What's Changed

Here I list all changes since 0.6.9 which is the previous release (there have been experiemental builds which includes below feature since then).

Os detection for check_os_version

This use the build number to detect OS versions above Windows 10 so if you want to check version you need to include build number in your check.

Enhancements and experimental support for Pdh based check_cpu.

This version has some PDH (Performance data Helpers) fixes and improved error handling and introduces an experimental new option to switch check_cpu to use PDH instead of APIs. This is experimental and intended to solve the issue with incorrect, negative or zero values on some machines with more than 12 cores. The main issue is that PDH is messy. It is localized and has historically been prone to strange issues and errors such as counter index getting corrupted and similar issues so lets ee how this works before making it the default.

To switch change the following configuration:

[/settings/system/windows]
use pdh for cpu=true

Check CPU load values now uses more standard keywords:

• idle
• user
• system

Old keywords are still retained for compatibility, so this is a non-breaking change.

Lua

The biggest new change here is the re-added Lua support. The Lua support has been changed a bit so it might not be 100% compatible with old scripts. As there is not much documentation for Lua scripting, I plan to add that soon. And doing that I will highlight the main differences.

> One thing still missing in Lua is protocol buffer support > This means you can only create "simple function" is returning code, string and performance data. But given the nature of Lua I think this is acceptable for the time being.

But in general "optional parameters" to functions are no longer optional. So for instance:

local reg = Registry()
reg:simple_function('lua_test', test_func_query)

local settings = Settings()
str = settings:get_string('/settings/lua/scripts', 'testar')

local core = Core()
code, msg, perf = core:simple_query('lua_test')

Will now require to be written as:

local reg = Registry()
reg:simple_function('lua_test', test_func_query, '')

local settings = Settings()
str = settings:get_string('/settings/lua/scripts', 'testar', '')

local core = Core()
code, msg, perf = core:simple_query('lua_test', {})

The other change is that construction object is now generally done with new where before it was done with various functions like Core() here however I have retained backwards compatibility so both should be possible.

But in general the quality of error handling and such is much better and I will as I said expand the documentation and add some more examples and such.

check_mk

As a side note experimental check_mk support was also added back. This is experimental in so far as I have only verified it with NSClient++ not actual check_mk so will need to look into that next. Also note that check_mk is experimental currently it only provides the version and agent name. If there is genuin interest this could easily be extended so please do let me know...

The way check_mk works is that the module only provides the communication layer and the data provided is provided by a Lua script (hence requiring Lua support). So the current script looks like so:

function server_process(packet)
    s = section.new()
    s:set_title("check_mk")
    s:add_line("Version: 0.0.1")
    s:add_line("Agent: nsclient++")
    s:add_line("AgentOS: Windows")
    packet:add_section(s)
end

reg = mk.new()
reg:server_callback(server_process)

So here we need to extend the packet to include more data and other sections for proper check_mk support.

Installer:

• Removed padded version numbers from installer (this caused issues with upgrade)
• Installer is now built with openssl presumably fixing remote config via https (have not verified this yet)
• Enabled WebUI by default in installer (open can still be used to disable)
• Added option to disable installing the service in installer

Security:

• Added option to configure ciphers in the web server (default is TLS 1.2 but now you can set 1.3 if you prefer)
• Default TLS (NRPE et al.) is now 1.2+ instead of only 1.2
• Improved some options and added docs for using NRPE with certificates and Nagios…
• Installer now installs the NRPE 2048 bit DH key

Other changes

• Fixed check_nscp_verison parsing new semantic version
• Added error messages for login failure via web browser
• Updated build instructions
• Fixed integer overflow in check_files.vbs script
• Fixed status in summary text not matching actual summary when no results were found in filters (see UNKNOWN: OK in this example)

  check_drivesize "filter=drive='foobar'"
  L        cli UNKNOWN: OK: No drives found
  L        cli  Performance data:

• Fixed numerous spelling and grammar issue in the documentation.
• Removed breakpad (replaced by restart watchdog and log files, but wont create and submit crash dumps (instead windows creates dumps which can be used))
• Bumped dependencies

Dependencies

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.15...0.7.0

What's Changed

Minor update with two fixes:

Os detection for check_os_version

This use the build number to detect OS versions above Windows 10 so if you want to check version you need to include build number in your check.

