[gentoo-user] open source monitoring on gentoo

[gentoo-user] open source monitoring on gentoo

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Greets,

I am looking for a nagios-type monitoring system which I can run on gentoo.

The requirement is that the customer should be able to add/edit hosts
and services via web-GUI ... there is no cli-motivation available there ;-)

Second wish would be that the GUI should be available in german language
as well (customer in austria).

I have nagios running there already so I would like to migrate the
existing stuff into the new system.

Do you gentoo-users have a recommendation for me?

I dug through various lists of monitoring systems but somehow got lost ...

Thanks, Stefan

Re: [gentoo-user] open source monitoring on gentoo

[Mick]

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On Friday 24 Jun 2011 10:15:54 Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
> Greets,
> 
> I am looking for a nagios-type monitoring system which I can run on gentoo.
> 
> The requirement is that the customer should be able to add/edit hosts
> and services via web-GUI ... there is no cli-motivation available there ;-)
> 
> Second wish would be that the GUI should be available in german language
> as well (customer in austria).
> 
> I have nagios running there already so I would like to migrate the
> existing stuff into the new system.
> 
> Do you gentoo-users have a recommendation for me?
> 
> I dug through various lists of monitoring systems but somehow got lost ...
> 
> Thanks, Stefan

Nagios will install and run fine on Gentoo.  So should JFFNMS:

  http://www.jffnms.org/

So should ZENOSS - although I am not sure which overlay it may be in:

  http://community.zenoss.org/index.jspa


However, I have only used Nagios, so cannot compare with other monitoring 
applications.  With regards to using a GUI to manage Nagios there's a few of 
those available and more are coming out by the day it seems:

  http://www.ducea.com/2008/01/16/10-nagios-web-frontends/

Out of these I've only used Nagmin and quickly went back to vim ...  ;-)
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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[gentoo-user] Re: open source monitoring on gentoo

[James]

Mick <michaelkintzios <at> gmail.com> writes:


>   http://www.jffnms.org/

jffnms is fabulous. However it has recently
been release as version 0.9.x so a few install bugs
are out there. 

Portage still shows 8.3.x (way old)

Craig, the main developer of jffnms is very cool
and helpful. It's a smaller and tighter community
than the nagios-fork scene.

I ask some devs a while back to update the package,
but it never got updated....(real sad story here).

Jffnms supports both mysql and postgresql, but with
the new (9.0.x) postgresql series and the new
jffnms (0.9.x) series I have just been to busy to 
get them happy on Gentoo.

Open up a bug about version bumping jffnms
and the install doc help me get jffnms in shape
for Gentoo?

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/jffnms.xml

And look at the bottom of this bug

[2] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=287761

If you want to work on jffnms, drop me some emails
as most of the issues were resolved, I just drop 
the ball with too many other things going on. Beside
my "manners" with the devs are not the best, so
a fresh face motivated to test/use jffnms would go
a long way to easing the relationship with the devs
so that jffnms get's that version bump officially.
I have an early version of jffnms -0.9.x installed
but the devs refused to version bump it because 
it was not "pretty" and conformant to their standards....


drop me an email offline, as jffnms is very easily extended
and very cool to add any device....


James

Re: [gentoo-user] open source monitoring on gentoo

[Petric Frank]

Hello Stefan,

Am Freitag, 24. Juni 2011, 11:15:54 schrieb Stefan G. Weichinger:
> Greets,
> 
> I am looking for a nagios-type monitoring system which I can run on gentoo.
> 
> The requirement is that the customer should be able to add/edit hosts
> and services via web-GUI ... there is no cli-motivation available there ;-)
> 
> Second wish would be that the GUI should be available in german language
> as well (customer in austria).
> 
> I have nagios running there already so I would like to migrate the
> existing stuff into the new system.
> 
> Do you gentoo-users have a recommendation for me?
> 
> I dug through various lists of monitoring systems but somehow got lost ...

Zabbix (http;//www.zabbix.com) may be worth a view. It has monitoring proxy 
support. The monitoring server can be clustered (depending on the load).

regards
  Petric

Re: [gentoo-user] open source monitoring on gentoo

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

thanks to all for your suggestion.
Still not sure where to turn ...

Stefan

Re: [gentoo-user] open source monitoring on gentoo

[Mick]

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On Monday 27 Jun 2011 08:45:06 Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
> thanks to all for your suggestion.
> Still not sure where to turn ...
> 
> Stefan

We can't know which one may best match your needs/expectations/preferences.  
You can spend some time looking at their documentation to get an understanding 
of how difficult it may be to configure them and then play with their online 
demos to experience the touch & feel of each.

