Server Monitoring
 

Hey guys,

I'm working with Linux servers and some windows servers for almost a year now.

My question is is there programs or separate server program to monitor few or more servers in one place?

Because for all the time i'm working with servers i go to each server daily check log's ect.

So i thought is there any easier way to check them if there is please post what are you using and why. Would be great if they support windows servers too.

Regards,
Thiefy.

How many servers are you planning for? There are quite a few options to choose from and they will be more or less appealing depending on your situation and your priorities. Cacti, Nagios, and Zabbix are three to look at, but there are more.

You will have to elaborate on "monitor", and articulate "servers" in your request. Each situation is different.

I tire of viewing logs so I send my stuff to a centralized host and let it chop up the logs.
Most basic transport to a centralized host is rsyslog

I would like to say that i would have maybe 10+ servers.

We monitor 174 hosts in production and 176 hosts in test, a variety of linux and windows servers and other devices with Nagios.

Personally I'd prefer to use the "Centreon" fork of Nagios as it offers a nicer (in my opinion) user front end and has GUI based configuration / template management.

Thanks for the replay Nagios is free?

Yes, and so is CentreonES

Stupid question: is Nagios a program or should it be a physical/virtual server?

It runs on the server hardware with your server OS and your (many) other server programs.

https://www.nagios.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagios

It is Free software, as in Freedom.

You'll want to read up on the different options before trying out one or more of them. For a small site, Cacti is also relevant.

By the way, the example above of using a central log server is IMHO a very useful one and you could look into it if you haven't already.

Thanks for the answer! Will check it out! :)

Ohh one more question for this statement do you use the free version for this many hosts? :)

Yes

Thanks! for the information! :)

Personally I'm very fond of the Open Monitoring Distribution (OMD). I use it to monitor a variety of approx 100 servers (Linux, OpenBSD and Windows), NAS appliances, printers etc. It uses nagios underneath, but comes with the very nice capabilities of Check_MK multisite frontend. That will also give you some very nice history tracking, trend watching etc.

I'd say, check it out here: http://omdistro.org/start

Oh and of course it's 100% free.