Upgrading Naemon

See Also: Quickstart Installation Guide

Upgrading Naemon From an DEB/RPM Installation

Upgrading an existing installation which is already installed from a package repository is probably the easiest task. Since these repositories are designed for exactly this task, you just have to use your favorite package tool and perform the update.

Debian / Ubuntu:

  %> apt-get update
  %> apt-get install naemon

Redhat / Centos / Fedora:

  %> yum install naemon

SLES / OpenSuse:

  %> zypper install naemon

Upgrading From Nagios 3.x Releases

As newer and stable releases of Naemon are released, you should strongly consider upgrading as soon as possible. Newer releases usually contain critical bug fixes, so its important to stay up to date. Assuming you’ve already installed Nagios in ‘/etc/nagios’, you can install Naemon easily besides your currently installation. Here’s the upgrade process…

Make sure you have a good backup of your existing installation and configuration files. A Naemon installation won’t alter your Nagios installation, but just in case anything goes wrong or doesn’t work, this will allow you to rollback to your old version.

Migration from Nagios is usually very easy. After the installation of Naemon you only need to copy the conf.d folder into /etc/naemon/conf.d. Also verify that your USER macros in your /etc/naemon/resource.cfg point to the same locations as before.

Clean up sample config but make sure you don’t need any of those files anymore.

  %> rm -f /etc/naemon/conf.d/*

Copy existing configuration files:

  %> cp -rp /etc/nagios/conf.d/      /etc/naemon/conf.d/
  %> cp -rp /etc/nagios/resource.cfg /etc/naemon/
  %> cp -rp /etc/nagios/cgi.cfg      /etc/naemon/

Your object configuration files may vary, just copy them into the new conf.d folder.

Copy existing logfiles and archive:

  %> cp -rp /var/log/nagios/archive/*.log /var/log/naemon/archive
  %> cp -rp /var/log/nagios/nagios.log /var/log/naemon/naemon.log

Copy existing status file:

  %> cp -rp /var/lib/nagios/retention.dat  /var/lib/naemon/

Edit the main configuration file and replace

• nagios_user with naemon_user
• nagios_group with naemon_group

Read the configuration incompatibilities guide.

Start naemon

  %> /etc/init.d/naemon start

In case of configuration errors, see the verify configuration page and the start/stop page.

That’s it - you’re done!

Upgrading From Nagios 2.x

It shouldn’t be too difficult to upgrade from Nagios 2.x to Naemon. The upgrade is essentially the same as what is described above for upgrading to newer Naemon releases. You will, however, have to change your configuration files a bit so they work with Naemon:

• The old service_reaper_frequency variable in the main config file has been renamed to check_result_reaper_frequency.
• The old $NOTIFICATIONNUMBER$ macro has been deprecated in favor of new $HOSTNOTIFICATIONNUMBER$ and $SERVICENOTIFICATIONNUMBER$ macros.
• The old parallelize directive in service definitions is now deprecated and no longer used, as all service checks are run in parallel.
• The old aggregate_status_updates option has been removed. All status file updates are now aggregated at a minimum interval of 1 second.
• Extended host and extended service definitions have been deprecated. They are still read and processed by Naemon, but it is recommended that you move the directives found in these definitions to your host and service definitions, respectively.
• The old downtime_file file variable in the main config file is no longer supported, as scheduled downtime entries are now saved in the retention file. To preserve existing downtime entries, stop Naemon and append the contents of your old downtime file to the retention file.
• The old comment_file file variable in the main config file is no longer supported, as comments are now saved in the retention file. To preserve existing comments, stop Naemon and append the contents of your old comment file to the retention file.

Also make sure to read the “What’s New” section of the documentation. It describes all the changes that were made to the Naemon code since the latest stable releases. Quite a bit has changed, so make sure you read it over.