Monitoring of multiple machines remotely

[admin]

The existing clients/agents like NSClient++ don't work the way you're looking for right now. We're evaluating options for building a new agent that would allow this type of monitoring, but its not here yet. Neither is an ETA. But we are working on a solution.

[mr_bo_jungle]

Well, i guess there is allways Spiceworks....lord forgive me for what i just said...lol.

It is unfourtunate that Nagios through its development has missed an obviouss and essential element in play, remote monitoring. My first thought is that such an ability should have been a front running and high priority aspect of its functionality and i am really quite stunned that this has been overlooked.

The developers of Nagios would pay well to work very hard and very quickly to design an agent to allow this level of functionality as it would enhance its use massively and make it a more attractive product to the marketplace, ultimately this has been the descision breaking key for us not going with Nagios XI and i am certain that many other IT professionals out there who are looking for this level of monitoring who have evaluated Nagios XI will have chosen not to use it for this exact reason...sad as it has potential to be far more than what it is at the moment and surely to develop a remote agent that can poll multiple offsite systems at the same offiste location is key.

[Box293]

The existing clients/agents like NSClient++ don't work the way you're looking for right now. We're evaluating options for building a new agent that would allow this type of monitoring, but its not here yet. Neither is an ETA. But we are working on a solution.

I have a very similar need to mr_bo_jungle.

We would like to monitor all of our client sites without requiring any additional hardware on these sites.
I can sort of entertain running multiple XI instances but this costs more $ and a lot of these sites would require additional hardware to run the Nagios XI VM.

I am glad to hear that Nagios Enterprises is working on a solution for this type of monitoring.


There's a lot more to Nagios XI than meets the eye

[mr_bo_jungle]

Okay, i have an update to the progress i am making within our project. I have installed Co Linux onto a test 2003 SBS server, Co Linux is a very small Linux distribution that is capable of installing itself and running (Along side) a windows platform. In simple terms it is Linux running as a fully functional operating system but running as a system service within any given windows platform. It has a console and if you install X it can even have a full GUI desktop yet still running as a windows system service, basically 2 operating systems running in conjunction with each other all from a single boot.

Inside Co Linux i have installed a very stripped down version of Debian, pretty much just the basic Kernal, its 46 megabytes in size and is currently using (under load) 1% of the system resources. I have installed SSH onto the Debian and now that i have SSH installed i can SSH to the very small Debian operating system from Nagios XI basically establishing a permanant SSH tunnel between the two, I now intend to use this SSH tunnel as my 'Gateway' to send querys to the server 2003 box and hopefully the rest of the remote LAN.

If anyone else has attempted this method in the past then your input would be very welcome.

[Box293]

Another option to try is to install VMware Player on your SBS 2003 server. You will then be able to run the downloaded Nagios XI VM and be using Nagios XI in a matter of minutes.

Note, after you install VMware Player, it is advised that you reconfigure the built in VMware network settings. Remove the DHCP scope it creates and use bridged networking (from memory).
After this, VMware Player and SBS will co-exist happily. Every time you re-install VMware player (updated version for example) you will need to repeat the networking steps.

We have a small customer who runs a virtual terminal server on their SBS box this way but it can only cope with so much load before you really do need a proper virtualisation solution.

[mr_bo_jungle]

Well, this is really a virtualised scenario all be it paravirtualised...also it is preferable to have some form of gateway solution like a form of 'Remote collector', as i have said before having multiple instances of the Nagios XI installed just is not practical and the fact that you have to do this according to the Nagios white papers only proves how un developed Nagios really is in that respect...

The use of vmware player would increase the the servers resources usage MASSIVELY which again is far from a prefered scenario not to mention the sheer drive space usage. Co Linux installs a typical Tap win32 Ethernet card which lends it the option to have it's own ip range which again is preferable...

This simply boils down to a single fact, Nagios XI and respectively Nagios core has a failing, and quite a huge one, it cannot remotely poll a site that is behind any form of NAT effectively...hence my current project to attempt to fashion some form of gateway solution to allow it to do something it should already be able to do...

[mmestnik]

mr_bo_jungle:
Great minds must think alike, Nagios Core 32bit Windows Installer.

[mmestnik]

Still though, I'm very confused. What is it that prevents you from running this on one of your other Linux servers or to use a VPN?

[mr_bo_jungle]

Interesting...

I am still trying to monitor raid arrays using Nagios, i have spent days reading and trying various plugins ect but still with no luck...is there ANY tutorials out there on how to do this that arn't written in Greek???

All i want to do is be able to monitor a raid array and a simple to follow set of instructions on how to do this as a starter...

[mmestnik]

I think it's time to spin of a new topic for monitoring a specific service.

RAID is a vary broad term, please be much more specific. I can only guess you are asking about Dell Server's RAID and thus you are looking for SNMP Traps, totally different from what we have been talking about.