Then install the one that best matches your requirements and if your don't 
like it enough install the second best and so on.  If you are prepared to get 
your hands dirty you can somewhat customise the look and feel (e.g. using 
CSS), but the monitoring engine is what will provide you with the necessary 
functionality.

Personally, I ended up using Nagios because at the time it had a load of 
plugins that others did not.  Once I spent a lot of time installing graphing 
engines and configuring it, I had invested too much time to ditch it and try 
something different.

Thankfully, you can start afresh your quest and evaluate how each of these 
tools meets your requirements.

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] open source monitoring on gentoo

[4k3nd0]

On 06/27/2011 06:33 PM, Mick wrote:
> On Monday 27 Jun 2011 08:45:06 Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
>> thanks to all for your suggestion.
>> Still not sure where to turn ...
>>
>> Stefan
>
> We can't know which one may best match your needs/expectations/preferences.
> You can spend some time looking at their documentation to get an understanding
> of how difficult it may be to configure them and then play with their online
> demos to experience the touch&  feel of each.
>
> Then install the one that best matches your requirements and if your don't
> like it enough install the second best and so on.  If you are prepared to get
> your hands dirty you can somewhat customise the look and feel (e.g. using
> CSS), but the monitoring engine is what will provide you with the necessary
> functionality.
>
> Personally, I ended up using Nagios because at the time it had a load of
> plugins that others did not.  Once I spent a lot of time installing graphing
> engines and configuring it, I had invested too much time to ditch it and try
> something different.
>
> Thankfully, you can start afresh your quest and evaluate how each of these
> tools meets your requirements.
>
> HTH.
I agree with you, Nagios is just amazing.

Greeting's 4k3nd0

Re: [gentoo-user] open source monitoring on gentoo

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 27 June 2011 17:33:45 Mick did opine thusly:
> On Monday 27 Jun 2011 08:45:06 Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
> > thanks to all for your suggestion.
> > Still not sure where to turn ...
> > 
> > Stefan
> 
> We can't know which one may best match your
> needs/expectations/preferences. You can spend some time looking at
> their documentation to get an understanding of how difficult it may
> be to configure them and then play with their online demos to
> experience the touch & feel of each.
> 
> Then install the one that best matches your requirements and if your
> don't like it enough install the second best and so on.  If you are
> prepared to get your hands dirty you can somewhat customise the
> look and feel (e.g. using CSS), but the monitoring engine is what
> will provide you with the necessary functionality.
> 
> Personally, I ended up using Nagios because at the time it had a
> load of plugins that others did not.  Once I spent a lot of time
> installing graphing engines and configuring it, I had invested too
> much time to ditch it and try something different.
> 
> Thankfully, you can start afresh your quest and evaluate how each of
> these tools meets your requirements.

We're going through the same research nightmare. Our conclusions:

1. Nothing out there just does everything a large network would really 
want.
2. Some projects have very stable code but not much plugins, others 
have lots of plugins but the dev model leads to unstable code
3. Monitoring is NOT off the shelf, it is highly bespoke
4. Regardless of what you choose you will go through X effort to get 
it going and Y effort to get it to do what you want. The value is Y is 
amazingly similar regardless of the project (given that the starting 
code is at least somewhat mature).

iow, your comments are right on the money, that is indeed how to do 
it.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: open source monitoring on gentoo

[James]

Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes:


> 1. Nothing out there just does everything a large network would really 
> want.

JFFNMS is the best I have found. I'm still running an 8.3 version.

When I get a chance I'll fix it up to 0.9.x and get the
issues with postgresql 9.x fixed and documented. I got
slammed with building a new facility and too many work
related issues to do much with the new (jffnms) code
at this time. 

If someone has some time and familiarity with Gentoo
ebuilds, it would not take more than a few hours to
follow my tracks and finish up everything. You can monitor
any snmp (1,2,3) device and it is absolutely fabulous
with most routers and switches, particularly Cisco.

It uses python and the lead developer, Craig is very 
responsive to help and others contributing code. The project
stalled when the previous dev left; where he is customizing 
JFFNMS for a communications conglomerate.

It also runs on Mysql if that is your preference, and that
version would be quite easy to get the ebuild updated.

check it out!  www.jffnms.org

hth,
James