Time-Saving Tricks For Template-Based Object Definitions

or...
"How To Preserve Your Sanity"


Introduction

This documentation attempts to explain how you can exploit the (somewhat) hidden features template-based object definitions to save your sanity. How so, you ask? Several types of objects allow you to specify multiple host names and/or hostgroup names in definitions, allowing you to "copy" the object defintion to multiple hosts or services. I'll cover each type of object that supports these features seperately. For starters, the object types which support this time-saving feature are as follows:

Object types that are not listed above do not support the features I'm about to describe. Host and service dependency definitions may support them in the future, but not yet.

Services

Multiple host_name and/or hostgroup_name members. Host name can be wildcard (*) - in this case, service gets applied to all hosts that are defined...

Service Escalations

Multiple host_name and/or hostgroup_name members. Host name can be wildcard (*) - in this case, escalation get applied to all hosts that are defined. Description can also be wildcard (*) - in this case, escalation gets applied to all services in specified hosts/hostgroups (or all hosts if that is wildcard also)...

Host Escalations

Multiple host_name and/or hostgroup_name members. Host name can be wildcard (*) - in this case, escalation get applied to all hosts that are defined...

Hostgroup Escalations

Multiple hostgroup_name members...