Best F/OSS server monitoring software

salimfadhley

I run a group of Linux servers at a number of diferent locations. From time to time a user calles me up and tells me that something has stopped working. Some of the time it is due to a fault with a machine - for example on one of my Mandrake boxes apache httpd keeps crashing.

I would really like to know about the fault so that users see me 'on the case' before they even have time to log a fault. I think I need is some network monitoring software. Since there isnt a gentoo ebuild for any software in this category it looks like I will have to select a package and DIY an ebuild.

My local university swears by an aincient package called Nocol. The makers of nocol tell me that I should use SNIPS or Helix instead. Does anybody have any practical experience of any of these, and if so, would anybody care to contribute a working ebuild?
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Sal

kashani · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:51 am Post subject:

nagios

There's an ebuild for 1.1, but not for 1.2 which came out this week. It has a nice web interface, a ton of plugins, and it kicks ass.

I'm monitoring our entire network and our clients machines and sites as well.

edit: cuz I can't spell

kashani
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salimfadhley · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 4:10 pm Post subject:

Is it worth manually hacking together an ebuild for 1.2, or would you recomend staying with the 1.1 release?

Looking through the spec sheet, there does not appear to be a monitor for MySQL. Is it easy to DIY my own monitors?
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Sal

salimfadhley · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 4:12 pm Post subject:

So where is that ebuild anyway?

There is nothing like it in net-misc. `locate snips` gives me nothing as well.

:-)

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Sal

kashani · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 6:14 pm Post subject:

Sorry that wasn't very clear. I actually have no exp with nocol or snips as it's now known. helix is the commercial version of snips. Oddly I'd never heard of any of those. Though googling around it just appears I've had my head in the sand.

Nagios is a similiar style monitoring system, which does happen to have an ebuild. I'd give it a shot and that's what I was referring to in my earlier post.

kashani
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Will personally fix your server in exchange for motorcycle related shop tools in good shape.

Janne Pikkarainen · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:15 pm Post subject:

My vote goes for Nagios. After the initial learning curve it's very powerful, fast and configurable. I'm using it to monitor 50+ servers network with well over 300 different services & aspects to keep an eye on, works perfect.
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