Improved experimental check_cpu with PDH counters.

It no longer use indexes instead English counter names which I hope will work better. Also now supports cores option to get CPU load per core.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.14...0.6.15

What's Changed

This version has some PDH (Performance data Helpers) fixes and improved error handling and introduces an experimental new option to switch check_cpu to use PDH instead of APIs. This is experimental and intended to solve the issue with incorrect and negative values on some machines with more than 12 cores. It currently does not support fetching loads per core (this will be added in a future update).

The main issue is that PDH is messy. It is localized and has historically been prone to strange issues and errors such as counter index getting corrupted and similar issues.

To switch change the following configuration:

[/settings/system/windows]
use pdh for cpu=true

This will then change so the check_cpu commands will use PDH counters instead.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.13...0.6.14

What's Changed

check_cpu

Check CPU load values was somewhat non standard before.

• idle
• total
• kernel

This has now been changed so we have (the more common):

• idle
• user
• system

We still retain the old ones for compatibility, so this is a non-breaking change. But it makes it easier for me to reason about the code as "total" can be many things. In an attempt to combat "large negative values" I have also added checks so the system should now return 0 instead.

Other changes

• TinyXML2 is now a proper dependency (version 10.1.0)
• CryptoPP have been updated to 8.9.0
• Added error messages for login failure via web browser
• Improved build times (fixed caching)
• Updated build instructions

Dependencies

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.12...0.6.13

What's Changed

Lua

The biggest new change here is the re-added Lua support. The Lua support has been changed a bit so it might not be 100% compatible with old scripts. As there is not much documentation for Lua scripting, I plan to add that soon. And doing that I will highlight the main differences.

> One thing still missing in Lua is protocol buffer support > This means you can only create "simple function" is returning code, string and performance data. But given the nature of Lua I think this is acceptable for the time being.

But in general "optional parameters" to functions are no longer optional. So for instance:

local reg = Registry()
reg:simple_function('lua_test', test_func_query)

local settings = Settings()
str = settings:get_string('/settings/lua/scripts', 'testar')

local core = Core()
code, msg, perf = core:simple_query('lua_test')

Will now require to be written as:

local reg = Registry()
reg:simple_function('lua_test', test_func_query, '')

local settings = Settings()
str = settings:get_string('/settings/lua/scripts', 'testar', '')

local core = Core()
code, msg, perf = core:simple_query('lua_test', {})

The other change is that construction object is now generally done with new where before it was done with various functions like Core() here however I have retained backwards compatibility so both should be possible.

But in general the quality of error handling and such is much better and I will as I said expand the documentation and add some more examples and such.

check_mk

As a side note experimental check_mk support was also added back. This is experimental in so far as I have only verified it with NSClient++ not actual check_mk so will need to look into that next. Also note that check_mk is experimental currently it only provides the version and agent name. If there is genuin interest this could easily be extended so please do let me know...

The way check_mk works is that the module only provides the communication layer and the data provided is provided by a Lua script (hence requiring Lua support). So the current script looks like so:

function server_process(packet)
    s = section.new()
    s:set_title("check_mk")
    s:add_line("Version: 0.0.1")
    s:add_line("Agent: nsclient++")
    s:add_line("AgentOS: Windows")
    packet:add_section(s)
end

reg = mk.new()
reg:server_callback(server_process)

So here we need to extend the packet to include more data and other sections for proper check_mk support.

