Nagios Update

Oh how the time gets away from you…
I have Nagios (Refer to the April 15th post) installed and in production. I am still tweaking the configuration and rolling out device monitoring.
Adding anything to be monitored is time consuming. Some might even think it is very time consuming. The three main files are switch.cfg, windows.cfg and printer.cfg and all editing is done through either vi or some other text editor. There are also other configurations and add-ons for monitoring Netware and/or Linux/Unix machines.
Windows server monitoring requires two main parts: installing the NSClient++ on the actual server and adding the necessary configuration to the windows.cfg on the Nagios box. For a clear how-to on installing the NSClient++ refer to this blog post. You may find that additional server config, such as loading WMI or other SNMP reporting may be required to collect the necessary data.
The windows.cfg editing is fairly straight forward. This PDF file on the Nagios website will be very helpful.
1) Add the host definition (insert your values for the bold text)
define host{
use windows-server ; Inherit default values from a Windows server template (make sure you keep this line!)
host_name winserver
alias My Windows Server
address 192.168.1.2
}
2) Add the services or counters to be monitored
define service{
use generic-service
host_name winserver
service_description NSClient++ Version
check_command check_nt!CLIENTVERSION
}

define service{
use generic-service
host_name winserver
service_description CPU Load
check_command check_nt!CPULOAD!-l 5,80,90
}

define service{
use generic-service
host_name winserver
service_description Memory Usage
check_command check_nt!MEMUSE!-w 80 -c 90
}

NOTE: Any time the Nagios cfg files are edited you MUST verify the config and then restart the nagios service. Failure to do this will not show the correct config in Nagios Service Detail or may cause a failure of the nagios service.

/usr/local/nagios/bin/nagios -v /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg
service nagios restart

Check this tool out and join the 3 million other users!

http://www.nagios.org

Nagios Enterprise Network Monitoring

Large IT shops use enterprise-class network and application monitoring on a daily basis. Implementations of suites such as HP OpenView, CA, and others can run in to hundreds of thousands of dollars and required expert knowledge. While it will meet your every need, smaller shops typically cannot afford this kind of investment.
There are also many mid-sized IT management applications targeted toward the MSP model. Kaseya is one that is excellent. There are also strong offerings from Microsoft.
However, what can you do if you have zero budget? Its time to turn to Open Source…
Nagios is an enterprise-class network and application monitoring solution that runs on various Linux platforms and Apache webserver. Installation and configuration, while well documented, will be challenging for novice Linux users. However, once installed and working, this package will cover your needs out of the box. If not, there is a large community developing plugins of every flavor, including environmental monitoring device support. Nagios also has hooks that can be connected to other packages suck as Splunk for advanced indexing, search, etc.
Nagios runs very well in a virtualized environment, just one more reason to check it out (no need for additional server hardware!).

http://www.nagios.org
http://www.splunk.com
http://www.apache.org
http://www.kaseya.com
http://www.openview.hp.com
http://www.ca.com