Enabled and disabled section for Windows

Owned by Anastasios Thomaidis
Last updated: Oct 07, 2024 by Matthew Hierholzer
2 min read
How do both rules work, and can we combine both rules? First, you can't combine both rules. Both rules are standalone rules.

LAST TESTED ON CHECKMK 2.3.0P1

Table of Contents

Enabled section for Windows

By default, all the sections will be executed. Sections that are not selected here will be skipped. Skipping sections reduces CPU load on the monitored host and the amount of transferred data. However, it may result in the absence of the associated Checkmk service or services. The Eventlog monitoring and the performance counters need the most CPU performance.

Disabled section for Windows

This option allows skipping specific sections of the Checkmk agent. By default, all the sections will be executed. The agent will not execute selected sections. Skipping sections reduces CPU load on the monitored host and the amount of transferred data. However, it may result in the absence of the associated Checkmk service or services.

How should we use the rules?

We recommend using only one of these rules. With the “enabled” rule, you can define a set of sections that should be enabled by the agent directly. In such a case you want to disable a section, e.g., Windows counter, due to long-running WMI commands, you should use the disabled rule, or you deselect this entry in the enabled rule.

Example

Let's go one step further and imagine the following scenario: Per default, you want to disable the Windows Event Logs section and enable it on a specific host.

You will need two disabled sections rules:

  • Rule (top rule)
    This rule, without selecting any section, enables the Windows Event Log on specific systems.

  • Rule (the very last rule, if you have more rules)
    Here, you select only the Windows Event Logs. This is your default rule to disable the Log Section globally.


Disabled Sections (Windows agent)


After you have configured the rules, don't forget to bake the agent and install it on the Windows host. Without this, the rules configured here do not apply.

If you want to check the configuration on the Windows host (might be useful for troubleshooting), the disabled sections configuration is written here: C:\ProgramData\checkmk\agent\bakery


And the file looks like this:

# Created by Check_MK Agent Bakery.
# This file is managed via WATO, do not edit manually or you
# lose your changes next time when you update the agent.

global:
	disabled_sections: []
	enabled: true
	install: true
	port: 6556