Below is the check_rss.py script for pulling RSS feeds into your monitoring platform. I’m currently using ITOpenCOCKPIT, although I have used it with nagios before that. You do need a couple of dependencies. On ubuntu 22.04 these are:

• • python3
  • python3-feedparser
  • python-argparse

check_rss.py

#!/usr/bin/python3
'''
check_rss v .35 - A simple Nagios plugin to check an RSS feed. Created to monitor status of cloud services.

Requires feedparser and argparse python libraries. For Ubuntu you can install with "sudo apt-get install python-feedparser python-argparse"
If you find it useful, feel free to leave me a comment/email at http://john.wesorick.com.

Copyright 2011 John Wesorick (john.wesorick.com)

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
'''

import feedparser
import argparse
import sys
import datetime

def main(argv=None):
# Set up our arguments
try:
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="check_rss v0.35 - A simple Nagios plugin to check an RSS feed. Created to monitor status of cloud services. ", epilog="notes: If you do not specify any warning or critical conditions, it will always return OK. This will only check the newest feed entry.")
parser.add_argument('-H', dest='rssfeed', help='HTTPS URL of RSS feed to monitor', action='store', required=True)
parser.add_argument('-c', '--criticalif', dest='criticalif', help='Comma separated, quoted list of strings that will result in critical condition if PRESENT', action='store')
parser.add_argument('-C', '--criticalnot', dest='criticalnot', help='Comma separated, quoted list of strings that will result in critical condition if MISSING', action='store')
parser.add_argument('-w', '--warningif', dest='warningif', help='Comma separated, quoted list of strings that will result in warning condition if PRESENT', action='store')
parser.add_argument('-W', '--warningnot', dest='warningnot', help='Comma separated, quoted list of strings that will result in warning condition if MISSING', action='store')
parser.add_argument('-T', '--hours', dest='hours', help='Hours since last post. Will return critical if less than designated amount.', action='store')
parser.add_argument('-t', '--titleonly', dest='titleonly', help='Search the titles only. The default is to search for strings matching in either the title or description', action='store_true', default=False)
parser.add_argument('-p', '--perfdata', dest='perfdata', help='If used will keep very basic performance data (0 if OK, 1 if WARNING, 2 if CRITICAL, 3 if UNKNOWN)', action='store_true', default=False)
parser.add_argument('-v', '--verbosity', dest='verbosity', help='Verbosity level. 0 = Only the title and time is returned. 1 = Title, time and link are returned. 2 = Title, time, link and description are returned (Default)', action='store', default='2')
args = parser.parse_args()
except:
# Something didn't work. We will return an unknown.
output = (': Invalid argument(s) {usage}'.format(usage=parser.format_usage()))
exitunknown(output)

perfdata = args.perfdata

# Parse our feed, getting title, description and link of newest entry.
rssfeed = args.rssfeed
if ( rssfeed.find('https://') != 0 ):
rssfeed = 'https://{rssfeed}'.format(rssfeed=rssfeed)
try:
myfeed = feedparser.parse(rssfeed)
feednumber = 0 #Grabs only the newest entry.
title = myfeed['entries'][feednumber]['title']
description = myfeed['entries'][feednumber]['description']
link = myfeed['entries'][feednumber]['link']
feeddate = myfeed['entries'][feednumber]['updated_parsed']
except:
output = (': Could not parse URL ({rssfeed})'.format(rssfeed=rssfeed))
exitcritical(output, perfdata)

# Get the difference in time from last post
now = datetime.datetime.now()
orderedfeeddate = datetime.datetime(feeddate.tm_year, feeddate.tm_mon, feeddate.tm_mday, feeddate.tm_hour, feeddate.tm_min)
orderednowdate = datetime.datetime(now.year, now.month, now.day, now.hour, now.minute)
timediff = orderednowdate - orderedfeeddate
hourssinceposted = round(timediff.days * 24 + timediff.seconds / 60 / 60)

# We will form our response here based on the verbosity levels. This makes the logic below a lot easier.
if (args.verbosity == '0' ):
output = (': Posted {hourssinceposted} hours ago - {title}'.format(hourssinceposted=hourssinceposted, title=title))
elif (args.verbosity == '1' ):
output = (': Posted {hourssinceposted} hours ago - Title: {title} ; Link: {link}'.format(hourssinceposted=hourssinceposted, title=title, link=link))
elif (args.verbosity == '2' ):
output = (': Posted {hourssinceposted} hours ago - Title: {title} ; Description: {description} ; Link: {link}'.format(hourssinceposted=hourssinceposted, title=title, description=description.encode('utf-8'), link=link))

# Check for strings that match, resulting in critical status
if ( args.criticalif ):
criticalif = args.criticalif.lower().split(',')
for search in criticalif:
if ( args.titleonly == True ):
if ( title.lower().find(search) >= 0 ):
exitcritical(output, perfdata)
else:
if ( title.lower().find(search) >= 0 or description.lower().find(search) >= 0 ):
exitcritical(output, perfdata)

# Check for strings that are missing, resulting in critical status
if ( args.criticalnot ):
stringmatched = False
criticalnot = args.criticalnot.lower().split(',')
for search in criticalnot:
if ( args.titleonly == True ):
if ( title.lower().find(search) >= 0 ):
stringmatched = True
break
else:
if ( title.lower().find(search) >= 0 or description.lower().find(search) >= 0 ):
stringmatched = True
break
if not stringmatched:
print (description.lower())
exitcritical(output, perfdata)

# Check for time difference (in hours), resulting in warning status
if ( args.hours ):
if ( int(hourssinceposted) <= int(args.hours) ): exitwarning(output, perfdata) # Check for strings that match, resulting in warning status if ( args.warningif ): warningif = args.warningif.lower().split(',') for search in warningif: if ( args.titleonly == True ): if ( title.lower().find(search) >= 0 ):
exitwarning(output, perfdata)
else:
if ( title.lower().find(search) >= 0 or description.lower().find(search) >= 0 ):
exitwarning(output, perfdata)

# Check for strings that are missing, resulting in warning status
if ( args.warningnot ):
stringmatched = False
warningnot = args.warningnot.lower().split(',')
for search in criticalnot:
if ( args.titleonly == True ):
if ( title.lower().find(search) >= 0 ):
stringmatched = True
break
else:
if ( title.lower().find(search) >= 0 or description.lower().find(search) >= 0 ):
stringmatched = True
break
if not stringmatched:
print (description.lower())
exitwarning(output, perfdata)

# If we made it this far, we must be ok
exitok(output, perfdata)

def exitok(output, perfdata):
if ( perfdata ):
print ("OK{output}|'RSS'=0;1;2;0;2".format(output=output))
else:
print ('OK{output}'.format(output=output))
sys.exit(0)

def exitwarning(output, perfdata):
if ( perfdata ):
print ("WARNING{output}|'RSS'=1;1;2;0;2".format(output=output))
else:
print ('WARNING{output}'.format(output=output))
sys.exit(1)

def exitcritical(output, perfdata):
if ( perfdata ):
print ("CRITICAL{output}|'RSS'=2;1;2;0;2".format(output=output))
else:
print ('CRITICAL{output}'.format(output=output))
sys.exit(2)

def exitunknown(output):
sys.exit(3)

if __name__ == ('__main__'):
result = main(sys.argv)
sys.exit(result)