Checkmk 2#

Release Notes Checkmk 2 Version 1.8.6#

This version brings important improvements and new features to make using Checkmk 2 more efficient and future-proof.

Compatibility with PHP 8.2#

• Checkmk 2 now supports all PHP versions from 7.4 to 8.2.

Compatibility with Checkmk 2.3#

• To use the Checkmk 2 add-on with Checkmk 2.3, the configuration parameter check_mk.version must be set to "2.3".
• The add-on thus supports all versions starting from Checkmk 1.5.
• New features will only be implemented for Checkmk >= version 2.2 in the future.

Extended Logging#

• Logging has been expanded and now also includes the logging of HTTP requests and responses to/from Checkmk.
• New parameters for logging:
  • check_mk.logging.enableLogging: true|false: Enables logging of Checkmk responses/requests (disabled by default).
  • check_mk.logging.logFilePath: "/log/path": Directory where log files are stored. One log file is created per call. The directory must be readable and writable by the user running Checkmk 2 (e.g., www-data).
  • You can view an example configuration with idoitcmk print-example-config.

Bugfixes/Additional Adjustments#

• Merging of host addresses (pull.updateObjects: true) no longer overwrites already assigned networks.
• Activating changes now correctly considers based on the configuration parameter push.activateForeignChanges whether there are simultaneous changes by other Checkmk users.
• Pushing of objects has been further optimized.
• Evaluation of the configuration parameter webAPI|rest.effectiveAttributes corrected.
• Many additional minor adjustments under the hood.

What's New (v1.8.5)#

Dynamic Filtering via Whitelist and Blacklist (v1.8.5)#

With the latest software update, you now have the ability to control the import and synchronization process of software applications more precisely. Using regular expressions, you can define exactly which applications are included or excluded during the process. A whitelist allows you to specifically select certain software applications for processing. For example, the regular expression ^Windows Update.*$ ensures that all Windows updates are included in the process, while ^python[0-9.]+$ captures all Python versions. In parallel, the blacklist offers a complementary function with which applications can be explicitly excluded from the import and synchronization process.

In this version, an important change was also made to the configuration structure: The parameter createUnknownSoftwareApplications, previously found in the main pull section, has been moved to the newly created softwareApplications subsection. This restructuring improves the clarity and modularity of the configuration settings. If you want to familiarize yourself with the new configuration structure, the command ./idoitcmk print-example-config provides a convenient way to see an example of the new parameter arrangement.

What's New (v1.8.2)#

• As of version 1.8.2, CMK2 now also supports Checkmk 2.2.
  
• If the configuration parameter check_mk.version is set to "2.2", the REST API is automatically used instead of the Web API.
  
• If the configuration parameter check_mk.version is set to "2.1", the Web API is used, unless there is a configuration section "check_mk.rest" that can be used in parallel with the Web API configuration. In that case, the REST API is also used for version 2.1.
• This does not affect calls to the Inventory API!

About the Add-on#

The Checkmk 2 add-on connects i-doit (CMDB and IT documentation) with Checkmk (network monitoring). Together, you can achieve the following goals:

• Document once, use many times -- Maintain documentation and configuration in one place.
• Target/actual comparison -- Compare the current state with the desired state of your hosts and services.
• Configure monitoring -- Build network monitoring based on your documentation.
• Feed back inventory data -- Reuse information collected by Checkmk in the CMDB.
• Automate -- Handle recurring tasks without manual effort.

The idoitcmk application is highly configurable in this process, allowing you to map different requirements and workflows.

Documentation#

• Getting Started
• Requirements
• Installation
• Configuration
• Usage
• Generate WATO Configuration Based on CMDB Data
• Import Inventory Data into the CMDB
• Match Objects from i-doit with Hosts from Checkmk
• Read Information from i-doit and Checkmk
• Import Agent Types from Checkmk to i-doit
• Synchronize Contact Groups between Checkmk and i-doit
• Synchronize WATO Folders between Checkmk and i-doit
• Import Sites from Checkmk to i-doit
• Synchronize Host Tags between Checkmk and i-doit
• i-doit Web GUI
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Changelog#

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

[1.8.5] - 2024-07-01#

[1.8.5] - 2024-04-16#

Added#

• Adding software application white- and blacklist
• Moving config parameter pull.createUnknownSoftwareApplications to pull.softwareApplications.createUnknownSoftwareApplications
• PHP 8.1 Compatibility
• Improved log messages
• Removed Checkmk 1.5 from list of supported versions
• Extend status command to print the used config files