Other Changes

• Fix typo in documentation by @Napsty in https://github.com/mickem/nscp/pull/903
• Marked Dotnet and modules as deprecated in documentation.
• Reformatted all code by @mickem in https://github.com/mickem/nscp/pull/917

Status

With this change most features should now be back (apart from dotnet which is deprecated) the only things remaining are:

• Protocol buffer support for Lua.
• CheckPowerShell: A module adding native power-shell support to NSClient++ (this will likely be re-implemented in the future with Rust)
• CheckDocker: This needs to be looked into (not sure of the status)

That said there are some dependencies which needs to be updated and managed a bit better still but that will happen in parallell while adding support for modern Windows.

Dependencies

• Python: 3.11
• Open ssl: 1.1.1w
• Protocol buffers: 21.12
• Boost: 1.82.0
• CryptoPP: 8.8.0
• Lua: 5.4.7
• Mongoose: ?
• json-spirit: ? (Will be replaced by native support in boost)
• miniz: ?
• tinyxml: ?

New Contributors

• @Napsty made their first contribution in https://github.com/mickem/nscp/pull/903

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.11...0.6.12

What's Changed

This is a "pre release" meaning I want some feedback on some of the changes. So as long as you read and understand the change-log there should not be any functional issues installing this in a production setting if you want.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed integer overflow in check_files.vbs script

• Fixed status in summary text not matching actual summary when no results were found in filters (see UNKNOWN: OK in this example)

  check_drivesize "filter=drive='foobar'"
  L        cli UNKNOWN: OK: No drives found
  L        cli  Performance data:

• Added new option fetch core loads to allow using another API to fetch CPU load. This might fix the "incorrect CPU load on machines with many cores)

  [/settings/system/windows]
  fetch core loads = false

  This will be further improved in coming version but please do let me know if this improves the situation.

Documentation

Merged a series of PR:s fixing grammar and spelling mistakes in the code and documentation.

• Fixed numerous spelling and grammar issue in the documentation.
• Fixed exit code description in docs
• Added docs about loading modules to docs

Maintenance

Started to automatically re-format the code some sections require gated excludes so this will take a while so will do it part by part.

• Reformatted part of the code base

New Contributors

• @simon04 made their first contribution in https://github.com/mickem/nscp/pull/673
• @harloprillar made their first contribution in https://github.com/mickem/nscp/pull/735
• @wopfel made their first contribution in https://github.com/mickem/nscp/pull/620
• @mlalibs made their first contribution in https://github.com/mickem/nscp/pull/769
• @EconomicTouristsArmLate made their first contribution in https://github.com/mickem/nscp/pull/805

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.10...0.6.11

What's Changed

This is a bug fix release with a bit of everything (I.e. low hanging fruit). This is a "pre release" meaning I want some feedback on some of the changes (for instance default enable web server, and NRPE docs and changes). So as long as you read and understand the change-log there should not be any functional issues installing this in a production setting if you want.

Installer:

• Removed padded version numbers from installer (this caused issues with upgrade)
• Installer is now built with openssl presumably fixing remote config via https (have not verified this yet)
• Enabled WebUI by default in installer (open can still be used to disable)
• Harmonized docs with https://nsclient.org
• Added option to disable installing the service in installer

Security:

• Added option to configure ciphers in the web server (default is TLS 1.2 but now you can set 1.3 if you prefer)
• Default TLS (NRPE et al.) is now 1.2+ instead of only 1.2
• Improved some options and added docs for using NRPE with certificates and Nagios…
• Installer now installs the NRPE 2048 bit DH key

check_nscp_verison:

• Fixed check_nscp_verison parsing new semantic version

Various

• Started to add instructions for building locally
• Removed breakpad (replaced by restart watchdog and log files, but wont create and submit crash dumps (instead windows creates dumps which can be used))
• Bumped web and python dependencies

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.9...0.6.10

What's Changed

• Fixes config is overwritten by installer when upgrading from 0.4.x or 0.5.x
• Makes TLS default for web server (so enabled web server will now be exposed on https://localhost:8443 )

> This SHOULD fix the installer delete config issue, if not please do let me know HOW you install and which version as I have verified this locally now with the release artifact.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.7...0.6.9

What's Changed

• Fixes config is overwritten by installer when upgrading from 0.4.x or 0.5.x
• Makes TLS default for web server (so enabled web server will now be exposed on https://localhost:8443 )

