Topics:
* Extra-Opts
* Further use of the /etc/monitoring-plugins directory




Extra-Opts
==========

Starting with the 1.4.12 release, most Monitoring Plugins (those written in C)
support reading options from a configuration file. Since version 2.0, this is
enabled by default.

You can easily know if a plugin supports Extra-Opts by checking the --help
output for the --extra-opts option. Once compiled in, the --extra-opts plugin
option allows reading extra options from a config file. The syntax for the
command is:

--extra-opts=[section][@file]

Some examples:

    Read special_opts section of default config file:

    $ ./check_stuff --extra-opts=special_opts

    Read special_opts section of /etc/myconfig.ini:

    $ ./check_stuff --extra-opts=special_opts@/etc/myconfig.ini

    Read check_stuff section of /etc/myconfig.ini:

    $ ./check_stuff --extra-opts=@/etc/myconfig.ini

	Read check_stuff section of default config file and use additional
    arguments along with the other specified arguments (Extra-Opts arguments are
    always processed first no matter where --extra-opts appears on the command
    line):

    $ ./check_stuff --extra-opts -jk --some-other-opt

The default nagios plugins file is used if no explicit filename is given. The
current standard locations checked are:

    /usr/local/etc/monitoring-plugins/monitoring-plugins.ini
    /usr/local/etc/monitoring-plugins.ini
    /etc/monitoring-plugins/monitoring-plugins.ini
    /etc/monitoring-plugins.ini

To use a custom location, set the MP_CONFIG_FILE environment variable to the
desired path name.

To specify an option without parameter, you can use a key without value, but
the equal sign must remain, for example:

     allow-regex=

Also note that repeated keys are allowed within sections just like you can
repeat arguments on the command line.

The basic theory is that options specified in the configuration files are
substituted at the beginning of the command line.

The initial use case for this functionality is for hiding passwords, so you do
not have to define sensitive credentials in the configuration of your
monitoring server and these options won't appear in the command line.


Permissions
===========

As some plugins require log in data, which are formerly stored in 
 /etc/{icinga,nagios}/resource.cfg 
and can now be stored inside the extra-opts file, please remember that the same
security rules apply now also to this new extra-opts file. Under normal 
circumstances, you should set restrictive permissions (600 or 640) on them.
User: root
Group: icinga or nagios, depending on your monitoring daemon


Further use of the /etc/monitoring-plugins directory
====================================================

Some Monitoring Plugins (like check_zypper) support additional configuration
files to be included/sourced in on execution. As long as the location of those
additional configuration files is not fixed, we recommend to use this directory
for it. 

@Packagers: please consider encapsulating Plugins with Apparmor or SELinux
profiles. For security and conveniance reasons, please allow your plugins to
read in the /etc/monitoring-plugins directory - or even better: allow your
plugins to read their configuration file below /etc/monitoring-plugins.