How to monitor remote servers and network devices?

[abrist]

This would truly be a discussion best spent with your networking guys. That said, something as simple as an ssh tunnel could get your checks into the network, though I am unsure of the available tunneling server daemons for windows (other than cygwin). You could use openvpn as it can be rather easy to setup. Both of these methods will require forwarding your vpn port to the endpoint behind the firewall.

[Noctis0791]

Okay. We'll try the OpenVPN option. Thanks abrist!

[abrist]

No problem! Best of luck with the tun/taps . . .

[Noctis0791]

Hello Guys,

We have installed OpenVPN on our Nagios server and already generated its cert and key. Now, we are stuck on how to configure the client side. How can we setup a site-to-site vpn with an Ubuntu server and Windows network client? Any input will much be appreciated guys. Just wanted to know how we can accomplish this as we can’t find any good reference yet to follow for our case.

Thank you very much,

Arnel

[sreinhardt]

The openvpn howto guide is pretty comprehensive. If the windows machine is the client connecting back to the nagios(ubuntu) server it should be pretty straightforward. Generate all keys on the server side, and share what you need to the remote system. An alternative that you may find useful and a bit easier would be reflector.nagios.com. It's a free service, at this time, that we provide for sending checks to a hosted server and retrieve using nagios, without opening firewall ports on either end.

[Noctis0791]

Thanks Spenser. Yes, I’ve been to this HOW-TO several times. I know we should generate keys and certs for the clients in order to connect but what we would like to setup is a site-to-site VPN. Based on my understanding on this articlehttp://www.smallnetbuilder.com/security ... th-openvpn, we don’t need to generate keys and certs for each client to setup the site-to-site vpn but there will be just 1 OpenVPN client host on the client side that will connect the entire network to the OpenVPN server.

Also, I have some questions.

1. Windows client needs key, cert and .opvn file to connect to the server. We can generate the key and cert in Ubuntu OpenVPN server but how can we generate that .opvn file?
2. What client should we use for Windows in order to connect to the VPN, OpenVPN desktop client for windowshttp://openvpn.net/index.php/access-ser ... w/357.html or the community OpenVPN installer for windowshttp://openvpn.net/index.php/download/c ... loads.html? I would just like to confirm because it said on the description that the OpenVPN desktop client is only compatible with OpenVPN Access Server.
3. If we install OpenVPN on Ubuntu using this command (sudo apt-get install openvpn), we are using the community installer, is that correct?

Thank You,

Arnel

[tmcdonald]

That's a question best asked in the OpenVPN Forum.

[Noctis0791]

Yes, sorry to bother you guys. I already posted my questions on OpenVPN forum but I'm not getting any reply so far. Just thought of posting it here thinking maybe I can get a help from you guys instead.

Thank You,

Arnel

[tmcdonald]

Yes, sorry to bother you guys. I already posted my questions on OpenVPN forum but I'm not getting any reply so far. Just thought of posting it here thinking maybe I can get a help from you guys instead.

Thank You,

Arnel

Usually we don't mind helping with things that are a few steps away from Nagios, but at some point we do have to call it off. Last week I found myself on a 5-hour flight to Montana to fix a radiator leak after someone *severely* messed up their nagios.cfg.

[Noctis0791]

Yes, your support seems to be better than them. That's the actual reason why I posted it here.

Thanks guys,

Arnel