check_systemd

check_systemd is a Nagios / Icinga monitoring plugin to check systemd. This Python script will report a degraded system to your monitoring solution. It can also be used to monitor individual systemd services (with the -u, --unit parameter) and timers units (with the -t, --dead-timers parameter). The only dependency the plugin needs is the Python library nagiosplugin.

Installation

pip install check_systemd

Packages

check_systemd on repology.org.

• archlinux (package, source code): yaourt -S check_systemd
• Ubuntu (package, source code): apt install monitoring-plugins-systemd
• Debian (package, source code): apt install monitoring-plugins-systemd
• NixOS (package, source code): nix-env -iA nixos.check_systemd
• Fedora (package, source code): dnf install nagios-plugins-systemd
• OracleLinux9 / RHEL9 (package, source code, binary): This package includes one single binary compiled with the Python compiler Nuitka, including all dependencies. The package is built via GitLab CI as a nightly release and is considered experimental. curl -L -o check_systemd-1.0-1.x86_64.rpm "https://gitlab.com/msfgitlab/check_systemd_build_rpm/-/jobs/artifacts/main/raw/output/check_systemd-1.0-1.x86_64.rpm?job=release_rpm" && sudo dnf install -y ./check_systemd-1.0-1.x86_64.rpm

Command line interface

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_systemd", line 61, in <module>
    import nagiosplugin
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'nagiosplugin'

Project pages

• on github.com
• on icinga.com
• on nagios.org

Behind the scenes

dbus

• gi: Python 3 bindings for gobject-introspection libraries

  GObject is an abstraction layer that allows programming with an object paradigm that is compatible with many languages. It is a part of Glib, the core library used to build GTK+ and GNOME. Website Repo PyPI (PyGObject) Stubs Ubuntu (python3-gi) Debian (python3-gi)

• dbus: simple interprocess messaging system (Python 3 interface)

  D-Bus is a message bus, used for sending messages between applications. Conceptually, it fits somewhere in between raw sockets and CORBA in terms of complexity. Website Repo PyPI (dbus-python) Ubuntu (python3-dbus) Debian (python3-dbus)

Command line interface (cli) parsing:

To detect failed units this monitoring script runs:

systemctl list-units --all

To get the startup time it executes:

systemd-analyze

To find dead timers this plugin launches:

systemctl list-timers --all

To learn how systemd produces the text output on the command line, it is worthwhile to take a look at systemd’s source code. Files relevant for text output are: basic/time-util.c, analyze/analyze.c.

Deploying

Edit the version number in check_systemd.py (without v). Use the -s option to sign the tag (required for the Debian package).

git tag -s v2.0.11
git push --tags