Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

ChojinDSL · 2011-04-08 13:32:40

I'm a self taught Linux Administrator. This also means that there are probably plenty of tools and procedures that I have no experience with, or simply have not yet come across.

Anyways, I monitor multiple servers rather ineffeciently by dropping a yakuake console, splitting the window into several partitions and then ssh-ing into the various servers and tailing /var/log/messages. Either that, or htop, iotop, etc. (aside from nagios and munin as well.)

I was wondering what methods, tools, etc, do you guys use when you have to keep an eye on multiple remote linux servers?

Perhaps you could also post screenshots of any funky setups you got going.

Cheers. :-)

ewaller · 2011-04-08 15:07:23

Look at the syslog-ng documentation. One of the major features is being able to send system log information to remote hosts where it can be aggregated. Most of this is in the configuration documentaion as opposed to the man man page.

ChojinDSL · 2011-04-08 22:55:21

Wouldnt that require you to forward a port on your router to your pc?

Besides, that method doesn't seem so ideal if your on a laptop and your changing locations.

I suppose you could use a dedicated server for log collection, and then just connect to that one to monitor the logs.

TheCox · 2011-04-09 15:34:40

You'd want to configure one of your servers to receive all of the syslog messages, not your laptop. You should also find a tool to parse your logs and send you alerts rather than having to go in and manually scan them. I think you can actually configure syslog-ng to do that.

litemotiv · 2011-04-09 15:50:23

You can also use something like Tacos...ehh i mean Cacti: http://www.cacti.net/

Or Munin: http://munin-monitoring.org/

Both based on RRDtool: http://www.mrtg.org/rrdtool/

ChojinDSL · 2011-04-11 08:12:55

We already use munin and nagios. Nagios is fine and dandy for reporting critical stuff. Munin is just good for seeing what was, not what is. Sometimes its nice to be able to see stuff in realtime as its happening.
Is cacti any better (i.e. more realtime) than munin?

axion419 · 2011-04-12 04:57:55

This may be overkill for your house, but for production its great. I use Managed Workplaces from http://www.levelplatforms.com/. Its like cacti etc. It has built in modules for cisco routers, juniper, windows server etc. It monitors linux box via snmp and also set it to watch ports for services to verify they are up and running. Its set as a syslog server for all the linux boxes as well, and if an say any facility shows a .err, an alert is generated, if any facility logs a critical erroc, an alert is created, a ticket is automatically created and assigned to a technician and depending on the device, the relevant people are email the error. It also has a centralized remote console for devices. So for a windows box, you can RDP directly to the console or remotely view the file system, linux we can remotely parse logs on the fly and ssh to the devices. The main dashboard is a web gui, so you can monitor it on your phone, or from your laptop no matter where you are. It works pretty, well. Its not without bugs and hiccups of course, and their development cycle seems to be very slow, but the product works great for what we use it for. You get the bonus of people able to deploy it as a managed service and monitor other 'sites' and scale the view so their local IT staff can only monitor their subsection. Once again, probably overkill, unless you are talking about monitoring a large amount of devices.

cactus · 2011-04-12 06:27:59

litemotiv wrote:

You can also use something like Tacos...ehh i mean Cacti: http://www.cacti.net/
Or Munin: http://munin-monitoring.org/
Both based on RRDtool: http://www.mrtg.org/rrdtool/

tacos!?

rwd · 2011-04-12 19:55:48

cactus wrote:

litemotiv wrote:
You can also use something like Tacos...ehh i mean Cacti: http://www.cacti.net/
Or Munin: http://munin-monitoring.org/
Both based on RRDtool: http://www.mrtg.org/rrdtool/
tacos!?

hint: click on links, see logo

Arch Linux

#1 2011-04-08 13:32:40

Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

#2 2011-04-08 15:07:23

Re: Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

#3 2011-04-08 22:55:21

Re: Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

#4 2011-04-09 15:34:40

Re: Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

#5 2011-04-09 15:50:23

Re: Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

#6 2011-04-11 08:12:55

Re: Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

#7 2011-04-12 04:57:55

Re: Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

#8 2011-04-12 06:27:59

Re: Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

#9 2011-04-12 19:55:48

Re: Whats your preferred way of monitoring remote servers?

Board footer