Network Monitoring with Nagios

Extending Nagios

Nagios is a great tool to begin monitoring your network quickly and efficiently. However, there are other open source tools out there that compliment, even enhance, Nagios. Let’s look at a few that you can get up and running quickly.

Configuration Tools

Writing your configuration files is a pain. It’s bearable when you have only a handful of devices to monitor, but imagine the number growing into the hundreds. Many people, including myself, have tackled this problem with creating a myriad of configuration frontends to handle the hassle of configuration. We’ll look briefly at a couple of the most well known; however, there are quite a few more available. Refer to Nagios Exchange (http://www.nagiosexchange.org) for a more complete list.

Monarch

Monarch, an open source project supported by Groundwork Open Source, is one of the more popular configuration tools for Nagios. It implements the use of profiles, which are sets of configuration for hosts and services. Host profiles can also include the initial list of services to include. The use of profiles, along with Monarch’s easy user interface, makes configuration a snap. Furthermore, because it is commercially supported, it is constantly maintained.

The navigation on the left gives you the ability to quickly find the items to modify and add quickly. Also included is a quick host search that will immediately pull up a list of hosts as you type. With these types of features, Monarch speeds up the time it takes to make ...