The NSCA daemon module is used to receive send_nsca packets and submit them to the Shinken command pipe. The NSCA module can be loaded by the Receiver or Arbiter process. It will listen on port TCP/5667 for send_nsca packets.

In your shinken-specific.cfg file, just add (or uncomment):

  #You can send check result to Shinken using NSCA
  #using send_nsca command
  define module{
       module_name       NSCA
       module_type       nsca_server
       host              *
       port              5667
       encryption_method 0
       password          helloworld
  }

define receiver{
       receiver_name    receiver-1
       address          localhost
       port             7773
       modules          NSCA

       timeout          3             ; 'ping' timeout
       data_timeout     120           ; 'data send' timeout
       max_check_attempts       3     ;  if at least max_check_attempts ping failed, the node is DEAD
       
       #advanced
       realm    All
       }

It's main goal is to get all passive “things” (checks but why not other commands) in distant realms. You can see it as an “passive buffer” that will be reaped by the arbiter so this one will dispatch commands like if it was it that got the commands.

The “spare” parameter is not important for this daemon, because it not responsible for any configurations, and will not open connexions to any other daemons. Of course without any modules defined this daemon is useless. It can use the arbiter daemons, this means NSCA from now, other types could be added such as AMQP. Data can be received from any Realm, thus the Realm option is nonsensical.

For now there is no init.d script to launch it.

It is launched like all other daemons : bin/shinken-receiver -c etc/receiverd.ini

So now even the passive checks are easily scalable. :)

To configure the NSCA module in your Arbiter instead of Receiver. Add the NSCA module to your Arbiter object configuration.

  define arbiter{
       arbiter_name     Arbiter-Master
  #    host_name        node1       ;result of the hostname command under Unix
       address          localhost                   ;IP or DNS adress
       port             7770
       spare            0
       modules           NSCA
  }