Fixes#

• CMK2-99 fix creation of hosts in other folder than main
• CMK2-88 fix crash with inventory api and config param i-doit.liwithBatchRequests
• CMK2-68 fix error at static tag sync
• CMK2-67 fix crash when importing drives

[1.8.4] - 2023-11-17#

Fixes#

• CMK2-49 error when calling cmdb.category.save
• CMK2-50 unify folder and host responses
• CMK2-51 fix inventory for checkmk <2.1
• CMK2-53 fix include tags
• CMK2-53 remove obsolete dynamic attributes
• CMK2-55 correct handling of empty attributes in HW/SW Inventory
• CMK2-56 fix errors during sync-sites
• CMK2-57 fix errors during sync-tags
• CMK2-61 fix errors during saving of contact-groups
• CMK2-62 validation error during pull
• CMK2-63 fix undefined index mac

[1.8.3] - 2023-09-07#

Fixes#

• CMK2-41 REST-API: pull crashes when certain host or folder attributes are sets
• CMK2-42 REST-API: match crashes
• CMK2-44 REST-API: read nested folders correct
• CMK2-45 REST-API: sync-folders crashes when creating nested folders
• CMK2-46 CONFIG: only require a rest configuration if Checkmk Version >= 2.2

[1.8.2] - 2023-08-18#

Fixes#

• CMK2-41 REST-API: pull crashes when certain host or folder attributes are sets
• CMK2-42 REST-API: match crashes
• CMK2-44 REST-API: read nested folders correct
• CMK2-45 REST-API: sync-folders crashes when creating nested folders
• CMK2-46 CONFIG: only require a rest configuration if Checkmk Version >= 2.2

[1.8.2] - 2023-08-18#

Added#

• Adding compatibility to Checkmk 2.1

Fixes#

• CMK2-38 prevent arbitrary code execution on the idoit host via command injection in the hostname field of the ajax call

[1.8.1] - 2022-11-21#

Fixes#

• Adding compatibility to Checkmk 2.1

[1.8.0] - 2022-09-05#

Added#

• PHP 8.0 Compatibility
• Design Compatibility

Fixes#

• Error message when synchronizing tags
• Synchronizing IPv6 IPs and networks generates an error message

[1.7.1] - 2021-10-18#

Added#

• Pull IPv6 addresses from checkmk to i-doit

Fixed#

• Add/fix CPU attributes from checkmk to i-doit
• Add/fix operating system attributes from checkmk to i-doit

[1.7.0] - 2021-08-09#

Added#

• Implement merge strategy while pulling from checkmk to i-doit

Fixed#

• Tags (static) Dropdown 'Tag group' attributes cannot be deleted
• Checkmk 2: Tags are not displayed with the tag group in reports

[1.6.1] – 2021-06-15#

Fixed#

• Password and username must be specified (i-doit config)
• Filtering on attributes of category Checkmk (host) generates SQL error and list view does not work anymore
• Dynamic host tag "Location" cannot be set globally
• Checkmk 2 Plugin Pull: Validation errors in dialog related properties
• The live status configuration is not optional
• Checkmk responded with an error message: Checkmk exception: Invalid key(s): hostname
• Checkmk 2: Error Message strlen() expects parameter 1 to be string, null given
• Error in list views when add-on Checkmk 2 was uninstalled
• Operating system is not assigned
• No attributes are imported for applications
• Pull with the same Host as parent ends in a loop

[1.6.0] – 2019-12-06#

Added#

• pull: Import software applications
• pull: New configuration setting pull.createUnknownSoftwareApplications
• pull: New configuration setting pull.attributes.C__CATG__APPLICATION
• pull: New configuration setting objectTypes.softwareApplication
• pull/match: Match objects and hosts by serial number configured by new item serial in pull.attributes
• fetch-hosts: Add new option --select to select one or multiple attributes, ignore everything else (works only in verbose mode)
• push: Print last request to Checkmk API on failure as debug message

Changed#

• Drop support for PHP version 5.6
• Mark PHP version 7.0 as deprecated
• Recommend PHP 7.3
• Re-name Check_MK to Checkmk
• Require PHP modules hash, sockets and SPL
• pull: Do not warn about empty host tag IDs because they are allowed in Checkmk
• pull: Ignore link local networking addresses and interfaces
• pull: Do not ignore a networking address which can't be assigned to a networking port
• push: Create site if it's set in i-doit (category Checkmk Host) but not set in Checkmk
• push: Update site if it's set in both i-doit and Checkmk but differs
• push: Remove site if it isn't set in i-doit but set in Checkmk
• match: Warn about ignored objects or objects without unique identifiers

