On 17/09/2013 07:42, Grant wrote: >>> Has anyone tried Nimsoft Monitoring? It's included at Soft Layer >>> which must mean a free license. >> >> No. IBM has a general strategy to "suck you in" >> so caveat emptor...... You really wan to install >> IBM binaries on any machine? (Think NSA). > > Nevermind! > >>> It looks like a substitute for Nagios. >> >> Nagios has been under numerous stresses for >> quite some time, for a variety of reasons, imho. >> Forking, Borking, and Porking out is what I see >> of Nagios; ymmv. > > I didn't realize that. > >> jffnms is well written, modular and quite responsive >> to the individual's (organization's) needs, imho. >> All in source code form. >> >> Last time I checked, there was a new (recent) ebuild >> for jffnms. Patches are easy to apply and I think >> (Gentoo) folks are starting to use jffnms much more. >> >> Check it out, most are happy with it, and find it >> easy (particulary with SNMP 1,2.3) to install and extend. > > It looks great, thank you for the recommendation. Have you used > munin? If so, do you think jffnms is a substitute or compliment to > that package?
Munin and jffnms bear no real relation to each other. Yes they are similar in that both can draw graphs but that's about where the similarity ends. Munin's job is to periodically poll a device using whatever means is available and gather data from the device. The data is always in the form of a number - it measures something. The data can be anything you can generate a number for - logged in users, traffic through an interface, load, number of database queries. The list is endless. Point being, the device/computer/hosts reports it's own numbers to munin, and munin draws graphs. Munin does not record state, it has no idea what the state of something is. Nagios is a problem child, it does not do what people assume it does (I have constant fights about this at work). Nagios is a state monitoring and reporting engine (simply because this is what it does well and everything else it does it does poorly). Nagios will track if things are up or down, if you acknowledged the condition and when, who to notify when state changes (sms, mail, dashboard etc etc). What Nagios does poorly (despite this being it's advertised purpose) is getting state events into the system. It really really sucks at this and is coded from an extremely narrow point of view. Which explains the numerous forks around (they all implement vital real world features that Ethan refuses to commit). jffnms is something I don't use myself, but it looks like the same class of app as Nagios. Don't be fooled into choosing between munin and nagios/jffnms - they are not the same thing, not even close. Use both. -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
