Abstract

This document describes how you can monitor “private” services and attributes of Linux devices, such as:

• Memory usage
• CPU load
• Disk usage
• Running processes
• etc.

Publicly available services that are provided by Linux devices (like “HTTP”, “FTP”, “POP3”, etc.) can be monitored easily by following the documentation on Monitoring publicly available services (HTTP, FTP, SSH, etc.).

These instructions assume that you've installed Shinken according to the Installation tutorial. The sample configuration entries below reference objects that are defined in the sample config files (“commands.cfg”, “templates.cfg”, etc.) that are installed if you followed the quickstart.

You can monitor a Linux device with an snmp agent, with a local agent and via SSH.

• This tutorial will focus on the SNMP based method.
• A local agent can provide faster query interval, more flexibility, passive and active communication methods.
• SSH based communications and checks should only be executed for infrequent checks as these have a high impact on the client and server cpu. These also are very slow to execute overall and will not scale when polling thousands of devices.

Here are the steps you will need to follow in order to monitor a new Linux device:

1. Install/configure SNMPd on the Linux device
2. Create new host definition for monitoring this device
3. Restart the Shinken daemon

To make your life a bit easier, a few configuration tasks have already been done for you:

• A selection of check_snmp_ command definitions has been added to the “commands.cfg” file.
• A Linux host template (called “linux”) has already been created in the “templates.cfg” file. This allows you to add new host definitions with a simple keyword.

The above-mentioned configuration files can be found in the /etc/shinken/packs/os/linux directory (or c:\shinken\etc\packs\os\linux under windows). You can modify the definitions in these and other configuration packs to suit your needs better. However, it is recommended to wait until you're more familiar with Shinken before doing so. For the time being, just follow the directions outlined below and you'll be securely monitoring your Linux boxes in no time.

First connect as root under srv-lin-1 with SSH (or putty/SecureCRT under windows).

RedHat like:

 yum install snmpd

 apt-get install snmpd

Edit the /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf and comment the line:

agentAddress  udp:127.0.0.1:161

agentAddress udp:161,udp6:[::1]:161

rocommunity public

Restart the snmpd daemon:

sudo /etc/init.d/snmpd restart

To see if the keys are working, just launch from your Shinken server. Change the “public” community value with your one:

   check_snmp -H srv-lin-1 -o .1.3.6.1.2.1.1.3.0  -C public

If the SNMP community value is a global one you are using on all your hosts, you can configure it in the file /etc/shinken/resource.cfg (or c:\shinken\resource.cfg under windows) in the line:

$SNMPCOMMUNITYREAD$=public

Now it's time to define some object definitions in your Shinken configuration files in order to monitor the new Linux device.

You can add the new host definition in an existing configuration file, but it's a good idea to have one file per host, it will be easier to manage in the future. So create a file with the name of your server.

Under Linux:

  linux:~ # vi /etc/shinken/hosts/srv-lin-1.cfg

  c:\ wordpad   c:\shinken\etc\hosts\srv-lin-1.cfg

You need to add a new host definition for the Linux device that you're going to monitor. Just copy/paste the above definition Change the “host_name”, and “address” fields to appropriate values for this device.

  define host{
      use             linux
      host_name       srv-lin-1
      address         srv-lin-1.mydomain.com
  }

• The use linux is the “template” line. It mean that this host will inherits properties from the linux template.
• the host_name is the object name of your host. It must be unique.
• the address is … the network address of your linux server :)

If you are using a specific SNMP community for this host, you can configure it in the SNMPCOMUNITY host macro like this:

  define host{
      use             linux
      host_name       srv-lin-1
      address         srv-lin-1.mydomain.com
      _SNMPCOMMUNITY  password             
  }

To enable disk checking for the host, configure the filesystem macro:

  define host{
      use             linux
      host_name       srv-lin-1
      address         srv-lin-1.mydomain.com
      _SNMPCOMMUNITY  password
      _fs             /, /var         
  }

At this point, you configure your host to be checked with a linux template. What does it means? It means that you got some checks already configured for you:

• host check each 5 minutes: check with a ping that the server is UP
• check disk spaces
• check load average
• check the CPU usage
• check physical memory and swap usage
• check network interface activities

You're done with modifying the Shiknen configuration, so you'll need to verify your configuration files and restart Shinken.

If the verification process produces any errors messages, fix your configuration file before continuing. Make sure that you don't (re)start Shinken until the verification process completes without any errors!