Monitoring Scenarios
These guides walk you through complete, end-to-end monitoring setups for the most common real-world use cases.
Each scenario follows the same structure:
- Goal — what you are trying to achieve
- Prerequisites — which modules to enable
- Configuration — the minimal
nsclient.inichanges needed - Command — the exact check command to run
- Expected output — what good and alert output look like
- Customisation — how to adjust thresholds or extend the check
- Next steps — where to go from here
Available Scenarios
Looking for install / hardening / web UI?
Agent setup, TLS hardening, and the web management UI live in the Setup section.
Infrastructure / System Health
| Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| Windows Server Health | Monitor CPU, memory, disk, and uptime together as a baseline health check |
| Linux Server Health | Load, CPU, memory/swap, kernel activity, disk and systemd services on Linux |
| Disk Space Alerting | Alert when drives are running low on free space (Windows & Linux) |
| Service & Process Monitoring | Ensure critical services (Windows services / Linux systemd units) and processes are running |
| Real-Time System Monitoring | Push CPU/memory/process alerts the second they happen (Windows & Linux) |
| Event Log Monitoring | Alert on errors and warnings in the Windows Event Log |
| Performance Counter (PDH) Monitoring | Read Windows performance counters, average them over time, and alert |
Network
| Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| Network Checks | Ping, TCP/SSH port checks (incl. TLS), HTTP/HTTPS health, DNS, and remote-agent availability |
Security
| Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| Host Security Posture | Certificate expiry/hygiene and logon sessions (Windows & Linux), plus Windows firewall, antivirus, BitLocker and Secure Boot |
Monitoring Server Integration
How NSClient++ exchanges results with your monitoring server — pick the direction (active vs. passive) and protocol that matches your setup.
| Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| Active Monitoring with NRPE | Let the monitoring server poll NSClient++ over NRPE (Nagios-style active checks) |
| Passive Monitoring (NSCA/NRDP) | Have NSClient++ push results to your monitoring server on a schedule |
| Passive Monitoring (NSCA-NG) | TLS-PSK successor to NSCA — modern crypto, same passive-push pattern |
| Passive Monitoring (Icinga 2) | Submit scheduled check results to the Icinga 2 REST API |
| Passive Monitoring (Graphite) | Push perfdata and system metrics to a Graphite/carbon backend for graphing |
| Checkmk Agent Integration | Serve a Checkmk-compatible agent dump from NSClient++ on TCP/6556 |
| Prometheus Scraping | Expose metrics on /api/v2/openmetrics for Prometheus to scrape |
Extensibility
| Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| External Scripts | Run your own scripts and batch files as monitoring checks |
Not sure where to start?
If this is your first time, read the Quick Start guide first, then come back here and pick the scenario that matches what you need to monitor.
To understand the filter and threshold engine that all checks share, see Checks In Depth.