Fixed#

• fetch-hosts/pull: Fetch HW/SW inventory data for all hosts if configuration setting i-doit.liwithBatchRequests is smaller than the number of hosts.
• match/pull/push: Use primary category entry from category host address to determine hostname used by Checkmk
• pull: Do not import empty MAC addresses
• pull: Prevent validation error caused by unknown property entry
• pull: Print link to Checkmk if attribute "site" is available
• pull: Validate data type of each tag identifier
• pull: Do not leave any host without an import strategy (create, overwrite, merge or ignore)
• pull: Decide import strategy for each host based on matching and configuration settings
• pull: Do not create objects which should be ignored
• push: Use IPv4 address which is explicitly marked as primary
• Web GUI: Add missing translations in English

[1.5.1] – 2019-05-08#

This is a bug fix release after we received tons of useful feedback from our users.

Important notices:

• Before installing/updating this add-on, please update to the latest version of i-doit (at least 1.12.2) and the API add-on (at least 1.10.2).
• Before using any other commands, run sync-agents first and check your i-doit objects for missing values in category Check_MK Host, attribute Agent.

Added#

• status: Check installed versions of Checkmk 2 and API add-on
• sync-agents: Cleanup agent types in i-doit which aren't available in Checkmk
• sync-tags: Validate tags in i-doit before pushing them to Checkmk
• pull/push: Add new configuration settings to identify required object types by their constants and objects by their titles
• pull: Print links to i-doit and Checkmk for each object (only in debug mode)

Changed#

• Require i-doit >=1.12.2
• Require API add-on >=1.10.2
• pull/push/sync-tags/Extras > Check_MK 2 > Tags (static): Mark attribute Tag ID as optional
• pull: Skip empty tag identifiers
• pull: If model is given but vendor is unknown set vendor to n/a (and vice versa)
• pull: Support more bandwidth options
• sync-agents: Fetch agent types directly from Checkmk and do not rely on a pre-defined list of agent types
• sync-tags: Do not allow to sync duplicate tag IDs, empty group titles or changed tag IDs
• sync-tags/sync-agents: Include built-in host tag groups, for example: agent type, SNMP, IP address family
• init: Do not force to configure most settings which have proper defaults; just ask nicely
• Add performance boost while fetching objects from i-doit by tweaking API calls
• Replaced deprecated i-doit API methods
• help/--help/-h: Improve included documentation
• Abort application run on any PHP error
• Category Check_MK Host: Print message if host/object not found
• Category Check_MK Host: Remove link to command log (prevents 403 forbidden error message)
• fetch-hosts/fetch-objects/delete-hosts: Exit with status code 2 if host/object not found
• Build binary: Replace BZip2 with GZip compression after auto loading failed because of wrong checksums

Fixed#

• pull: Fix API calls to prevent validation errors in attributes active, primary and export_ip
• pull: Avoid errors when archiving data in overwrite mode
• pull: Do not create new objects in i-doit if configuration setting pull.createObjects is disabled
• pull: Do not warn about missing host tags because they are dynamically created by i-doit
• pull: Do not try to add network port with zero bandwidth
• pull: Select proper attributes to import CPUs
• pull: Do not overwrite hostname selection in categories Check_MK Host and Livestatus if object is updated
• pull/fetch-hosts: Fix filtering by Checkmk site with option --include-site
• pull/match: Do not try to match objects by unspecified hostname selection in category Check_MK Host
• pull/push/match: Do not try to create already existing object which has a match with a host
• push: Do not miss any host-related contact group if more than one group is assigned to an object
• push: Do not push tag IDs in lower-case
• push: Validate possible identifiers before using one of them
• push: Do not push any object with option --include-ids which is disabled for export
• push: Add parents to existing host or overwrite current parents or remove them properly
• push: Add or remove alias to/from host properly
• push/fetch-objects: Prevent error "Found invalid result for request in batch" if --include-ids filters by unknown objects
• sync-tags: Do not forget to strip HTML tags from tag group title before syncing to Checkmk
• installation/update: Grant "Admin" group access to Extras > Check_MK 2 in Web GUI
• Extras > Check_MK 2 > Tags (static): Edit/delete/sort static host tags in i-doit
• Administration > Interfaces / external data > Monitoring > Check_MK 2: Fix updating configuration settings
• Administration > CMDB settings > Dialog-Admin: Make dialog+ attributes agent, site and WATO folder available
• Category Check_MK Host/Check_MK Tags: Do not create duplicate assignments to object types after update
• Category Check_MK Host: Write full command output incl. STDERR to log file
• Category Check_MK Tags: Make "dynamic tags" and "CMDB tags" available in reports

[1.5.0] – 2018-12-18#

First public release 🎉

Important notes:

• Because of several major changes in i-doit we had to increase minimum versions of i-doit and API add-on.
• Please re-run idoitcmk init to update configuration setting pull.attributes.
• From now on, you need a valid license for this add-on. Download your license file from https://center.i-doit.com/.

