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Check redfish-ethernetinterfaces

Overview

Checks the state of all Ethernet interfaces in a Redfish-compatible server via the Redfish API. Alerts when any enabled Ethernet interface reports a degraded or failed health state. The link status (up/down) is reported for information but does not by itself trigger an alert, because an unused interface being down is a normal condition. System-level health is deliberately ignored by this check; use redfish-systems for that.

Important Notes:

  • Tested on DELL iDRAC and DMTF Simulator
  • A check usually completes within a few seconds, but a slow or retried request can take longer. The bundled Director basket allows a 60 second runtime timeout.
  • This check runs with both HTTP and HTTPS. It uses GET requests only.
  • No additional Python Redfish modules need to be installed.

Data Collection:

  • Queries /redfish/v1/Systems to enumerate system members
  • For each member, follows the EthernetInterfaces link and queries every interface for its MAC address, link status, speed and health status
  • Uses HTTP Basic authentication if --username and --password are provided
  • Only evaluates systems and interfaces in "Enabled" or "Quiesced" state

Fact Sheet

Fact Value
Check Plugin Download https://github.com/Linuxfabrik/monitoring-plugins/tree/main/check-plugins/redfish-ethernetinterfaces
Nagios/Icinga Check Name check_redfish_ethernetinterfaces
Check Interval Recommendation Every 5 minutes
Can be called without parameters Yes
Runs on Cross-platform
Compiled for Windows No

Help

usage: redfish-ethernetinterfaces [-h] [-V] [--always-ok] [--brief]
                                  [--cache-expire CACHE_EXPIRE]
                                  [--ignore IGNORE] [--insecure] [--inventory]
                                  [--match MATCH] [--no-proxy]
                                  [--password PASSWORD] [--retries RETRIES]
                                  [--test TEST] [--timeout TIMEOUT]
                                  [--url URL] [--username USERNAME]

Checks the state of all Ethernet interfaces in a Redfish-compatible server via
the Redfish API. Alerts when any enabled Ethernet interface reports a degraded
or failed health state. The link status (up/down) is reported for information
but does not by itself trigger an alert, because an unused interface being
down is a normal condition. System-level health is deliberately ignored by
this check; use `redfish-systems` for that.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -V, --version         show program's version number and exit
  --always-ok           Always returns OK.
  --brief               Hide items that are OK and show only those in
                        WARN/CRIT state. Alerting is unaffected: all items
                        still drive the overall check state. Default: False
  --cache-expire CACHE_EXPIRE
                        The amount of time after which the credential/data
                        cache expires, in minutes. Default: 15
  --ignore IGNORE       Ignore items whose name matches this Python regular
                        expression. Case-sensitive by default; use `(?i)` for
                        case-insensitive matching. Can be specified multiple
                        times.
  --insecure            This option explicitly allows insecure SSL
                        connections.
  --inventory           Output the parsed components as JSON on stdout and
                        exit OK, instead of running a health check. Use this
                        to collect a hardware inventory: the JSON is a single
                        object keyed by component type, so the output of
                        several Redfish checks can be merged into one
                        inventory document with `jq --slurp`. Ignores --brief,
                        --match and --ignore. Default: False
  --match MATCH         Only check items whose name matches this Python
                        regular expression. Case-sensitive by default; use
                        `(?i)` for case-insensitive matching. Can be specified
                        multiple times.
  --no-proxy            Do not use a proxy.
  --password PASSWORD   Redfish API password.
  --retries RETRIES     Number of extra attempts if a request to the Redfish
                        API fails, before the check gives up. Helps against an
                        occasionally slow or flaky management controller.
                        Default: 3
  --test TEST           For unit tests. Needs "path-to-stdout-file,path-to-
                        stderr-file,expected-retc".
  --timeout TIMEOUT     Network timeout in seconds. Default: 8 (seconds)
  --url URL             Redfish API URL. Default: https://localhost:5000
  --username USERNAME   Redfish API username.

Usage Examples

./redfish-ethernetinterfaces --url=https://bmc --username=redfish-monitoring --password='linuxfabrik'

Output:

Everything is ok, checked Ethernet interfaces on 1 member.

Member: Contoso 3500, HostName: web483, SKU: 8675309, SerNo: 437XR1138R2

Interface    ! MAC               ! Speed Mbps ! Full Duplex ! Link   ! State
-------------+-------------------+------------+-------------+--------+------
12446A3B0411 ! 12:44:6A:3B:04:11 ! 1000       ! True        ! LinkUp ! [OK]
12446A3B8890 ! AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:00 ! 1000       ! True        ! LinkUp ! [OK]
VLAN1        ! 12:44:6A:3B:04:11 ! 1000       ! True        ! LinkUp ! [OK]
ToManager    ! AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FE ! 100        ! True        !        ! [OK]

States

  • OK if all enabled Ethernet interfaces report a healthy state.
  • WARN if an enabled interface health or health rollup state is "Warning".
  • CRIT if an enabled interface health or health rollup state is "Critical".
  • The link status is informational only and does not change the result.
  • --always-ok suppresses all alerts and always returns OK.

Perfdata / Metrics

Name Type Description
ethernet_interfaces Number Number of enabled Ethernet interfaces checked.
ethernet_interfaces_not_ok Number Number of Ethernet interfaces whose health is not OK.

For Maintainers

You don't need a physical server with a real BMC (the management controller that serves the Redfish API, e.g. HPE iLO or Dell iDRAC) to develop or test this plugin. The official DMTF Redfish mockup server serves a static, read-only Redfish tree (including an EthernetInterfaces collection) over plain HTTP, which is exactly what this GET-only plugin needs.

Run the mockup server and point the plugin at it, from the repository root:

podman run \
    --detach --rm \
    --name lfmp-redfish-mock \
    --publish 5000:8000 \
    docker.io/dmtf/redfish-mockup-server:latest
sleep 3
check-plugins/redfish-ethernetinterfaces/redfish-ethernetinterfaces --url=http://127.0.0.1:5000 --no-proxy
podman stop lfmp-redfish-mock

Use http://127.0.0.1:5000 rather than http://localhost:5000, because localhost may resolve to IPv6 (::1) while the published container port is bound to IPv4.

The fixtures under unit-test/stdout/ were captured from this mockup server. Each scenario is one set of files named <scenario>-systems, <scenario>-system, <scenario>-ethernetinterfaces and <scenario>-nic-N (one per interface, in collection order); they are the raw Redfish responses the plugin walks. To simulate a fault, copy a healthy set and edit an interface's Status.Health to Critical or Warning. The offline test suite is run with ./run from the unit-test directory.

Credits, License