[olug] Network/Systems monitoring solution

[Chris St. Pierre]

On Tue, 30 Oct 2007, Ryan Stille wrote:

> What I'd like to see in a monitoring app is something very easy to
> configure.  Big Sister's conf files are a pain.  I'm the only one at my
> company that has any idea how to manage Big Sister, and thats the way
> its going to stay.
>
> I'd like to see a small feature set (monitor http, smtp, etc. and
> email/page when down) in a very easy to configure UI, preferably a web
> based gui.

Heh.  I couldn't disagree more -- but I think we both have good points
and evidence that different solutions work better for different
people.

I use Nagios, which also has hellacious config files.  I don't care,
though, because I've scripted the addition of all of my checks, so I
deal (rarely) with a much less complicated config file and let my
scripts do the rest.  A GUI would only make this process a billion
times harder.

So in my case -- single SA, intense need to script as much as possible
to retain sanity -- something with a modular, albeit complex plaintext
configuration language is ideal.  For a larger, more distributed
organization -- or for someone with a crew of PFYs -- a GUI would make
more sense.

I've heard really good things about Fruity, a Nagios config GUI, so
maybe you can have the best of both worlds. :)

To answer the original question, my favorite feature of Nagios is
NagiosGraph, which is actually a plugin.  It lets me roll historical
graphing (which lots of folks do with Cacti) into my realtime
monitoring system, so I only have to configure one system.  It's
great.

Chris St. Pierre
Unix Systems Administrator
Nebraska Wesleyan University