Added#

• push/pull/match: Validate hostname specified in i-doit
• Add more pre-checks: Please do not use neither PHP version < 7.0.0 nor super-user "root"

Changed#

• Require i-doit, at least version 1.12
• Require i-doit API add-on, at least version 1.10
• Enforce license check
• Remove dependency from legacy Checkmk add-on
• Migrate tag configuration from Extras > Check_MK to Extras > Check_MK 2
• Migrate category Check_MK (Host) > Export parameter to Check_MK Host
• Migrate category Check_MK (Host) > Host tags to Check_MK Tags
• Re-name category constant C__CATG__CMK_DEF to C__CATG__CMK2
• Re-name category constant C__CATG__CMK_TAG to C__CATG__CMK2_TAG
• Re-name category constant C__CMDB__SUBCAT__NETWORK_PORT to C__CATG__NETWORK_PORT in configuration setting pull.attributes
• Re-name category constant C__CMDB__SUBCAT__NETWORK_INTERFACE_L to C__CATG__NETWORK_LOG_PORT in configuration setting pull.attributes

Fixed#

• push: Fix error while archiving category entries
• sync-folders: Fix typos
• pull: Accept only EUI-48 MAC addresses (48-bit)

[1.4.0] – 2018-11-05#

Remember, remember, the fifth of November... 🎃

Added#

• push: Add management board address to host based on a object-related remote management controller
• sync-tags: Import host tags and host tag groups from i-doit into Checkmk
• sync-tags: Filter objects to sync their dynamic CMDB tags with Checkmk
• sync-tags: Do not re-import dynamic CMDB tags from Checkmk into i-doit
• sync-tags: Activate (foreign) changes after adding new host tags to Checkmk

Fixed#

• Fix error when installing add-on in i-doit Admin-Center without parallel login to i-doit tenant
• fetch-objects: Print URL without PHP notice

[1.3.0] – 2018-09-10#

Important note: There are changes in the configuration settings. Re-configure your application with idoitcmk init.

Added#

• push: Validate regular expressions in configuration setting push.autoTagging
• status: Test loaded PHP extensions
• Make it optionally to fetch "effective" attributes from hosts in Checkmk, but enable it by default
• Add new configuration setting check_mk.webAPI.effectiveAttributes (set to true by default)
• fetch-objects: Print URL to each i-doit object
• fetch-hosts: Print URL to each Checkmk host
• push/fetch-objects: Increase performance dramatically if the only filter option is --include-ids

Changed#

• pull: Ignore empty host tags
• pull: Ignore host tag groups address_family and snmp (they are not available via Checkmk Web API call)

Fixed#

• push: Do not ignore IP address
• push/pull/match: Check for every object attribute whether it exists before matching it against host attributes
• Configure individual proxy hosts for both i-doit JSON-RPC API and Checkmk Web API
• Verbose mode: Do not print that no objects have been found by blacklisted object types

[1.2.0] – 2018-07-09#

Important notice: Before installing/updating this add-on, please update your i-doit instance to the latest version (currently 1.11).

Added#

• Trigger idoitcmk commands within i-doit category Check_MK (Host)
• delete-hosts: Delete hosts in Checkmk
• push: Activate all changes including foreign changes by configuration setting push.activateForeignChanges

Changed#

• Require i-doit, version 1.11 or higher

Fixed#

• push, fetch-objects: Increase performance when using option --include-type
• push, fetch-objects: Include dynamic host tags

[1.1.0] – 2018-05-24#

Important notice: Default configuration has changed. Setting pull.identifier has new value user-defined.

Added#

• pull: Import IPv4 addresses and network ports from GNU/Linux and other non-windows systems
• pull: Add speed to network ports
• -v|--verbose: Print number of API requests
• match: Match objects from i-doit with hosts from Checkmk
• pull: Match object with host by user-defined value for attribute Hostname in category Check_MK (Host) > Export parameter

Fixed#

• pull: Import right amount of CPU cores

[1.0.0] – 2018-04-30#

Added#

• pull: Import CPU model, manufacturer and max. frequency

Changed#

• pull: Do not enable monitoring via Livestatus if attribute "site" is not available for Checkmk host

Fixed#

• pull: Prevent PHP warnings while accessing unknown information

[0.10] – 2018-04-27#

Important note: There are changes in the configuration settings. Re-configure your application with idoitcmk init.

