gHacks technology news » Network Monitoring

Let Munin monitor your servers and network

Jack Wallen — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:50:59 +0000

If you are looking for an easy to install, configure, and use systems monitor, look no further. The Munin is a network/systems monitor that presents all its data is easy to read graphs. Munin is setup as a server/client (or node) which makes this system very flexible. Munin also offers an extensive plugins library that extends that flexibility to include the monitoring of many various systems and even applications.

And what’s best is you don’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get munin up and running. In this tutorial you will see how to get your Munin server up and running and monitoring your system and a sample client configuration that will monitor a client node. As you might expect, I will continue to build upon the Ubuntu Server series and install Munin on a Ubuntu 9.04 installation. NOTE: This same installation will work on Ubuntu 9.10 as well.Server installation/configuration

Installing Munin on the Ubunter server is simple. Open up a terminal window (or log into your server console) and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install munin

The above command will also install munin-node which is the client-side software. This is fine, so let it happen. Upon installation Munin will install the configuration files in /etc/munin, the executable in /etc/init.d/, and the web files in /var/www/munin.

The first thing that will need to be done is to configure your server correctly. Open up the /etc/munin/munin.conf file and look for this section:

dbdir /var/lib/munin htmldir /var/www/munin/ logdir /var/log/munin rundir /var/run/munin

Out of the box, this will work just fine. But if you have any other needs that would dictate any of these directives change, change them here.

The next section to look for is this:

# a simple host tree [localhost.localdomain] address 127.0.0.1 use_node_name yes

What the above section does is monitor the server Munin is installed on. This configuration only needs to change if you have specific requirements. Also, if you need to add a client (node), this is where you add it.

In order to instruct Munin to monitor a remote machine you need to add a new host tree. Say, for instance, you want to monitor a machine on the IP addres 192.168.1.150. To do this you would add:

[MACHINE NAME] address 192.168.1.150 use_node_name yes

Where MACHINE NAME is a name to indicate the job (or user, or department, etc) of the machine.

Once you have these configurations and save the file. Now to move on to the /etc/munin/munin-node.conf file. There is only one configuration you would need to add in order to monitor nodes. Look for this line:

allow ^127\.0\.0\.1$

Beneath this line you will want to add (in order to enable our new node):

allow ^192\.168\.1\.1$

Save this file and restart the Munin server with the command:

/etc/init.d/munin restart

Installing for client

All you need to do for your client is to install the munin-node package. To do this issue the command:

sudo apt-get install munin-node

On the client machine. Now start munin-node with the command:

sudo /etc/init.d/munin-node start

Munin will begin to monitor this client now.

The graphs

When all is up and running, point your browser to http://ADDRESS_TO_SERVER/munin/

Figure 1

Where ADDRESS_TO_SERVER is the actual address of the server. Very shortly after you install Munin you may only see a listing of the nodes being watched (see Figure 1). This is okay, it will take some time before data is actually collected.

After a while you will notice data collected and graphs developing. If you click on the localhost.localdomain link you will see data beginning to collect (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

Final thoughts

Munin is a very powerful tool that allows you to gather crucial data about your systems and networks. Now that you have Munin installed and running you can begin to extend the server by adding more and more clients as well as plugins. You will quickly find Munin to be a very valuable tool for data analysis on your various systems and networks.

Network Monitoring Software Networx 5 Released

Martin — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 07:43:25 +0000

Our review of Networx 4 dates back to October of last year (see Network Monitoring Software NetWorx). The developer of the network monitoring software was busy between then and now and released regular updates to the monitoring software. Yesterday version 5 of Networx was released and the version bump gave us the excuse to take another look at the software program.

Networx offers several network and bandwidth related tools in its interface. It will place an icon in the Windows system tray after download that will open a bandwidth monitor on left-click and the context menu with all the available modules on a right-click.

The bandwidth monitor will display useful information about the bandwidth consumption of the computer system including daily, weekly and monthly reports, an overview of today’s bandwidth consumption, custom bandwidth reports, dial up sessions and hourly rates. Data can be exported and backed up among other things. This module gives the system administrator a quick overview of the bandwidth consumption of the computer system.

Networx offers additional modules that aid in the network monitoring process. This includes a speedmeter which can measure the network’s (or network devices) throughput. The tool is basically a speed test that will monitor the current network traffic and display the current, average and maximum transfer rates.

It is furthermore possible to setup a bandwidth quota and trigger alerts if 80% of that quota has been used. It is also possible to configure the quota to only cover upload or download bandwidth and set it to be a daily, weekly or monthly quota.

Ping, traceroute and netstat commands are available from the context menu of the network monitoring software as well. The options are quite extensive and allow the user to select an individual networking adapter to be monitored, configure notifications or define on and off peak hours.