> WARNING! This did in fact NOT fix the issue with upgrading from 0.5.x will delete existing config! > Hopefully 0.6.9 fixes this issue, so please try that and do let us know.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.7...0.6.8

What's Changed

A bug fix release which fixes a regression issue from 0.5.x

• Fixed broken TLS support in the WEBServer
• Added signatures to MSI (currently using a "personal signature" as I haven't managed to get Microsoft to cooperate)

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.6...0.6.7

> WARNING! Upgrading from 0.5.x will delete existing config! We are currently looking into fixing this.

What's Changed

• Metrics added to the WebUI and new welcome screen
• Fixed: Version should be dot separated
• Bumped openssl to 1.1.1w
• Bumped protobuf to 21.12
• Bumped numerous web dependencies

New welcome screen:

New Metrics view:

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mickem/nscp/compare/0.6.5...0.6.6

> WARNING! Upgrading from 0.5.x will delete existing config! We are currently looking into fixing this.

Bug fix release which fixes a few important installer issues.

• The installer in version 0.6.4 had the wrong version number
• The installer in version 0.6.4 had a miss configuration causing the config file name to be wrong which in terms caused a permission issue during installation
• The check_service command would fails on some services which could not be described correctly.

> WARNING! Upgrading from 0.5.x will delete existing config! We are currently looking into fixing this.

Added back the WEB UI which is now fully working again

The WEB UI has the same functions as before but is now written in a modern framework. It is still a bit bare bones and I have plans to add configuration wizzards to simplify configuration.

Other Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the config was not read by the installer causing the config to be reset every time you upgraded NSClient++
• Added missing symbols to releases
• Swapped versioning to use semantic versioning
• Automated version bumps

> WARNING! Upgrading from 0.5.x will delete existing config! We are currently looking into fixing this.

Fixed crash in NRPE server

Changes:

• Removed secondary installer The secondary installer was a work around for as it was hard to build NSClient++ but now with automated builds anyone wanting the secondary installer can easily fork and maintain their own
• Fixed script installed in wrong folder Scripts were wrongly installed in the root folder
• Added debug symbols archive To helt debug crashes I have added an archive with debug symbols

• Added support for older windows

• Added NRPE 3/4 support
• Currently Disabled:
  • DotNet modules
  • Lua scripting
  • Web interface (server still works, just no UI)

• Massive update with changes updates to all libraries and third party dependencies
• Updated to python 3
• Automated build pipelines (Github Actions)
• Currently Disabled:
  • DotNet modules
  • Lua scripting
  • Web interface (server still works, just no UI)
• Fixed more build issues
• Fixed performance data parsing when > 1Tb
• Added option to disable TLS1.1, TLS1.2 and TLS1.3

• Changed logger to log failed messages to nsclient.fatal (in same folder as service starts from usually system32)
• ExternalScripts: Fixed command line not showing help
• settings: Fixed #549 issue with including files inside files.
• check_process: Fixed #552 check_process process keyword should be case blind
• WEBServer: Fixed #550 check_nsc_web not working
• docs: Corrects the key name of the "Include" section
• docs: Corrected authorization in rest docs
• check_wmi: Fixed #407 rendering arrays of numbers.
• WebServer: Changed legacy role to a specific role
• check_eventlog: Added bookmarks to allow checking only events since last check
• zip-modules: fixed multiple json parsing issues
• python script: fixed list configuration sections

Fixed so missing log entries are written to nsclient.fatal

• ExternalScripts: Fixed #558 added trace logging for external scripts
• ExternalScripts: Fixed command line not showing help
• Added crude settings command to list settings keys from test client
• Added support for finding recursive keys to settings helpers
• settings: Fixed #549 issue with including files inside files.
• check_process: Fixed #552 check_process process keyword should be case blind
• WEBServer: Fixed #550 check_nsc_web not working
• Fix for duplicate types on windows (
• add rudimentary Dockerfile for building in alpine 3.4
• Corrects the key name of the "Include" section
• WebServer: Fixed authorization settings path
• check_wmi: Fixed #407 rendering arrays of numbers.
• CheckExternalScripts: Fixed #148 using script path does not allow arguments

