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#276227 - 19/02/2006 15:00 Monitoring health of a Linux box?
Roger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
I'm looking for something like Microsoft Operations Manager, only for Linux. Unfortunately, I can't figure out which search terms to use.

Basically, I'm looking for something that will periodically run a bunch of tests, to check that the various websites and mailing lists that I'm supposed to be hosting are up and running.

I could do it with cron, but it'd be nice to have some kind of integrated solution.

It would be nice if it was extensible, but it needs to support at least the following:

  • Connect to an arbitrary website and check that the page returned looks sensible. By sensible I mean that it contains a bunch of expected text, rather than an error page.
  • I'm not sure how to do this one without annoying people, but it should have a way to check that a mailing list is working correctly. Maybe just having a dummy mailing list at each domain, with only the test user would suffice.
  • It should be able to check that various daemons are running and responding to connect requests. This means that I can check that my SMTP daemon, IMAP daemon, FTP daemon, etc. are up and running
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-- roger

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#276228 - 19/02/2006 15:03 Re: Monitoring health of a Linux box? [Re: Roger]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Big Brother comes to mind. I'm sure there are others.
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Bitt Faulk

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#276229 - 19/02/2006 15:06 Re: Monitoring health of a Linux box? [Re: wfaulk]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
The article Building a Network Management System over on Freshmeat seems relevant, too. It includes references to other systems like you're looking for. Nagios looks really nice. I might have to implement that one myself.


Edited by wfaulk (19/02/2006 15:09)
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Bitt Faulk

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#276230 - 19/02/2006 15:36 Re: Monitoring health of a Linux box? [Re: wfaulk]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Quote:
Nagios looks really nice. I might have to implement that one myself.

Nagios is flexible but it takes ages to configure. There is a good reason why there are actually companies out there offering services to configure it for you...

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#276231 - 19/02/2006 19:53 Re: Monitoring health of a Linux box? [Re: wfaulk]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
nagios is excellent. It has some scalability issues, but nothing that will affect you.
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#276232 - 19/02/2006 19:57 Re: Monitoring health of a Linux box? [Re: genixia]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
Oh, I forgot to mention - I have a friend who is testing the use of nagios to monitor his home security, using magnetic door swtiches to break cat5 links. He already has nagios email and page him if his garage freezer outlet cuts out.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962 sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.

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#276233 - 20/02/2006 00:47 Re: Monitoring health of a Linux box? [Re: genixia]
gbeer
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
Quote:
Oh, I forgot to mention - I have a friend who is testing the use of nagios to monitor his home security, using magnetic door swtiches to break cat5 links. He already has nagios email and page him if his garage freezer outlet cuts out.


He does that and doesn't have a switch to notify him the freezer door was left open?
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Glenn

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#276234 - 20/02/2006 01:10 Re: Monitoring health of a Linux box? [Re: gbeer]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
He hasn't had problems with the door, bus has had the outlet trip without him knowing.
_________________________
Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962 sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.

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#276235 - 20/02/2006 12:54 Re: Monitoring health of a Linux box? [Re: wfaulk]
BAKup
addict

Registered: 11/11/2001
Posts: 552
Loc: Houston, TX
I'm using Nagios here at my office to monitor the network here. It's easy to work with once you get the hang of the config files. I recomend it over BB. If you're wanting to see how the web interface looks over a live server just send me a PM.
_________________________
--Ben
78GB MkIIa, Dead tuner.

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#307107 - 09/02/2008 21:40 Re: Monitoring health of a Linux box? [Re: BAKup]
Roger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
Originally Posted By: BAKup
It's easy to work with once you get the hang of the config files.


Old thread, but I finally got around to installing Nagios v3.0rc2. It works pretty well, but the web interface could do with sprucing up...

I've currently got it monitoring HTTP, SMTP, SMTP+TLS and IMAPS on my remote server, which is working well -- in that it's monitoring them, not that they're working smile
_________________________
-- roger

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