Zero in Nagios
If you have a Zero Service running at some URL like http://zero.example.org/zero/, it's quite simple to connect host objects in Nagios to the correct view.
Nagios provides two host attributes for this purpose: action_url, notes_url
In my setup I included the following attributes to my host template:
action_url http://zero.example.org/zero/rrd_view?hostname=$HOSTNAME$ notes_url http://wiki.example.org/mediawiki/?search=$HOSTNAME$,$SERVICEDESC$
If the notes_url renders useful, depends a little bit on the structure of your Wiki in this special case, but you can also call a CGI to lookup/generate document links. It's already prepared for use in a service object. Beware that many variables, that work in command declarations will not work in these attributes.
In a not-so-perfect environment with Zero Agents using the system's hostname, that are not appropriate for use as Nagios HOSTNAME, I simply used a custom attribute __NAME instead of HOSTNAME in the URLs. Here is an example:
A host is running 3 network interfaces on IPs host0001a.example.org, host0001b.example.org, host0001c.example.org, the hostname of the OS points to host0001a, but I want to name it simply host0001 in Nagios, then I just set __NAME to host0001a and setup an action_url http://zero.example.org/zero/rrd_view?hostname=$_HOST_NAME$ (see Nagios documentation for the translation of __NAME to _HOST_NAME).
Zero 2009/02 Release
We updated the Zero packages on SourceForge.net yesterday.
Even though it contains only minor changes and bugfixes, you may find the new parser and calendar gadget in the graph view useful.
The VMWare and VirtualBox appliances for the Zero Service are also up-to-date.
Zero RRD Framework: Major Release
It's done, yesterday we published a major update of the Zero RRD Framework at SourceForge. You will find the latest code in the SubVersion Repository, but also a snapshot in the Download Section.
You can just download and extract the tar.gz archives for zerod and zero-agent in your /opt folder and follow the manual in the doc folder.
Any feedback and help is appreciated.
This framework is used at a big site with thousands of agents reporting to the server, showing a very nice performance and easy installation/deployment (using cfengine).
Even though the installation may be of "alpha" quality, it's ready for production.
I personally tested the agent on Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS, the zerod service on Debian and Ubuntu and I currently prepare a VirtualBox appliance providing a ready-to-use zerod.
zerod/zero-agent
Hopefully soon SourceForge.net will show a new release of the Zero RRD Framework, that provides a simple but powerful service for real time graphs.
If you know the syntax of RRDTool you are already an export in configuring Zero. Uploading data is a simple HTTP request, but you can also use the Perl-based agent.