WMI troubleshooting

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CONTENTS

NRPE log files

You can use Notepad or Wordpad to open the NRPE log file located on your monitored server at Local Disk (C:) > NRPE_NT > bin > nrpe_nt.log. Each time the agent is asked to do something you will find a line in this file. At service start up the configuration files are read and if there are issues you may see some complaints, and further down the file is a read out on the commands sent to the agent from GroundWork.

Firewall settings

If you are receiving timeout errors you may need to check your NRPE Windows machines firewall settings to see if there is access to the 5666 port. The steps below review how to create an Inbound Rule for this port.

1. Navigate to advanced security from your NRPE Windows machine, (e.g., Start > Administrative Tools > Windows Firewall with Advanced Security).
2. Add a rule that allows inbound access on this machine using port 5666:
   • Select Inbound Rules, and click New Rule.
   • For Rule Type, select Port, click Next >.
   • For Protocols and Ports, select TCP and Specific local ports entering 5666, click Next >.
   • For Action, select Allow the connection, click Next >.
   • For Profile, check each that apply to your environment, click Next >.
   • For Name, enter a name and description for the NRPE rule (e.g., NRPE), click Finish.
3. You should see the rule listed at the top, if you scroll to the right you will see it is set for Port 5666.
4. Start the service.
   • Select Start > Windows Administrative Tools > Services.
   • Locate Nagios Remote Plugin Executor in the list, and click Start the service.

Other resources

WMI is installed on newer versions of Windows and can also be downloaded and installed on Windows NT. However, sometimes there are issues in getting WMI functioning. Most often these are easy to solve by ensuring authentication is set up correctly but in other cases there are corrupt or missing data structures on the remote host. There are a number of references on the Internet to assist with troubleshooting WMI problems. The plugins in this package assist with this troubleshooting by returning the WMI error code and (if possible) a description for that error.

If you are using the plugins without supplying -user and -pass arguments then the NRPE_NT service must be run as a user with administrative privileges on the host that the plugins are targeting. If you are using the plugins with -user and -pass arguments then that user must have administrative privileges on the target host.
In the case where you aren't using the -user and -pass arguments the use of a domain administrator account and then making sure that domain administrators have local administrative rights on each target host is the most efficient and maintainable solution. Another method involves defining a local account on each target host that uses the same account name and password as that passed to the plugin or as that being used to run the NRPE_NT service.

We list the following URLs on WMI and WMI troubleshooting for your convenience and will make every attempt to keep the links up to date:

• WMI Classes - A list of Microsoft WMI classes and their properties. Note that other vendors extend the WMI schema with their own classes, e.g. Cisco AVVID products.
• Using WMI to monitor performance - A reference from Microsoft.
• Repairing WMI - A reference from Microsoft.
• WMI Tools - WMI Browsing Tools
• WMI Diagnosis Utility - Microsoft's WMIDiag Tool to troubleshoot the state of WMI on a computer.