Extending monitoring capabilities with templates

There are situations where nodes should be monitored in nearly the same way (with slight differences like credentials or slightly different alerting configuration). This article will show you how to create new templates based on other templates

Scenario

NetCrunch monitors 2 networks where IPMI enabled servers are located. Monitoring and alerting configuration can be easily configured via templates, the only difference between these servers are credentials used for respective IPMI access. Instead of configuring separate templates - it's possible to create only one template with configuration and alerting, and then create the second template based on the first one.

Create Template

Creation of template is very easy, click on + in the top right corner and select Node Monitoring Template If you have a node that is configured in the same way that the new template should be, you can use the "Create from existing node" option.

Simply type DNS name or IP Address of the source node.

If you are creating a template based on monitoring settings of a particular node - make sure to use the "Assign new template to this node" option.

Create Duplicate Template

The next thing to do is to create the second template based on the one template that was just created. It's done exactly like the previous step, the only difference is to use the first template as a source node

By doing that - the template will be configured as a source template.

Edit duplicated template

There are two groups of nodes in this scenario - they should be monitored in exactly the same way, but credentials are different for each group. This is why templates are best to easily manage monitoring configuration - you need to change settings only on the template node.

Assign template to nodes

Templates can be easily assigned via multi selection - simply select all nodes that should use a template and use the option in the top right corner to assign them the desired template.

Result

Right now each group of nodes is monitored in the same way with different credentials. To add or modify any monitoring element of the template, edit the template and apply the necessary changes. They will be automatically applied to all nodes that are using this template.

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