• Added storeage API
• Added ${data-path} variable for storing data
• WebServer: Changed legacy role to a specific role
• EleasticClient: Fixed crash when server did not respond
• check_eventlog: Added bookmarks to allow checking only events since last check
• Added sample zip module (icamp) to showcase how to add configuration at runtime
• Added remote module zip plugin
• Added infrastructure for building zip-modules
• zip-modules: fixed multiple json parsing issues
• core: Added support for subscribing to multiple events and debug message when no handler matches an event
• python script: Added support for loading modules from within python scripts during load
• python script: fixed list configuration sections
• graphite client: Added support for changing the metrics path
• Added support for setting hostname in elastic client
• Added elastic client for sending logs, events and metrics to elastic search
• Added samples to scheduler
• Added r/s and average time metrics to scheduler
• Fixed event name missing module in some cases
• Fixed missing error when event log thread (will reset the eventlog reader)
• Added written_str to eventlog to get date as a regular date string (not relative time).

• real time filters: added silent period to prevent filters from firing multiple events
• Fixed invalid error message in scheduler when you have slow schedules and 10 threads

• Updated documentation (#513)
• eventlog: Fixed issue where real-time eventlog message return duplicate results if same log with different case was added

• Fixed debian builds
• NSCA Client: Fixed #511 nsca status can be set with a number from command line
• filters: show-all will not change if the list is already present: fixes #528
• Fix syntax error for PowerShell wrapper
• Some linux build fixes
• Fixed 401 issue with Op5Client

What's New in NSClient++ 0.5.2

Highlights:

• Brand new REST API
• Much improved documentation
• ZIP-Modules
• Op5Client

In addition to the above we have the usual slew of bug fixes and minor enhancements. One important change is that the code base have been re-factored in many places meaning the code will be easier to access for new developers. But more importantly this will allow for better unit testing in the future.

REST API

The new REST API is a true rest-full API which is not built around the internal protobuf API. This means it will be much simpler to work with and will allow you to much easier integrate it into your systems. The API also get support for uploading both scripts and modules to provide a truly remote configurable client. But the most important feature is access control on a per method level as well as user/password authentication. This means you can add a user which will only be allowed to run queries but not alter the configuration. We have also swapped out the old moongose implementation for one which is multi-threaded which means it will function a lot better under high load.

Documentation

Not only have we switched to a much easier to read template for the documentation we have added numerous pages about the REST API, Zip modules, Python script as well as much internal updates. In addition to this we have also reworked the reference section so it contains more useful information and less bloat.

Zip-modules

In brief zip-modules allow you to package scripts together as zip-files for easy distribution and use. With zip modules you can enable or disable all script in one go via the regular load/unload module concept.

Op5Client

A brand new Client which talk to Op5 natively via their northbound (Passive REST) API. The installer also has MSI options so you can silently install NSClient++ which automatically registers and becomes monitored from Op5.

msiexec /i NSClient++.msi OP5_SERVER=https://op5.com OP5_USER=monitor OP5_PASSWORD=rotinom

Fixed some op5 issues

• Added hidden to check_tasksched to allow checking of hidden tasks
• Added tracing and fixed some issues to op5 client
• Fixed #525 json spirit should be an optional dependency (though a lot of things break without it)

• Possibly fixed #525 json-spirit should not be a required dependancy
• Fixed #527 infinite recursion with malformed config file
• Fixed #518 silent installer not applying cli values
• Fixed so OP5_SERVER et.al. are applied correctly to the installer
• Added new OP5Client
• optimized the markdown a bit
• started to fix debian builds
• Added http client for mongoose wrapper
• moved moongose impl behind the c++ wrappers
• add centreon plugins to docs: ref #512

• Fixed installer
• Added op5 client
• Cleaned up the http code a bit