Networx might not be the most sophisticated network monitoring software but it proves to be a nice solution for single computer systems.

Tags: bandwidth, bandwidth monitoring, monitor network, network, network adapter, Network Monitoring, Network Monitoring Software, networx

Database Monitoring Software Db2rss

Martin — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:18:57 +0000

Database monitoring is not only important for businesses who want to monitor their online and offline services and applications but also for individuals. Webmasters who make use of databases like MySQL need to make sure that the databases are up and running and the best way to ensure that is to monitor them 24/7. Quite a few monitoring services exist. It is possible to use online services – most of them paid depending on the quality and quantity of monitoring – but also services that run on a local PC.

We have dealt with several services in the past including the network monitoring software Open Monitor or the online service Livewatch.

The database monitoring software dv2rss is different from these solutions. The main difference is that it can – as the title implies – monitor databases but also because it can only be run from the command line or a script. That’s not as bad as it sounds and it could be welcome in certain situations where no graphical user interface is needed or wanted.

Db2rss supports MySQL, Interbase and Blackfish SQL databases at the moment and can monitor them in a computer network or on the Internet. It comes with several command line parameters that define important information such as the database’s host name, the username and password. There are quite a few additional parameter that include running an SQL command on the database, comparing the results to a local copy and defining templates and title of the resulting RSS feed. The RSS feed is another aspect of this database monitoring software that is usually not found in other monitoring software programs.

It is then possible to subscribe to the RSS feed to receive the database monitoring information after the script’s execution. The software developer suggests to use the Windows task scheduler to run the database monitoring software regularly.

Tags: blackfish sql, database, database monitoring, db2rss, interbase, mysql, mysql database, Network Monitoring

Online Network Troubleshooting Analyzer Netalyzr

Martin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:42:19 +0000

Network Troubleshooting can be one of the most frustrating tasks especially for the average computer user. There is always the question where to start the troubleshooting process. The Windows operating system comes with troubleshooting wizards that usually do not help at all except for the most basic of troubles that users can run into. But problems in the form of forgetting to plug in the network cable are not as common as slow or corrupt downloads, page loading errors or Internet connection drops. Those on the other hand are much harder to come by and troubleshoot.

The ICSI Netalyzr is a new beta online network troubleshooting analyzer that can analyze various aspects of a computer’s network connection. It is made up of a Java applet that has to be executed on the user’s system. The benefits of a Java Applet are that it is system independent and that it can access and analyze the computer’s hardware and other aspects of the computer system.

The analysis will take a while and an in depth network troubleshooting report will be generated and presented to the user in the end.

The network troubleshooting report is divided into two sections. The first reports on noteworthy events and is further divided into major abnormalities and minor aberrations. The second section displays the detailed network troubleshooting report that is colored for easier access. Entries with red backgrounds describe network problems while green backgrounds display unproblematic network elements.

Each title in the report is clickable leading to a short explanation of how the tests are conducted. Related articles can be found about Network Bandwidth and Network Monitoring Software.

Tags: netalyzr, network, Network Monitoring, network troubleshooting, network troubleshooting analyzer, pc, troubleshooting

Website Monitoring Software

Martin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:58:15 +0000

It is essential for webmasters and system administrators to monitor their websites and networks to be able to react as soon as possible if all or part of it goes down. That’s especially true for professionals who earn their living with their websites. A possibility are commercial services that notify the webmaster as soon as a website becomes unreachable. Ghacks is monitored round the clock by Livewatch which will automatically send an SMS or email when a server or website goes down.

Not everyone wants to pay to monitor websites though. The free portable software program SiteMonitor provides a local solution for the Windows operating system. It requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 and can be configured to monitor selected websites and notify the user if they become unreachable. It is a good alternative as long as it is run on a computer system that is online 24/7.

New urls can be added easily to SiteMonitor. All that it takes is to add a descriptive name, an url and HTML to match which is simply content that should appear on the website. The website monitoring software will check every 30 minutes by default; To much for important websites. The interval can be changed in the options. The options are also the place where the notification preferences can be edited. The website monitor provides two different types of reactions to website connection problems:

Run a script or executable, e.g. a script that will restart a server or service
Send email to notify a user about the connection problem

The amount of failures before either one of the reactions will be initiated can be configured in the same menu as well.

Below is the small php script that we use to check if the database is up and running on Ghacks:

$dbhost = 'localhost'; $dbuser = 'username'; $dbpass = 'password';


$conn = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass) or die                      ('Error');
$dbname = 'databasename';

mysql_select_db($dbname);
if ($conn) {echo "ok";}

else {echo "error";}

?>

replace username with the database username, password with the password of the username and databasename with the name of the database. Save it as database.php, upload it to your website and load the new file. It should display ok if the database is up and error if it is down. The url that points to the script can then be added to the website monitoring software to check if it returns ok. If it does the website is up, if it does not it is down.

