Why Contribute to Community Support?
Checkmk is a community-driven product with open-source code.
We try our best to stay connected with the community and work together to create the best IT monitoring solution.
All contributions to Checkmk are greatly appreciated, whether it’s fixing bugs, creating plugins, translating into additional languages, or other efforts. The impact of your work can already be seen today, and we aim to create a clearer, more consistent way for contributions to be recognized, acknowledged, and integrated, so they can benefit the Checkmk Community even more.
Helping other users is one of the most valuable contributions that can be made, and it is something we hold in high regard. This document provides guidelines for offering contributions in the form of Community Support to other users of the Checkmk Forum. It explains how you can join the Community Support and how your contributions may be recognized. For guidelines on other types of contributions, please check this link.
What Can I Do to Help?
Help to find solutions to problems
- Help less experienced users troubleshoot the issues they encounter
- Provide code, configuration or other examples that can help
- Share your experience in fixing the same problem or a similar one
Provide clarifications
- Checkmk is complex - help newcomers and less experienced users understand its concepts and features.
- Explain a feature’s capabilities and limitations clearly.
- Point them to relevant documentation both in the official User Guide and the Knowledge Base.
Share your good practices
- If you have a great setup – feel free to share your good practices with others
- There is no knowledge as great as practical one: even though we try to cover different scenarios in our official user guide, it is always the most useful to know how others use Checkmk
Where Can I Support the Community?
If you’d like to support community members by answering their questions, there are two primary platforms where questions are traditionally asked: the Checkmk Forum and the Checkmk Subreddit. While your contributions about Checkmk on other platforms, such as StackOverflow, are always appreciated, these fall outside the current scope of this contribution program, and we cannot provide direct support for them.
For Reddit, we aim to keep the discussions focused on introductory-level questions. This is ideal for those who are just starting with Checkmk. For example, questions about whether a particular functionality exists or about general use cases are perfect for the Subreddit.
For more in-depth questions that involve troubleshooting, reproducing issues, or require detailed discussions, we recommend referring users to the Checkmk Forum. The Forum serves as a central hub for advanced knowledge, troubleshooting, and confirmed bug reports. If a question needs more than a concise, straightforward answer, the Checkmk Forum is the best place for it.
Checkmk Forum
The Checkmk Forum is located at forum.checkmk.com and is organized into several categories:
General
This category is for general questions about Checkmk, essentially the “how-to” questions:
- How can I update Checkmk?
- How can I monitor a Proxmox server?
These types of questions belong in the General category.
Typically, questions here do not require reproduction to answer. Your experience, knowledge, and a bit of time are usually enough!
Troubleshooting
If something has already been tried and isn’t working, this is the right category. Cases in this category are particularly valuable to address, as they often involve systems that are actively malfunctioning.
Answering these questions requires either experience or a willingness to try reproducing the issue.
Important: If you notice that the issue is also occurring in your Checkmk instance of the same version or similar configuration, let us know in the same thread!
Global Community
Checkmk is used to monitor infrastructures worldwide—in many languages! This category allows discussions in your preferred language.
If you speak one of the languages used in this category, take a look—you might be able to help someone with your expertise.
Checkmk Dev&Exchange
Previously known as Checkmk Exchange, this category covers topics related to developing and extending Checkmk. This includes:
- Contributions to the Checkmk Exchange
- Writing checks and other plugins
- Adding to the Ansible Collection
If you develop for Checkmk, this category is where your expertise can be especially helpful to less experienced users.
Checkmk Subreddit
You can find the Checkmk Subreddit here.
You’re welcome to share interesting topics related to monitoring or answer general questions about Checkmk.
For more in-depth or technical discussions, please refer users to the Checkmk Forum. Many answers are already available there, and for more complex questions, it’s the best place to ensure a thorough follow-up.
Good Practices in Supporting the Community
When helping others on any platform, please keep the following principles in mind:
Consider other’s experience
Do not assume that everyone has the same level of knowledge or experience as you. Others may know less or be less familiar with certain aspects of Checkmk—but together, we can grow 
Respect cultural differences
Checkmk users come from all over the world. What is acceptable in one culture might be considered rude or offensive in another. That’s why maintaining a high level of politeness is always a good idea.
We’re not asking you to hold back your opinions; we simply encourage you to think about how your words might be received by others.
Be inclusive
Avoid dismissing someone’s ideas due to their perceived lack of experience or for any other reason. Creating a welcoming environment is more important than simply being “right.”
After all, what might seem like a random idea could lead to something brilliant!
Refer to documentation
Finding specific information can sometimes be challenging. While we strive to make the Checkmk User Guide and Knowledge Base as clear and well-structured as possible, it might not always be enough.
If you think a link to the documentation could help, please share it kindly. Remember, RTFM really means: “Read this fine manual”.
Learn more about Community Practices
Take a look at the document where we, together with the community, have compiled a list of dos and don’ts for effective communication in the Forum: https://forum.checkmk.com/faq
Whom to Contact
When you notice improper behaviour in posts
If you come across a post that seems inappropriate or out of place, don’t hesitate to flag it. Simply click the flag button below the post to report it:
If you have any questions about the community, the Forum, or if you need a moderator’s help, please feel free to reach out to us at community@checkmk.com.