First, the bottom line: I want to modify the NtpMonitor zenpack to account for the fact that the check_ntp plugin is deprecated; two new plugins replace it.  check_ntp_time has the original functionality, comparing the remote time against the system on which the plugin is executed.  The second, check_ntp_peer, actually reports the offset of the target against that target's currently selected remote server/peer. What I want to do is query for both at each poll.

So, how do I make a single datasource call two separate nagios plugins?  Presumably we might want to set different thresholds for each measurement, so I can't just wrap the two plugins in a new plugin.

(I just realized that there might be a flaw in this plan but I want to continue down this road for the education if nothing else: I know of at least three device in my environment which don't allow the second type of query [GPS receivers/ntp servers], so I need some way to keep the second plugin from being run against those).

[Edited to add:]

I think making an elegant Template solution is the key to the answer here: even if I can do the above, using two separate datasources allows me to add the second one to the existing template, but disabled or enabled by default (not sure which is best, yet); users could then make local copies (or a renamed global copy) for sets where they can't/don't want to monitor one or the other measurement.

Message was edited by: davetoo