Checkmk2#

Share information between i-doit and checkmk ## About

i-doit is a Web application for IT documentation and a CMDB (Configuration Management Database). This application is very useful to collect all your knowledge about the IT infrastructure you are dealing with.

checkmk is a software application for network monitoring.

Together both applications do one job very well: collecting and sharing knowledge about what is the current state of all your hosts and services in real-time and in which state each host and service should be. This is often essential for a professional and efficient IT service management (ITSM).

The application idoitcmk closely connects i-doit with checkmk. A lot of information will be shared between them to reach the following goals:

• Write-once, read-many: Keep your documentation and configuration at one place.
• Easily compare the current state with the target state of all your hosts and services within your documentation.
• Configure your network monitoring based on your documentation
• Let your network monitoring collect essential information about hosts and re-use it in your documentation.
• Automate all the boring tasks a sysadmin doesn’t like.

We know each (IT) organization has different requirements and various processes. Due to this it is important to have a highly customizable application.

Documentation#

• First steps
• Requirements
• Installation
• Usage
• Configuration
• Generate WATO configuration based on CMDB data
• Import inventory data into CMDB
• Match objects from i-doit with hosts from checkmk
• Read information from i-doit and checkmk
• Import agents types from checkmk to i-doit
• Sync contact groups between checkmk and i-doit
• Sync WATO folders between checkmk and i-doit
• Import monitoring sites from checkmk to i-doit
• Sync 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.

[1.8.1] - 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 Check_MK (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: Check_MK exception: Invalid key(s): hostname
• Check_MK 2: Error Message strlen() expects parameter 1 to be string, null given
• Error in list views when add-on Check_MK 2 was deinstalled
• 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.limitBatchRequests is
  smaller than the number of hosts.
• match/pull/push: Use primary category entry from category hostadress 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 Check_MK 2 and API add-on
• sync-agents: Cleanup agent types in i-doit which aren’t available in Check_MK
• sync-tags: Validate tags in i-doit before pushing them to Check_MK
• 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 Check_MK 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 Check_MK 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 autoloading 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 Check_MK 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 Check_MK
• 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 pro 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://portal.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 pro, at least version 1.12
• Require i-doit API add-on, at least version 1.10
• Enforce license check
• Remove dependency from legacy Check_MK 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 Check_MK
• sync-tags: Filter objects to sync their dynamic CMDB tags with Check_MK
• sync-tags: Do not re-import dynamic CMDB tags from Check_MK into i-doit
• sync-tags: Activate (foreign) changes after adding new host tags to Check_MK

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 optional to fetch “effective” attributes from hosts in Check_MK, 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 Check_MK 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 Check_MK 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 Check_MK 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 Check_MK
• push: Activate all changes including foreign changes by configuration setting push.activateForeignChanges

Changed#

• Require i-doit pro, 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 Check_MK
• 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 Check_MK 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 “Check_MK (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 Check_MK
• 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 Check_MK
• 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 Check_MK hosts
• pull: Handle i-doit objects with missing attributes properly

[0.7] – 2018-04-19#

Important notes:

1. Activate MK_Livestatus in Check_MK
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 Check_MK 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 Check_MK

[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 Check_MK Web API

[0.4] – 2018-04-05#

Added#

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

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 Check_MK

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 Check_MK to i-doit
• sync-contact-groups: Sync contact groups between Check_MK and i-doit
• sync-folders: Sync WATO folders between Check_MK and i-doit
• sync-sites: Import monitoring sites from Check_MK to i-doit
• sync-tags: Import tag groups from Check_MK 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