Frequently Asked Questions
==========================

== General

=== What is Thruk?
Thruk is a Webgui for Nagios (and compatible) based on the Livestatus
API. It's capable of merging multiple cores into a single display
while being much faster than the original cgis. In addition there have
been tons of usability improvments and there are plenty of useful
addons included like a dashboard, business process addons, a
configuration interface and many more...


=== Is Thruk an Abbreviation? What does Thruk mean?

Thruk is just a random word and has no meaning. Pronounce it like 'Truck'.


=== Where is the statusmap?

The statusmap got replaced by a own variant which is more scalable in
large environments. Its shipped as Thruk addon, but enabled by
default. See the http://thruk.org/plugins.html[plugins page] for details and screenshots.


=== Authorization/Authentication is not working

Authentication is done by the webserver, so authentication is only available
with the fastcgi version.


=== All dates and times are displayed with the wrong timezone

Try to set the use_timezone configuration option in your
thruk_local.conf



== Usage

=== How do i select hosts/services on the status page?

Just click on the empty table row when the row is highlighted. This only works
if you do not click on a link.


== Where can i see the full command line for a host or servicecheck?

You have to enable the option 'set show_full_commandline'. It's
disabled for security reasons by default. So be careful to not display
any passwords though the webinterface.




== Customization

=== How to change the side menu
The main left menu is highly editable through menu_local.conf. It is
recommended apply changes only to your menu_local.conf in order to
avoid conflicts on updating Thruk.

Open your menu_local.conf (create one if it does not exists) with your
preferred text editor and check the config.

==== Adding new Section

You can add new sections with:

....
add_section('name' => 'General');
....


==== Adding a new Link

To add a new link use the following syntax:

....
add_link('name' => 'Home', 'href' => '/thruk/main.html');
....

.Available parameters
* name: This is how the link is called in the web front end.
* href: This is the destination link optional you can add.
* target: If Link shall open in a new window.
* icon: Used for themes which support icons.

Then the config looks like this:

....
add_link('name' => 'Nagios, 'href' => '/nagios', 'target' => '_new');
....


'add_link' always adds the new link to the last section. Use 'insert_item' to
add a link to any section.


==== Including original side navigation


You can include the main menu config with the perl do statement.
Ex.: If you just want to add a new link to your config menu, your
menu_local.conf could look like this:

....
do $ENV{'OMD_ROOT'}.'/share/thruk/menu.conf';
add_link('name' => 'Wato', 'href' => '/'.$ENV{'OMD_SITE'}.'/check_mk/wato.py?filename=wato.mk');
....

This example just puts the Wato link from check_mks Multisite in your
config section. Replace the ENV part with a proper path if you do not
use http://omdistro.org[OMD].


==== Inserting item in existing Section

Adding Items to existing sections can also be achieved by
'insert_item':
....
do $ENV{'OMD_ROOT'}.'/share/thruk/menu.conf';
insert_item('General', { 'href' => 'http://your-company.com', 'name' => 'Company' });
....


==== Removing item in existing Section

Existing Items can be removed with the 'remove_item' function:
....
do $ENV{'OMD_ROOT'}.'/share/thruk/menu.conf';
remove_item('Reports', 'Availability');
....


==== Make item available for some groups only

Just wrap your changes in a 'has_group'.

....
if(has_group($c, 'Admins')) {
  add_section('name' => 'Admins Only');
  add_link('name' => 'Admin Link', 'href' => '.../only_for_admins.html');
}
....


==== Make item available for some roles only

Just wrap your changes in a 'has_role'.

....
if(has_role($c, 'authorized_for_configuration_information')) {
  add_section('name' => 'Some Roles Only');
  add_link('name' => 'Admin Link', 'href' => '.../only_for_some_roles.html');
}
....



=== How can i integrate Nagvis Maps
Integrating Nagivs is currently only possible when frames are enabled.
So first step is editing the thruk_local.conf and set
....
 use_frames = 1
....

Integration is easy. Just copy and edit your menu_local.conf.
For Nagvis 1.4 add something like:
....
 add_section('name' => 'Nagvis');
 add_link('name' => "Nagvis",        'href' => '/nagvis/frontend/nagvis-js/index.php');
 add_sub_link('name' => "demo",      'href' => '/nagvis/index.php?Map=demo');
 add_sub_link('name' => "demo-map2", 'href' => '/nagvis/index.php?Map=demo-map2');
....

For Nagvis 1.5:
....
add_section('name' => 'Nagvis');
add_link('name' => "Nagvis",         'href' => '/nagvis/frontend/nagvis-js/index.php');
add_sub_link('name' => "demo",       'href' => '/nagvis/frontend/nagvis-js/index.php?mod=Map&act=view&show=demo');
add_sub_link('name' => "demo-map2",  'href' => '/nagvis/frontend/nagvis-js/index.php?mod=Map&act=view&show=demo-map2');
....
Thruk has to be restarted.


=== How can i integrate Nagvis Maps in the Panorama Dashboard

Choose 'Generic Url Panlet' from the 'New Panlet' list. Then enter
the following url:
....
/nagvis/frontend/nagvis-js/index.php?mod=Map&act=view&show=demo-automap
....
Replace demo-automap with the name of your map. If you use OMD, you have
to prepend the site name to the url.

[TIP]
.nagvis panel
=======
There is a dedicated nagvis panel since Thruk release 1.78.
=======


=== How can i add more themes?

Themes are located under 'themes'. Just copy and modify the one you
like. See the http://thruk.org/themes.html[themes page] for details.


