Network Monitoring Tools
Nagios and Spiceworks
Mit Dave
26 March 2014
Introduction
What are Network Monitoring Tools?
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System & Service monitoring
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Resource measurement/monitoring
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Performance monitoring
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Statistics & Accounting/Metering
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Fault Management (Intrusion Detection)
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Change management and configuration
monitoring
Why Nagios and Spiceworks?
Nagios
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Possibly the most used open source network
monitoring software.
It is an agent based tool.
A key measurement tool for actively monitoring
availability of devices and services.
Has a web interface.
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Uses CGIs written in C for faster response and
scalability.
Can support thousands of devices and services.
Nagios-Installation
Requirements :
 LAMP Bundle
Installation – Server
 sudo apt-get install nagios3
Files are installed here:
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/etc/nagios3
/etc/nagios3/conf.d
/etc/nagios-plugins/conf
/usr/share/nagios3/htdocs/images/logos
/usr/sbin/nagios3
/usr/sbin/nagios3stats
Nagios web interface is here:
• http://localhost/nagios3/
Configuring- Host
Various agents are available:
• NSClient++
• NRPE
• NRDP
Adding Windows host using NSClient++:
• Install NSClient++ on host machine
• Go to the installation directory and open the nsclient.ini
• Look for these lines and add them if they’re missing:
allowed hosts =
password =
port = 12489
• Restart the NSClient++ service:
Start > Administrative tools > Services
Adding Linux host using NRPE:
1. Download
• nagios-plugins-1.4.13.tar.gz
• nrpe-2.12.tar.gz
2. Create Nagios Account
• useradd nagios
• passwd nagios
3. Install Nagios Plugin
• tar xvfz nagios-plugins-1.4.13.tar.gz
• cd nagios-plugins-1.4.13
• export LDFLAGS=-ldl
• ./configure
• Make
• make install
• chown nagios.nagios /usr/local/nagios
• chown -R nagios.nagios /usr/local/nagios/libexec/
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Install NRPE
cd /home/downloads
tar xvfz nrpe-2.12.tar.gz
cd nrpe-2.12
./configure
make all
make install-plugin
make install-daemon
make install-daemon-config
make install-xinetd
Setup NRPE to run as daemon
Modify the /etc/xinetd.d/nrpe
only_from = 127.0.0.1 192.168.1.2
Modify the /etc/services and add the following at the end of the file.
nrpe 5666/tcp # NRPEStart the service
service xinetd restart
Configuring- Server
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Install NRPE Plugin:
tar xvfz nrpe-2.12.tar.gz
cd nrpe-2.1.2
./configure
make all
make install-plugin
2. Make Host Configuration file
3. Make Service Configuration file
Other Configuration Files
Located in /etc/nagios3/
Important files:
• cgi.cfg
controls the Web Interface
options security
• commands.cfg
commands that Nagios
uses to notify
• nagios.cfg
main Nagios configuration file
• conf.d/*
the core of the config files
• Under conf.d/*,
files “xxxx_nagios2.cfg”:
• Contacts
users and groups
• generic-host
“template” host (default)
• generic-service
“template” service
• hostgroups
host group definitions
• services
which services to check
• timeperiods
when to check and notify
Spiceworks
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FREE!
Agentless
Full Inventory of Hardware & Software
Track To-Do’s & User Requests
Collaborate With a Community of IT Pros
IT Pros who have admin rights on their network
Organizations with less than 1000 devices on their network. It
will work with more, but it won’t be as fast.
• Discovering Windows, OS X, Linux and Unix (but must run from
a PC).
Installation
For Server Side
• Go to www.spiceworks.com-Download-Install
For host Side
• Configure firewall
• For windows machines should allow “Windows
Management Instrumentation ” (WMI) services.
• Administrator Credentials are required to access the
systems.
Operations
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Scanning the network
Inspecting the Inventory
Monitoring Options.
Ticketing.
Nagios Vs Spiceworks
Nagios
Pros:
• Open source and very flexible.
• Large ecosystem of tools and custom monitors built up around nagios.
• All configuration is text files, so it is easy to keep this in version control and generate
new configs from other tools.
Cons:
• Default interface is clunky.
• Can be a steep learning curve if you haven't worked with it before.
• Adding devices or services requires reloading the config or restarting the service.
• Would like for this to be more dynamic.
• It seems that most of the new development is going towards Nagios XI(paid enterprise
version) rather than the opensource nagios.
Spiceworks
Pros:
This is a great service desk product for SMB's.
It's free and easy to get going so it is perfect for companies that haven't got anything in
place to handle inventory and helpdesk.
It is supported by a strong community of users that give you a built-in expert network
and IT knowledgebase.
Cons:
I think its monitoring tools could use some improvement.
Clearly it wasn't designed as a monitoring application from the start and it still seems a
bit weak compared to Nagios.