send_nsca(8)

💌 send_nsca(8) — the NSCA-ng Manual, bestie edition

Okay so real talk: this is send_nsca, and it lives in the NSCA-ng manual, and it is literally the little messenger that hands your monitoring gossip over to the server. Iconic. Let's get into it. 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

send_nsca — send monitoring commands to NSCA-ng server. That's the whole vibe: it's a sender, it sends, it slays.

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

send_nsca [-CSstv] [-c file] [-D delay] [-d delimiter] [-e separator]
[-H server] [-o timeout] [-p port]

send_nsca -h | -V

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So send_nsca is the utility that transmits one or more check results or monitoring commands to an nsca-ng(8) server. Communication with the server is TLS encrypted and authenticated using pre-shared keys (as per RFC 4279) — yes, secure, yes, we love that for us. 🔐

By default, send_nsca reads host or service check results from the standard input. Multiple check results must be separated with an ASCII ETB character (octal value: 27). No cap.

Service check results are expected to be in this format:

host[tab]service[tab]status[tab]message[newline]

Where host and service are the host name and service description as configured in Nagios, status is the numeric return code, and message is the output string. Host check results are expected to be in the same format, just without the service description:

host[tab]status[tab]message[newline]

And note that multiline messages are supported. 💅 Go off, queen.

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🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

• -C — Instead of accepting host or service check results in the format described above, read "raw" monitoring commands for submission to the Nagios command file from the standard input, one command per line. Those commands are expected to be in the format described in the Nagios documentation — except that the leading bracketed timestamp may be omitted, in which case the current timestamp is prepended to the provided command by send_nsca. Convenient? We think so. ⭐
• -c file — Read the configuration from the specified file instead of using the default configuration file /etc/send_nsca.cfg.
• -D delay — Wait for a random number of seconds between 0 and the specified delay before contacting the server. This might be useful to reduce the server load if many send_nsca clients get invoked simultaneously — like, imagine a whole crowd of us walking in at once, chaos. Default setting is 0, which tells send_nsca to connect to the server immediately. If this option is specified, the delay setting in the send_nsca.cfg(5) file is ignored.
• -d delimiter — Use the specified delimiter instead of a horizontal tab to separate the fields when parsing host or service check results. The delimiter must be a single character, a C-style backslash escape sequence, the octal value of a character with a leading zero, or the hexadecimal value of a character prefixed with 0x. Any ASCII character other than a backslash, newline, ETB, or NUL is allowed. This option is ignored if the -C option is specified.
• -e separator — Use the specified separator instead of an ASCII ETB character to separate multiple host or service check results. The separator must be a single character, a C-style backslash escape sequence, the octal value of a character with a leading zero, or the hexadecimal value of a character prefixed with 0x. Any ASCII character is allowed, but heads up: multiline check result messages cannot be submitted if a newline character is used. This option is ignored if the -C option is specified. 😭
• -H server — Connect and talk to the specified server address or host name. By default, send_nsca attempts to communicate with "localhost". This option takes precedence over the server setting in the send_nsca.cfg(5) file.
• -h — Print usage information to the standard output and exit. Bye bestie 👋
• -o timeout — Close the connection if the server didn't respond for the specified number of seconds. If the timeout is set to 0, send_nsca won't enforce connection timeouts. The default timeout is 15 seconds. This option is provided for compatibility with NSCA 2.x. If it's specified, the timeout setting in the send_nsca.cfg(5) file is ignored.
• -p port — Connect to the specified service name or port number instead of using the default port (5668). This option takes precedence over the port setting in the send_nsca.cfg(5) file.
• -S — Write all messages to the standard error output. This is the default behaviour.
• -s — Send all messages (except for usage errors) to the system logger. This option may be combined with the -S option. Teamwork, honestly.
• -t — This option is ignored. It is accepted for compatibility with NSCA 2.x. She's just here for the vibes 💀
• -V — Print version information to the standard output and exit.
• -v — Generate a message for each check result or monitoring command sent to the nsca-ng(8) server. This option can be specified up to three times in order to increase the verbosity. Three times, bestie. Maximum yapping. 🔥

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👑 EXIT STATUS 👑

The send_nsca utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. Periodt.

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /etc/send_nsca.cfg — The send_nsca.cfg(5) configuration file. Her home. Her safe space. 🎀

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

send_nsca.cfg(5), nsca-ng(8), nsca-ng.cfg(5)

http://www.nagios.org/developerinfo/externalcommands/

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🧚 AUTHOR 🧚

Holger Weiss <holger@weiss.in-berlin.de> — legend behavior, honestly 💜

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Version 1.7, dated February 9, 2026 — that's the send_nsca(8) tea, page closed, mwah 💋✨