Alternatives are the Website Monitor and Downloader Wysigot, Montastic or the Server Monitor Observu.

Tags: database monitor, Network Monitoring, server monitoring, webmasters, website, website monitoring, website monitoring software

Gather Wireless Information with Wavemon

Jack Wallen — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:42:11 +0000

If you’re like me you like to have as much information as you can about whatever it is you are doing. Wireless access is no exception. When using wireless so many things can go wrong. You can have a weak signal, too much noise, strange frequency variations, and many other issues. Without the tools to find these issues you may never know what is keeping you from getting the speeds you should be getting.

The wavemon tool is a very handy tool to have in your arsenal that will help you gather information you might not otherwise have. With wavemon you can see Signal levels, Noise levels, Signal to noise ratios, frequencies, TX power, sensitivity (if available), bitrate, and so much more.

One of the only issues that might turn you off of wavemon is that it is an NCurses tool. This means the tool is run in a terminal window (I have found it runs best under Eterm) and uses ASCII to create the information it offers. Don’t let this cause you not to want to use wavemon because it is a very useful tool.

Getting and Installing

Wavemon is downloaded and installed from source. Download the tarball from the Wavemon site and save it to your hard drive. The installation steps are simple:

decompress wavemon with the command bunzip2 xvzf wavemon-current.tar.bz2
untar the archive with the command tar xvf wavemon-current.tar
cd into the newly created directory with cd wavemon-current
generate the make file will ./configure
install wavemon with make ; make install
start wavemon with the command wavemon

Wavemon Info Window

As you can see, in the image on the left, the Wavemon info window offers a lot of information.

At the bottom of the screen you will notice there are 10 possible options (of which some have no entries). Each of these options are different screens you can view.

The list of windows is:

F1: Info. This is the main window that opens upon start up. This is where you get most of the information from wavemon.
F2: Level Histogram. This displays a real-time bar-graph of Signal level, Noise level, and Signal-to-Noise Ratio.
F3: Access point list. This feature has not been implemented yet.
F7: Preferences. Configure Wavemon.
F8: Help. Like a lot of Linux applications, wavemon shows the developer has a sense of humor. When you hit F8 for help it displays the message “don’t panic”. That’s it. There is more help by reading the man page (issue the command man wavemon).
F9: About. Get all the information you need about the current wavemon release.
F10: Quit.

You can also start wavemon with a few handy options. Those options are:

-i This will override auto detection and use a specified network interface.
-l Use linear level scales instead of logarithmic scales.
-r Generate random levels for testing.

Final thoughts

If you need more information than your standard networking tools offer, and do not want to dump any extra cash into a third party offering, wavemon is just the tool for those looking to know everything there is to know about their networks. It’s easy to use, offers a ton of information, is open source, and has a tiny foot print.

Tags: Linux, monitor, ncurses, network monitor, Network Monitoring, network scanning, wireless-network

Network Monitoring Software Newt

Martin — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:02:01 +0000

Newt is a network monitoring software similar to the previously mentioned network monitoring software Networx or Look@Lan. The network monitor uses a multithreaded scanning engine to scan all remote computers and domains to retrieve information about them. The information itself is shown in a spreadsheet like table-format that can be exported into various formats including html, text or csv.

The information that are displayed after the network scan are – among others – computer names, IP addresses, operating systems, uptime, MAC address, domain name and user name. The collected data can be sorted in numerous ways. The free version of NEWT has a few limitations like only being able to scan and monitor 25 computers, no SNMP device detection or multithreaded IP Range discovery.

Next to the computer analysis it is possible to send a few commands to remote computers in the network. It is possible to send messages, ping computers or to turn them on or off remotely.

The network monitoring software is compatible with most Microsoft operating systems including Windows XP, Windows Vista and even the soon to be released Windows 7.

Tags: monitor network, network, Network Monitoring, Network Monitoring Software, newt, remote computer, windows software

Monitor your Network the Open Source way with Etherape

Jack Wallen — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:49:03 +0000

Every network administrator needs a good network monitor for network management. But with so many to choose from it’s hard to know which one is best. This especially applies to the open source world. Go to Freshmeat.net and you will find 191 entries for open source network analyzers and network tools. Of those many are console based. Of those entries one monitor stands out as both powerful and easy to use. That tool? Etherape.