=== How can i disable themes?

Themes can be disabled by removing the symlink from your
'themes/themes-enabled' directory.
See the http://thruk.org/themes.html[themes page] for details.


=== How can i customize reports?
Customizing reports is coverd in the http://thruk.org/documentation.html#_customized_reports[official documenation].

=== Why are the PNP graphs missing in my reports?
First you need a working PNP installation. Then check
the http://thruk.org/documentation.html#_pnp_export[official documenation].

If nothing helps, add some debug output to the script which is responsible for
the pnp export (experienced users only).

Add these lines to 'plugins/plugins-available/reports2/script/pnp_export.sh'.

-------
exec >/tmp/pnp.log 2>&1
set -x
-------

Then regenerate a report and investigate that new logfile.


=== How can i create a readonly Panorama dashboard for my boss
In combination with the user specific settings, this can easily be achieved in
your thruk_local.conf:

-------
  <User boss>
    <Component Thruk::Plugin::Panorama>
      default_view    = /var/lib/thruk/panorama_view.boss
      readonly        = 1
  </Component>
  </User>
-------

The default view can be exported from the 'Settings' menu inside the panorama
dashboard.



=== How can i set custom page titles
There are few ways to do this. The first way is you can turn on the
use_bookmark_titles in your thruk_local.conf:

-------
    use_bookmark_titles = 1
-------

Now anytime you go to one of your Thruk bookmarks the name of
that bookmark will be used as the page title.
The second option is on most pages adding 'title=your title here' to
the url will set a custom title


==== How can i enable form based authentication
In order to use the form or cookie based authentication like demo.thruk.org does,
you have to do two small changes in your apache configuration.
Get https://github.com/sni/Thruk/blob/master/support/thruk_cookie_auth.example[thruk_cookie_auth.example]
and put everything except the RewriteLock into the virtualhost of your choice.
The RewriteLock must be outside any virtualhost. After that, restart the apache.



== Installation

=== Is it possible to operate Thruk in a cluster?
Yes, just put a load balancer before 2 (or more) Thruk installations
and make sure the 'var_path' directory is shared between all instances ( by
NFS, DRBD or similar ). There is usually not much traffic in this
folder.


=== How can i enable the business process addon.
It works out of the box with OMD. If not using OMD, some manual steps
are required which are described in the
http://thruk.org/documentation.html#_business_process[official documenation].


== Hacking Thruk
=== Within OMD
If you are using OMD, then you just might want to follow this guide:
https://github.com/sni/omd_utils/tree/master/thruk_developer
Which connects a test OMD site to the git version of Thruk. This works quite
well as long as there are only small changes in the perl module dependencies.

The installer adds a new OMD daemon which restarts Thruk whenever you change
a perl file or template.

=== Install Test Environment from Source
 1. First get a fresh copy of the sources:

  /tmp %> git clone git://github.com/sni/Thruk.git

 2. Create a .author file which prevents some caching mechanisms.

  /tmp %> cd Thruk && touch .author

3. use perl dependencies from existing installation.

  /tmp/Thruk %> export PERL5LIB=/usr/lib/thruk/perl5
+
Refer to the official documentation on how to install Thruk: http://www.thruk.org/documentation.html#_installation

4. start development server

  /tmp/Thruk %> ./script/thruk_server.pl -r
  HTTP::Server::PSGI: Accepting connections at http://0:3000/

5. hack Thruk...

6. create a git patch
+
review and commit your changes, then create a patch file which can be sent upstream to the author.

  /tmp/Thruk %> git commit -av
  /tmp/Thruk %> git format-patch -o /tmp/ --signoff -1



== Errors
=== Backend not available

The socat solution for using livestatus with SSL does not longer work
due to problems with socat and json data. If you see errors like:

------------------
[ERROR][Thruk.Controller.Root] Caught exception in Thruk::Controller::status->index "socket error at thruk/script/../lib/Monitoring/Livestatus/Class/Base/Table.pm line 186"
[ERROR][Thruk.Controller.error] internal server error
------------------

and you use socat for livestatus over ssl, please change to stunnel or
ssh with the normal xinetd solution.

=== undefined symbol: Perl_Istack_sp_ptr

You will get perl errors about undefined symbols when you try to
install a debian package on ubuntu or a ubuntu 11 deb file on ubuntu
12 or any package on a different platform than the package was build
for.

------------------
/usr/bin/perl: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/thruk/perl5/x86_64-linux-gnu-thread-multi/auto/List/Util/Util.so: undefined symbol: Perl_Istack_sp_ptr
------------------

The solution is simple: use the right package for your distribution.
If there is no package is available for your platform, use the source
installation.


=== Broken PDF Reports in Centos/Rhel 5

PDF reports won't work with libcairo < 1.8.8. Therefor you may use the
prepared packages for cairo 1.8.8 on rhel/centos 5 on the
http://thruk.org/download.html[download
page].

The new 'reports2' module should work fine, even on older Redhat
boxes.



=== Premature end of script headers: fcgid_env.sh

A few things to check:

- check the apache error log for more details.
- check the thruk logfile, usually located in /var/log/thruk/error.log
- if you are using Redhat/Centos, check if you have SELinux enabled:
+
  #>getenforce
  Disabled
+
'Enforcing' means SELinux is enable. Details can be found in the audit
log: /var/log/audit/audit.log.  SELinux can be disabled in
'/etc/selinux/config' (you will have to reboot once to make the
changes active).
+
  SELINUX=disabled
+
Read more about SELinux on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/SELinux
