Dirk Wening

Ansible Loop: Basics and Looping Across Multiple Tasks

Ansible Loop: Basics and Looping Across Multiple Tasks

Last updated: October 1, 2026 · Reading time: 4–6 minutes With an Ansible loop, you can run a task for each item in a list. Here you'll find the basics, along with practical examples, and learn how to use ` include_tasks ` to loop through multiple tasks that depend on one another. The most important points in 30 seconds An Ansible loop executes a task for each element in a list, wher {{ item }} represents the current element. The list can be included directly in the task, come from a variable,...

ServiceNow CMDB Import for Icinga Director

ServiceNow CMDB Import for Icinga Director

Last updated: September 24, 2026 · Reading time: 3–4 minutes Manually transferring ServiceNow CMDB data into Icinga Director takes time and quickly results in outdated data. The Icinga Web 2 module " icingaweb2-module-servicenow-import " from NETWAYS fills this gap: It retrieves servers and network devices directly from ServiceNow via API and automatically creates them as hosts in Director. Key Points icingaweb2-module-servicenow-import is an Icinga Web 2 module that provides ServiceNow CMDB...

ServiceNow Integration for Icinga

ServiceNow Integration for Icinga

Last updated: September 10, 2026 · Reading time: 8–9 minutes If Icinga reports a critical outage but no one at the service desk notices it, the alert goes unacted upon. Using the open-source repositories icinga-servicenow and icinga-servicenow-web, you can connect Icinga directly to ServiceNow: Notifications are automatically converted into incidents—no manual copying and pasting required. This guide shows you what you need and how to install and configure both components. The most important...

Ansible and the Elastic Stack

Ansible and the Elastic Stack

Last updated: August 6, 2026 · Reading time: 4–6 minutes In this article, I’d like to introduce you to the Ansible Collection netways.elasticstack, which allows you to automatically deploy and manage Ansible and the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, Beats). Using a detailed example, I'll show you step by step how to set up an Elasticsearch node. The most important points in 30 seconds netways.elasticstack fully supports Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, and Beats, and...

Filebeat and Metricbeat – Visualizing Your First Logs with Elastic and Kibana

Filebeat and Metricbeat – Visualizing Your First Logs with Elastic and Kibana

Last updated: July 9, 2026 · Reading time: 2–3 minutes Elasticsearch is running, Kibana is set up, but how does the data actually get into the stack? The answer lies in what are known as "Beats": lightweight data collectors that run in the background and forward data to Elasticsearch. The easiest way to get started is with Filebeat and Metricbeat. This article shows you how to set up Filebeat for log files and Metricbeat for system metrics, and how to view both in Kibana. Why use Filebeat...

Ansible Icinga Collection

Ansible Icinga Collection

Last updated: July 16, 2026 · Reading time: 4–6 minutes With Ansible and Icinga, you can automate the setup of your entire monitoring environment. The " netways.icinga " collection brings together eight roles that handle exactly these recurring steps for you. We'll show you what the Collection can do, where its limitations lie, and how to set up a test environment in just a few minutes using the Full-Stack Playbook. Introduction to the Collection If you run a monitoring system like Icinga, you...

What is the ELK Stack? Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana Explained Simply

What is the ELK Stack? Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana Explained Simply

Last updated: July 9, 2026 · Reading time: 2–4 minutes Anyone involved in monitoring, log analysis, or searching through large amounts of data will sooner or later come across the ELK Stack. The ELK Stack consists of three different tools: Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana. Find out what's behind it all, how the three components work together, and why the stack is completely free for self-hosting in our article here. An Overview of the Three Components ELK is not a single software program,...

Foreman & Katello Update | Fixes, CVEs, and New Releases

Foreman & Katello Update | Fixes, CVEs, and New Releases

Installer Fix and CVE Updates At the Foreman Release Team Meeting on July 1, 2026, it was reported that the previously malfunctioning foreman-installer-source-release is now working again. The issue was resolved by two pull requests that restored compatibility between Podman and puppetlabs-concat. In the Nightly branch, as well as in the stable branches 3.18 and 3.19, four CVE fixes will also be released on the same day. Candlepin 4.8 and OCI Images In addition, Candlepin version 4.8 has been...

Bug Fix Release: Icinga 2 v2.16.3, v2.15.5, v2.14.10

Bug Fix Release: Icinga 2 v2.16.3, v2.15.5, v2.14.10

Shortly after the release of the latest security updates, there's some news: Users who have enabled the " Json.decode() " feature in their settings were surprised by an unpleasant side effect. As part of one of the security fixes, the internal C++ function ` JsonDecode() ` was given an additional argument, which was inadvertently passed on to the DSL as well. To make matters worse, this argument was defined as a required argument—which caused existing calls to the function to fail. Fix...

Security Release for Icinga 2 v2.16.2, 2.15.4, 2.14.9

Security Release for Icinga 2 v2.16.2, 2.15.4, 2.14.9

Today's security update for Icinga2 addresses several security vulnerabilities. Two of them are particularly critical. An update is absolutely necessary. An unauthenticated attacker can use this to take over or crash Icinga 2 processes over the network. The remaining updates apply only to authenticated API users. Find out here exactly what's affected, how high the risk is for your setup, and how to update in just a few minutes. The Vulnerabilities in Detail GHSA-vj39-ww8j-vvx5 ( CVE pending)...

Installing Icinga Director on Ubuntu 26.04

Installing Icinga Director on Ubuntu 26.04

Last updated: June 25, 2026 · Reading time: 2–3 minutes Installing Icinga Director on Ubuntu 26.04 is faster than you might think, as long as you know where the pitfalls are. This guide walks you through the installation, database setup, and initial configuration step by step, until you can roll out your own hosts and services using the Director. The Most Important Points at a Glance You need a running Icinga 2 instance with the API feature enabled as a basis The Director gets its own...

Installing Icingaweb2 and Icinga DB Web on Ubuntu 26.04

Installing Icingaweb2 and Icinga DB Web on Ubuntu 26.04

Last updated: 18.06.2026 Installing Icingaweb2 and Icinga DB Web on Ubuntu 26.04 is the logical next step after the basic installation of Icinga 2 and Icinga DB. This guide walks you through the package installation, creating the web database, and the entire setup wizard in the browser, including connecting to Redis and the Icinga 2 API. The Most Important Points in 30 Seconds Icingaweb2 and Icinga DB Web are installed via the official Icinga APT repository. A single package (icingadb-web)...