monitor a pfsense firewall

[stebbo]

Hi All,

I have recently installed a pfSense firewall. Before I jump in and do something stupid, I was wondering what is the best way to go about monitoring that machine. I have seen an nrpe plugin for the pfSense, should I install that? Or should I use SNMP and/or SSH?

Cheers,
Chris.

[rkennedy]

I just finished testing the 'NRPE' plugin included with pfSense. The version of the agent I picked up is 2.15 which is good to see. Once it's installed, the menu item is added under Services -> NRPEv2. From there, it's a simple web GUI to configure your NRPE config.

Here's a screenshot, and a couple example commands -

pfsense-nrpe.png

Code: Select all

[root@xi libexec]# ./check_nrpe -H 63.228.11.30 -c check_load
OK - load average: 0.05, 0.05, 0.00|load1=0.050;15.000;30.000;0; load5=0.050;10.000;25.000;0; load15=0.000;5.000;20.000;0;
[root@xi libexec]# ./check_nrpe -H 63.228.11.30 -c check_total_procs
PROCS OK: 57 processes | procs=57;150;200;0;

Make sure you add a rule port forwarding if needed for port 5666 to your firewall.

I didn't test with SNMP, but hopefully this is a good start! It seems easy enough.

[stebbo]

Hi rkennedy,

thanks for that - I'll give it a try.

Cheers,
Chris.

[rkennedy]

Sounds good. I'll leave this open should you have further questions.

The GUI actually made the setup _way_ easier than anything I've seen in the past. If you end up trying the SNMP route please post your findings, I'm interested to hear how it works.

[tmcdonald]

Closing due to age. PM if you need it re-opened.