Added#

• pull: Allow more than one IPv4 address per network adapter
• pull: Assign IPv4 addresses to physical/logical network ports
• pull: Import information about (virtual) video cards/chips
• New configuration setting pull.attributes.C__CATG__GRAPHIC; defaults to true

Fixed#

• pull: Sometimes host is missing in import cue when there is a match with an object
• pull: Do not forget to add primary IPv4 address to category "Checkmk (Host) > Export parameter"
• push: Do not forget to add host tags based on configuration setting push.autoTagging
• sync-tags: Incomplete host group tags may cause errors
• Configuration setting push.autoTagging: Missing slashes in regular expressions

[0.9] – 2018-04-25#

Important note: There are changes in the configuration settings. Re-configure your application with idoitcmk init.

Added#

• pull: Look for IP address configuration in hardware/software inventory from Checkmk
• pull: Assign IP addresses to proper subnets in i-doit
• pull: Use ipaddress attribute as fallback if there are no addresses found in hw/sw inventory
• pull: Create or update link in i-doit object to host in Checkmk
• New configuration setting pull.attributes.C__CATG__ACCESS; defaults to true

Changed#

• pull: Convert drive capacity to proper unit

Fixed#

• Let user overwrite (not merge) configuration settings pull.identifier and blacklistedObjectTypes
• pull: Do not ignore RAM, CPU sockets and cores

[0.8] – 2018-04-19#

Added#

• pull: Add static host tags to i-doit objects
• push: Show more details if a host identifier is used by more than one i-doit object

Fixed#

• pull: Prevent mismatches for i-doit objects and Checkmk hosts
• pull: Handle i-doit objects with missing attributes properly

[0.7] – 2018-04-19#

Important notes:

1. Activate MK_Livestatus in Checkmk
2. There are changes in the configuration settings. Re-configure your application with idoitcmk init.

Added#

• push: Look for duplicate identifiers (object title, hostname, FQDN, user-defined) used by objects in i-doit
• status: Check connection to MK_Livestatus and check Checkmk version
• New configuration setting roles.monitoring to define i-doit role for contact groups assigned to objects

Changed#

• pull: Remove merge mode because it does not make sense for all categories which can be updated

Fixed#

• pull: Archive entries for enabled categories only
• pull: Respect ignore mode
• init: Ask for configuration setting pull.updateObjects

[0.6] – 2018-04-13#

Added#

• status: Print warning if configuration setting i-doit.url looks insufficient
• push: Print warning if object is not enabled by attribute active in category Check_MK (Host) > Export parameter

Fixed#

• push: PHP warning is thrown while fetching a contact without specified role
• pull/fetch-hosts: Prevent HTTP error code 414 URI Too Long while fetching hw/sw inventory data from Checkmk

[0.5] – 2018-04-12#

This release fixes several issues in required packages.

Changed#

• Add requirements for PHP modules bzip2 and phar
• Do not look for configuration settings in /root/.idoitcmk/config.json

Fixed#

• Avoid duplicates in configuration settings
• Remove backslashes from configuration settings
• Fix several problems while parsing responses from Checkmk Web API

[0.4] – 2018-04-05#

Added#

• fetch-objects: Read information about objects from i-doit
• fetch-hosts: Read information about hosts from Checkmk

Changed#

• Decreased binary file size

[0.3] – 2018-03-09#

Fixed#

• help/init/configtest/print-example-config/print-config/list: Validation error for missing/invalid configuration settings

[0.2] – 2018-03-08#

This release is dedicated to all women.

Added#

• push: Use primary IP address if no other is given
• push/pull: Print more information what is going on when there is a huge amount of objects to be fetched from i-doit
• Print current configuration settings with command print-config
• Validate configuration settings before any command is executed

Changed#

• push: Continue even if any discovery of services failed

Fixed#

• pull: Do not try to fetch objects by type from i-doit if there are no objects available
• sync-folders: Keep in mind WATO folders "/" and "" (empty string) are the same
• sync-folders: PHP error when WATO folder is copied from i-doit to Checkmk

[0.1] – 2018-03-05#

First release!

Added#

• push: Generate WATO configuration based on CMDB data
• pull: Import inventory data into CMDB
• sync-agents: Import agents types from Checkmk to i-doit
• sync-contact-groups: Sync contact groups between Checkmk and i-doit
• sync-folders: Sync WATO folders between Checkmk and i-doit
• sync-sites: Import monitoring sites from Checkmk to i-doit
• sync-tags: Import tag groups from Checkmk as static host tags to i-doit
• print-example-config: Print all configuration settings as an example
• More commands: help, list, init, status, configtest, print-example-config, build-test-environment