Is a shell need for the nagios user?

Nagios Nagios Installation support
1

Hello,

I just installed Nagios 3.06 using the Nagios Quickstart Guide. My question is does the nagios user need a home directory and a shell? I created the nagios user in RHEL as a system account which didn’t create a home directory. When I started the nagios service, it complained about nagios not having a home directory, but the service still started. The same was true for a shell for the nagios user. I edited the /etc/passwd file and removed /bin/bash and put in /sbin/nologin. When I started nagios, it complained that the account was not available but did seem to start. If I can get away with out a nagios home directory and a shell for nagios, I do I configure the setup to account for this?

2

What distribution of Linux do you use?
At my installation nagios has the /var/run/nagios3 as a home directory and /bin/false as a shell. You can check these settings in /etc/passwd.
But I haven’t set them manually, these settings were set during installation. Have you properly instlled Nagios? Maybe to try install it again and be carefull to do everything as directed in installation tutorial.