diff -ur nagios-2.8.original/sample-config/nagios.cfg.in nagios-2.8/sample-config/nagios.cfg.in
--- nagios-2.8.original/sample-config/nagios.cfg.in	2006-12-22 01:43:20.000000000 +0000
+++ nagios-2.8/sample-config/nagios.cfg.in	2007-06-05 23:27:21.879238424 +0100
@@ -29,6 +29,9 @@
 # Nagios will read and process all the config files you define.
 # This can be very useful if you want to keep command definitions 
 # separate from host and contact definitions...
+#
+# You can specify cfg_file as a relative path. The base directory of
+# the nagios.cfg specified at nagios startup will be prefixed to cfg_file
 
 # Command definitions
 cfg_file=@sysconfdir@/commands.cfg
diff -ur nagios-2.8.original/xdata/xodtemplate.c nagios-2.8/xdata/xodtemplate.c
--- nagios-2.8.original/xdata/xodtemplate.c	2007-06-05 23:26:49.390156980 +0100
+++ nagios-2.8/xdata/xodtemplate.c	2007-06-05 23:28:28.777115180 +0100
@@ -66,6 +66,8 @@
 
 #include "xodtemplate.h"
 
+/* Required for dirname() */
+#include <libgen.h>
 
 #ifdef NSCORE
 extern int use_regexp_matches;
@@ -106,6 +108,7 @@
 int xodtemplate_read_config_data(char *main_config_file,int options,int cache,int dump_objects){
 #ifdef NSCORE
 	char config_file[MAX_FILENAME_LENGTH];
+	char config_base_dir[MAX_FILENAME_LENGTH];
 	char *input=NULL;
 	char *temp_ptr;
 #endif
@@ -158,6 +161,10 @@
 
 #ifdef NSCORE
 
+	strncpy(config_file,main_config_file,sizeof(config_file)-1);
+	config_file[sizeof(config_file)-1]='\x0';
+	strncpy(config_base_dir,(char *)dirname(config_file),sizeof(config_base_dir)-1);
+
 	/* daemon reads all config files/dirs specified in the main config file */
 	/* read in all lines from the main config file */
 	while(1){
@@ -188,8 +195,16 @@
 			if(temp_ptr==NULL)
 				continue;
 
-			strncpy(config_file,temp_ptr,sizeof(config_file)-1);
-			config_file[sizeof(config_file)-1]='\x0';
+			/* Prepend config_base_dir if relative */
+			if (temp_ptr[0] != '/') {
+				strncpy(config_file,config_base_dir,sizeof(config_file)-1);
+				strncat(config_file,"/",1);
+				strncat(config_file,temp_ptr,sizeof(config_file)-strlen(config_base_dir)-1);
+				config_file[sizeof(config_file)-1]='\x0';
+			} else {
+				strncpy(config_file,temp_ptr,sizeof(config_file)-1);
+				config_file[sizeof(config_file)-1]='\x0';
+			}
 
 			/* process the config file... */
 			result=xodtemplate_process_config_file(config_file,options);