added a few new options to NSCA module
 * New service name and description
 * Improved CHeckFile2 (new option max-dir-depth, path, pattern)
 * Added support for changing name and description of service from the /install command line
 * Added more filter operators to all numeric filters so they accept eq:, ne:, gt:, lt: in addition to =, >, <, <>, !, !=, in: (#269)
 * Added better support for numerical hit matching in the eventlog module. You can now use exact and detailed matching.
 * Cleaned up the checkProcState code and it is not a lot better.
 * Added new option 16bit to checkProcState. When set checkProcState will enumerate all 16 bit processes found running under NTVDM.
 * Added new command line options pdhlookup and pdhmatch (to CheckSystem) to lookup index and names.
 * Added new module A_DebugLogMetrics.dll which can be used to generate debug info.
 * Brand new build environment based upon boost build!!!
 * Modified /about so it now shows a lot of useful(?) info.

For all changes refer to the changelog.

On a side not I will during the night switch over to a new host so hopefully the site will be more stable as well!

// Michael Medin

Not much news in this build which contains a bunch of bug-fixes as well as a compleate version of the new installer.

• CheckFileAge? (was broken)
• NSCA config option time_delay was off by 1000.
• Eventlog monitoring with descriptions flag was crashing on x64.
• CheckProc? works better on x64
• New installer is "finalized"

The RC is called X this time as I did not want to rename all the others. If no one reports in bugs this will become 0.3.6 release in 24 hours or so.

Full change log:

2009-06-07 MickeM 
 * Fixed issue with CheckFileAge incorrectly working in recursive mode.
 * Finalized the installer

2009-05-22 MickeM 
 * Fixed time_delay option in NSCA config (now uses the correct base was 1000 times to large before)

2009-05-21 MickeM 
 * Fixed issue with eventlog parsing and 64 bit machines (descriptions option)
 * Fixed issue with "modern windows" and installing the service (should not have the correct privlaiges)

2009-05-17 MickeM 
 * Changed default buffer size for process enumeration (64K now instead of 1K should I hope work better on 64bit OS:es)

2009-05-10 MickeM 
 + Added write support for modules to installer

// Michael Medin

Hello,

Since the presentation I did on Noric Meet on Nagios is on bambuser I figured I would share the link to it so you might all enjoy :)

Topics are:

• Basic Usage of NSClient++
• Basic Monitoring features
• Eventlog monitoring
• WMI
• Scripting (very briefly)

For the presentation go here.

I also held a workshop on scripting on the "windows side" which unfortunately was not filmed. But I shall add the slides and material to the wiki this weekend.

// Michael Medin

Just saw that there are live feeds from the Nordic Meet on Nagios avalible here in about an hour or so I will give my presentation on windows monitoring.

// MickeM

Because I got a request (Elad Shapira) as well as a recommendation for a tool (wink) I decided to try it out:

This is a short and quick webcast (demo?) on starting NSClient++ in debug mode and stopping it and how to intercept calls from nagios and see what happends in real time. This is just a quick thing to try it out let me know how what you think...

// Michael Medin

Hello,

Since spam is picking up I have, again, disabled anonymous posting to see if this helps a bit. It is op to post just register a user (capta) and you should be fine. If anyone has problems with this let me know at michael<at>medin<dot>name

// Michael Medin

Hello everyone.

I have for the past few weeks been trying to track down a memory leak which has been plaguing me for some time now. And after spending literal hundreds of hours looking over everything trying various simulations and what not I found it. And felt pretty silly as I have suspected that function (and looked at it) for quite some time. I think I shall create a RAII wrapper for the arrayBuffer to prevent such issues in the future.

Anyways, there are a few other things as well but nothing dramatic but a memory leak is always worth an upgrade!

I shall fix the last few bits and pieces with the installer and then release the new version so expect that in the coming week or so. Yes, yes I know I have said so for quite some time but I wanted to fix this darn memory leak and it really took a long time to find...

// Michael Medin

Hello,

Just thought I'd post a short notice since I (Michael Medin) will be speaking on the up-coming "Nordic Meet on Nagios 09" conference.

I will again speak on windows monitoring (this time more advanced stuff) and in addition to this I will also hold a workshop where I will look more into application monitoring both Java and .net as well as some WMI.

For conference details go to the website:

// Michael Medin

Hello everyone (and yes that is probably only me, since no one ever comments on theses :)

Anyways, new RC out as promised, nothing really new from last nights build but I have been running some tests and such to see if I can track down the errant memory leak I found... and I did... ut I have yet to fix it, but dont worry the leak was in the shared session code so just disable shared session and you are fine. I shall (post 0.3.x) I think fix the shared session but depending on how easy it it this might be fixed before.

The highlight from this new RC is instead the brand new installer! It is much improved and works as an installer *should* so all you "MSI package people" let me know what you want configurable. The new installer will (after you pick target directory) read the old config and populate up the parameters used on the "configure dialog" the dialog "wont save" anything as of yet this will come in the next version but I wanted to get some feedback on the contents of the dialog. So if you have any ideas on what you want let me know!!! (yes... I mean that... let me know!!!) :)

Full changelog since last RC are here:

2009-03-15 MickeM 
 * New service name (displayname)
 * New service description

2009-03-14 MickeM 
 * Rebuilt installer UI (still missing write config function)
 * Added debug entry to log filename used by debug log metrics.
 * Fixed so alias will not require the allow_nasty_metachars option set under external sripts module.