Etherape is a graphical network monitoring tool based on etherman that features link-layer, tcp, and ip modes. Etherape is a real time monitor who’s graphic representation instantly changes as network traffic goes in and out. You can use Etherape live or have it read from a dump file. Etherape supports Ethernet, FDDI, Token Ring, ISDN, PPP and SLIP devices so you shouldn’t have any problem getting it to work on your network.

Installing

Installing Etherape is simple. Open up your Add/Remove Software utility, do a search for “etherape” and select the entry when it appears. Apply the changes to install the application. If you prefer to go the command line route you can isse the command “sudo apt-get install etherape”. Once you have the application installed you can start Etherape by issuing the command etherape from a command line. You can also start Etherape from the Applications menu by looking in the Tools | System Tools submenus.

The Main Window

When you first open up Etherape (you will need the root password) you will see a blank window with some buttons and menus. At this point you are not capturing any packets because you haven’t instructed Etherape what interfaces to use.

Configure Etherape Interfaces

In order to configure the interface click on the Capture menu and then click in the Interfaces sub-menu. Select the interface your machine uses to continue. Note that, as of this writing, Etherape does not support the Wifi0 interface. If you are using wireless you will most likely be able to use ath0.

Once you have configured the interface select the Mode type from the same menu you found the Interfaces entry.

Etherape will immediately begin capturing packets. You will see the large black window quickly fill with traffic. Depending upon your network your window can fill up very quickly. You will also notice that Etherape contains a color-coded legend.

Etherape Capturing Packets

By default CUPS and Domain are blue, WWW, TCP, ICMP are red, IMAP2 is purple, and POP3 is yellow. These colors can be changed in the Preferences window to whatever you like.

As you can see (in the image to the right) there is a lot of external traffic. But what if you only want to monitor internal traffic? Simple In the Preferences window click on the Diagram tab. You will see a small text area labeled “Capture Filter”. In this text area you will enter something similar to: ip and src net 192.168 and dst net 192.168 (where 192.168 is the first two sections of your internal network addressing.)

Once you enter that information, click Save, and the preferences window will go away. Etherape will now start capturing only your internal traffic.

Reading From Files

Etherape can read files from the tcpdump application. But you must run tcpdump with the -n and -w flags. The tcpdump command would be run like so: tcpdump -n -w dump_file. Once you are satisfied you have enough information you can stop the dump with ctrl-c. Once you have your dump file you can open it by going to File and then selected Open. The captured packets will display in real time as they were captured during tcpdump’s run.

Final Thoughts

Etherape is the perfect tool for monitoring network traffic. Not only is it simple to use, it gives you instant output as traffic comes in and out of your network.

Tags: etherape, etherman, internal traffic, Linux, network analyzers, Network Monitoring, network tools, tcp/ip

Network Monitoring Software NetWorx

Martin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:58:30 +0000

Networx is the second network monitoring software on review at Ghacks in the last months. It was recently released in version 4 which is compatible to all Windows operating systems since Windows 98 including 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Vista and Windows Server 2008.

The network monitoring software can be used to monitor incoming and outgoing bandwidth of selected network adapters and connections. Traffic is shown in graphs and logged in a file for further processing. Reports are extensive and provide access to daily, weekly, monthly and custom reports.

A realtime network traffic graph visualizes the incoming and outgoing traffic. Notifications can be used to perform actions under configured conditions. They can be configured to run so called actions when network traffic drops or rises above a certain level. Possible actions include running a software, displaying visual and sound alerts or to drop the connection.

Networx includes network information and testing tools like netstat that display all applications currently using the network connection. The application uses roughly 10 Megabytes of computer memory in minimized state.

Tags: bandwidth, netstat, network, network bandwidth, Network Monitoring, Network Monitoring Software, networx

Network Monitoring Software Look@Lan

Martin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:42:16 +0000

Look@Lan is a highly acclaimed network monitoring software for Microsoft Windows operating systems except Windows Vista. It provides network management and network monitoring features in an easy to use interface.

One of the main features of the network monitoring software is the ability to automatically scan a network based on a network adapter, device or selected IP range. The software will scan the selected range and display all connected computers and devices after the fast scan.

A click on a network device opens the Proof Scan window that provides access to information such as Ping, Traceroute, Netbios, running network services and SNMP System plus additional links to advanced traceroutes and a graphical ping view.

Other features of the network monitoring software include a hierarchical view of the network, a search, graphs and network trapping. Trapping will alert the user of network status changes, for example when a network device goes online of offline.

One network management feature is the generation of network status reports which are saved in html format. They display a detailed view of IP addresses including graphs.

Tags: look@lan, network, network management, Network Monitoring, Network Monitoring Software, network services, Windows

gHacks technology news » Network Monitoring

Let Munin monitor your servers and network

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