Nagios - Twitter alerts

This entry will cover how to send nagios alerts to twitter, in the examples to follow using curl.

Firstly edit commands.cfg

And add the two following line:

define command {
command_name    notify-by-twitter
command_line    /usr/bin/curl --basic --user "twitteruser:twitterpassword" --data-ascii "status=[Nagios] $NOTIFICATIONTYPE$ $HOSTALIAS$/$SERVICEDESC$ is $SERVICESTATE$" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json
}
define command {
command_name    host-notify-by-twitter
command_line    /usr/bin/curl --basic --user "twitteruser:twitterpassword" --data-ascii "status=[Nagios] $HOSTSTATE$ alert for $HOSTNAME$" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json
}

Now define a contact for this twitter service into: contacts.cfg

define contact{
contact_name                    twitter
service_notification_commands   notify-by-twitter
host_notification_commands      host-notify-by-twitter
service_notification_period 24x7
host_notification_period 24x7
service_notification_options a
host_notification_options a
}

Add this contact into your existing contact groups like this (in contacts.cfg):

define contactgroup{
contactgroup_name       admins
alias                   Nagios Administrators
members                 nagiosadmin,sms_alert,twitter
}

Then run a nagios prefly check to ensure you have no syntax errors, and restart nagios.