2009-03-02 MickeM 
 * Added catch handlers and error logging to NSCA Thread
 * Fixed issue with CheckProcState and administrator login!
 + Added debug module to installer
 + Added option max-dir-depth to CheckFile and CheckFile2 like so:
   CheckFile "file=c:\test\*.txt" filter-size=<24g "syntax=%filename%: %size%" MaxCrit=1 max-dir-depth=0
   Will only find files on the "first level" where as max-dir-depth=1 would find all parents and children etc. (-1 is the default and means find all)
 * Fixed issue with finding sub-folders and *.txt now it will always look for subfolders if they are present

// Michael Medin

I disallowed wget since it use up quite a lot of "my" resources, please respect this and don't "try to get around it" if you have a legit reason for it let me know and I can help you out.

// Michael Medin

I have added some caching to css/js which will make the site a bit snappier as well as (I hope) reduce the load on the slice. I was at a customer doing a review on a public "high profile" website and remarked on this issue and on the way home I got to thinking... wonder if I do that on my trac site... and apparently I did not as the performance increased a lot (at least for me).

As always let me know if you have any problems with it...

Also, tonight there will be some sweet updates as well! (if you do not want to wait another 24 or so hours, try the installer for the latest nightly build... :)

// Michael Medin

...so hopefully everything will run a bit faster and smoother now and especially I hope things will run more stable. If there are any issue let me know as I had to re-install trac to get things working with debian apt.

// Michael Medin

The latest RC out in a bit will fix the issues with missing encryptions on NSCA connections. A good way to verify this is too run:

NSClient++ /about

Which yields the following:

...
l NSClient++.cpp(339) * NSCAAgent (w/ encryption) (NSCAAgent.dll)
l NSClient++.cpp(342)     Passive check support (needs NSCA on nagios server).
l NSClient++.cpp(342)     Avalible crypto are: {0=No Encryption (not safe), 1=XOR (not safe), 2=DES, 3=DES-EDE3, 4=CAST-128, 6=XTEA, 8=Blowfish, 9=Twofish, 11=RC2, 14=AES, 20=Serpent, 23=GOST}
...

where it lists available encryption algorithms. After this I shall investigate the process check issue and after then I shall (if nothing else pops up) release the new version.

// Michael Medin

Sight... Apparently (I just discovered) trac 11 was a big mistake memory usage has gone through the roof as well as overall performance. I shall investigate if I can downgrade again this weekend or possibly dist-upgrade and see if python 2.5 is better then 2.4 (apparently it is somewhat better on memory usage). But for the moment you will have to live with a reealy slow site!

// MickeM

To reduce the spam I have upgraded to Trac 0.11 so let me know if something does not work. Along the way I guess there are some new features and what not as well...

// Michael Medin

Updates regarding NSClient++

Hello again,

RC3 is out with two changes to event log. I will also (during the weekend) be upgrading trac to 0.11 in hopes to reduce spam (as it allows email verification for registration of users). Change log:

2009-02-05 MickeM 
 * Fixed so the error message for "to small eventlog buffer" specifies the required size.
 * Changed so that event log buffer problems are "ignored in the result" (still logged in the error log).

// Michael Medin

New RC for the 0.3.6 series some minor updates to the building code to make it build a proper manifest (works on vista and above now). As well as a new time_delay option for the NSCA handling to allow you to modify the "time" used when sending responses back to the server. Changelog:

2009-02-03 MickeM 
 * Added support for changing the time when using NSCA with the time_delay in NSC.ini
   time_delay=+4h or time_delay=-1h etc should can now be used when system time not the same as NSCA time.

// Michael Medin

Nothing major new but have been tested on NT4 and a few other images to make sure the new building subsystem and such works. Will do some more load and performance tests and unless there are any bugs new version will be out in a few days. But please take the time to try it out and help me find any bugs.

I also took the time to rename all files making it simpler to find them now they are sorted on version instead of on platform.

New features:

• Allows specifying service name with start/stop/install/uninstall to change the default name of the service.

  2009-01-30 MickeM 
   * Added support for changing name and description of service from the /install command line
     NSClient++ /install [gui] [start] [service name] [description]
     NSClient++ /uninstall [gui] [stop] [service name]
     NSClient++ /start [gui] [service name]
     NSClient++ /stop [gui] [service name]
  

// Michael Medin

New nightly up with mainly fixes to a handful of issues. from the changelog

2009-01-25 MickeM 
 * Fixed issue with checkVersion (#242)
 * Fixed spelling error (#244)
 * Fixed crash in CheckFile when a file was locked in exclusive mode (#254)
 + Improved error handling in all CheckDIsk/CheckFile checks. Should report errors better now.
 * Updated the config file a bit: remving "beta" from a bunch of modules no longer in beta.  (#270)
 + Added more filter operatos to all numeric filters so they accept eq:, ne:, gt:, lt: in addition to =, >, <, <>, !, !=, in: (#269)

// MickeM