Schedule Downtime via cron

First, thanks for both scripts, helped out a lot!

One thing, I couldn't schedule host downtime using your script and found out that it has to to with a missing trigger_id in the commandline call... at least for 3.4.1

$trigger_id=0
cmdline="[$datetime] SCHEDULE_HOST_DOWNTIME;$hostname;$start_time;$end_time;$fixed;$trigger_id;$duration;$comment_author;$comment_data"

this fix will accept a $9 parameter for all_services or for all_hosts, so you need to run only one script from crontab

#!/bin/bash

#
# Write a command to the Nagios command file to cause
# it to schedule service downtime.
#
# Author: Sam Tilders sam@jovianprojects.com.au
# Bugfix and adding syntax for 3.2.x nagios version
# Frank Gruenwald f.gruenwald@spsg.de
#
# Based on the example event handler scripts and cmd.c/.cgi
#
# Requires:
# GNU Date (for date formatting options)
# Bash > 2.x (for inline variable regex substitution on the comment_data)

# Notes:
# 1) In order for Nagios to process any commands that
# are written to the command file, you must enable
# the check_external_commands option in the main
# configuration file.

# Caveats:
# Using "date" to validate the command line date format doesn't always pick
# up all mistakes in the date format. Sometimes "date" seems to invent something
# that might have been what you intented.
# Makes no attempt to verify the hostname or service desc before passing them to
# the command pipe. Nagios seems to ignore the command if it doesn't match.
# Write a command to the Nagios command file to cause
# it to schedule host downtime

# Example:
# A cron entry to schedule downtime for the nntp service every day at 0400 while
# other cron jobs (locate database update) slow the machine down.
# 30 0 * * * schedule_svc_downtime news NNTP "`date --iso-8601` 04:00:00" "`date --iso-8601` 05:00:00" 1 3600 auto "while cron does things"
# There are utilities such as "shellsupport" that will do date manipulation allowing shell scripts
# to wrap around this command to schedule for days in advance instead of same date.

usage()
{
echo "Usage: $0 or "
echo " Times must be in the form \"CCYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss\" and will probably need to be quoted."
echo " fixed is either 1 or 0 and indicates that the time period is fixed and duration should be ignored"
echo " length of the downtime in seconds, only used if not fixed downtime"
echo " user who is requesting the downtime"
echo " comment to place on the downtime, probably will need to be quoted."
}

if [ $# -lt 9 ]; then
echo "$0: Too few parameters"
usage
exit 1
fi
if [ $# -gt 9 ]; then
echo "$0: Too many parameters"
usage
exit 1
fi
hostname=$1
servicedesc=$2
raw_start=$3
raw_end=$4
fixed=$5
duration=$6
comment_author=$7
# command is comment with ; replaced for space
comment_data=${8/;/ }



echocmd="/bin/echo"

CommandFile="/opt/nagios/var/rw/nagios.cmd"

# get the current date/time in seconds since UNIX epoch
datetimes=`date +%s`
datetime="[$datetimes]"


start_time=`date -d "$raw_start" +%s`
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
echo "Bad format for start time."
usage
exit 1
fi
end_time=`date -d "$raw_end" +%s`
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
echo "Bad format for end time."
usage
exit 1
fi
if [ $fixed != 1 -a $fixed != 0 ]; then
echo "Fixed must be 1 or 0"
usage
exit 1
fi

# create the command line to add to the command file
#cmdline="$datetime SCHEDULE_SVC_DOWNTIME;$hostname;$servicedesc;$start_time;$end_time;$fixed;$duration;7200;$comment_author;$comment_data"
case "$9" in
all_services)
cmdline="$datetime SCHEDULE_HOST_SVC_DOWNTIME;$hostname;$start_time;$end_time;$fixed;$duration;7200;$comment_author;$comment_data"
;;
all_hosts)
cmdline="$datetime SCHEDULE_HOST_DOWNTIME;$hostname;$start_time;$end_time;$fixed;$duration;7200;$comment_author;$comment_data"
;;
esac
# append the command to the end of the command file

echo $cmdline >> $CommandFile