NSClient 0.3.9 was released earlier this month and from the looks of the change log should be a good replacement for 0.3.8. (http://www.nsclient.org/nscp/blog/Blog-2011-07-05). As with previous releases there are both 32-bit and 64-bit variants and the option for an MSI package or for a ZIP download.

Some things I have noticed in the new release (these may have been in 0.3.8 but I never noticed them) are two new external scripts to check Printer status and check Windows Updates. I have been using my own Windows Update script (https://www.monitoringexchange.org/inventory/Check-Plugins/Operating-Systems/Windows-NRPE/Check-Windows-Updates) as I found the ones that query WMI take longer than the default 10 seconds for the script to run without timing out. Giving the bundled script a go it did a good job of outputting some useful information about the Windows Updates however it still took too long to run so I doubt that I will be using this in its current form. The output when running it on my workstation is as follows:

OK: Number of critical updates not installed: 1 <br />Number of software updates not installed: 6 <br /> Critical updates name: Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2510690) 32-bit Edition+

The Printer check also ran through my list of installed printers and came out with an “Unknown” status and the details listed didnt match what Windows was saying so again probably wont be using this in its current format and more likely monitor the printers individually with SNMP based checks directly to the printers.

There are some good additions to the list of modules. CheckTaskSched looks to be a good addition to make sure that those scheduled tasks you have left to run on your server are running as expected and not left stuck in a running state (or didn’t exit with error code 0). CheckFile and CheckFile2 have been amalgamated into the CheckFiles module which will allow you to check a single file but also multiple files for certain criteria. The link above gives examples on checking file versions, line counts, file sizes etc.

For a full list of changes the change log can be found here: http://www.nsclient.org/nscp/blog/Blog-2011-07-05