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<ref>Top 6 Traffic Monitoring Tools http://sectools.org/traffic-monitors.html</ref>
<ref>Top 6 Traffic Monitoring Tools http://sectools.org/traffic-monitors.html</ref>


In 2009 a survey determined the community wanted a commercial product for Nagios and so Nagios XI was born. Since it's release in late 2009 Nagios XI has been adopted globally. Some consider it to be the most powerful interface for Nagios. It has stayed true to the plug and play development style of Nagios Core with it's use of "wizards". More recently a journalist by the name of Vincent Danen wrote an article titled ["http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/opensource/nagios-xi-wizards-make-setup-a-snap-for-network-monitoring/2637 Nagios XI makes setup a snap for network monitoring."]
In 2009 a survey determined the community wanted a commercial product for Nagios and so Nagios XI was born. Since it's release in late 2009 Nagios XI has been adopted globally. Some consider it to be the most powerful interface for Nagios. It has stayed true to the plug and play development style of Nagios Core with it's use of "wizards". More recently a journalist by the name of Vincent Danen wrote an article titled [http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/opensource/nagios-xi-wizards-make-setup-a-snap-for-network-monitoring/2637 Nagios XI makes setup a snap for network monitoring]


== Overview ==
== Overview ==

Revision as of 23:22, 1 August 2012

Nagios
Original author(s)Ethan Galstad [1]
Initial releaseMarch 14, 1999[1]
Stable release
3.4.1 / May 15, 2012 (2012-05-15)[2]
Repository
Operating systemCross-platform
TypeNetwork monitoring
LicenseGNU General Public License
Websitewww.nagios.org

Nagios (/[invalid input: 'icon']ˈnɑːɡiːoʊs/) is a popular open source computer system monitor, network monitoring and infrastructure monitoring software application. Nagios offers complete monitoring and alerting for servers, switches, applications, and services and is considered[by whom?] the defacto industry standard in IT infrastructure monitoring. It watches hosts and services. It alerts users when things go wrong and alerts them again when those wrong things get better/resolved.

Nagios, originally created under the name NetSaint, was written and is currently maintained by Ethan Galstad, along with a group of developers actively maintaining both official and unofficial plugins. N.A.G.I.O.S. is a recursive acronym: "Nagios Ain't Gonna Insist On Sainthood",[3] "Sainthood" being a reference to the original name NetSaint, which was changed in response to a legal challenge by owners of a similar trademark.[4] "Agios" is also a transliteration of the Greek word άγιος which means "saint".

Nagios was originally designed to run under Linux, but also runs well on other Unix variants. It is free software, licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.

In a 2006 survey among the nmap-hackers mailing list, 3243 people responded when asked for their favorite network security tools. Nagios came in 67th overall and 5th among traffic monitoring tools. Update: The 2011 list has been released and Nagios is listed at #69. [5]

In 2009 a survey determined the community wanted a commercial product for Nagios and so Nagios XI was born. Since it's release in late 2009 Nagios XI has been adopted globally. Some consider it to be the most powerful interface for Nagios. It has stayed true to the plug and play development style of Nagios Core with it's use of "wizards". More recently a journalist by the name of Vincent Danen wrote an article titled Nagios XI makes setup a snap for network monitoring

Overview

Nagios is Open Source Software licensed under the GNU GPL V2.

  • Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, ICMP, SNMP, FTP, SSH)
  • Monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk usage, system logs) on a majority of network operating systems, including Microsoft Windows with the NSClient++ plugin or Check MK.
  • Monitoring of anything else like probes (temperature, alarms...) which have the ability to send collected data via a network to specifically written plugins
  • Monitoring via remotely-run scripts via Nagios Remote Plugin Executor
  • Remote monitoring supported through SSH or SSL encrypted tunnels.
  • Simple plugin design that allows users to easily develop their own service checks depending on needs, by using the tools of choice (shell scripts, C++, Perl, Ruby, Python, PHP, C#, etc.)
  • Plugins available for graphing of data (Nagiosgraph, PNP4Nagios, Splunk for Nagios, and others available)
  • Parallelized service checks available
  • Ability to define network host hierarchy using "parent" hosts, allowing detection of and distinction between hosts that are down and those that are unreachable
  • Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via e-mail, pager, SMS, or any user-defined method through plugin system)
  • Ability to define event handlers to be run during service or host events for proactive problem resolution
  • Automatic log file rotation
  • Support for implementing redundant monitoring hosts
  • Optional web-interface for viewing current network status, notifications, problem history, log files, etc.
  • Data storage is done in text files rather than database

Nagios Agents

NRPE

Nagios Remote Plugin Executor (NRPE) is a Nagios agent that allows remote systems monitoring using scripts that are hosted on the remote systems. It allows for monitoring resources such as disk usage, system load or number of users currently logged in. Nagios periodically polls the agent on the remote system using the check_nrpe plugin.

NRDP

Nagios Remote Data Processor (NDRP) is a Nagios agent with a flexible data transport mechanism and processor. It is designed with an architecture that allows it to be easily extended and customized. NRDP uses standard ports and protocols (HTTP(S) and XML) and can be implemented as a replacement for NSCA.

NSClient++

This program is mainly used to monitor Windows machines. Being installed on a remote system NSClient++ listens to port TCP 1248. Nagios plugin that is used to collect information from this addon is called check_nt. As NRPE, NSClient++ allows to monitor the so called "private services" (memory usage, CPU load, disk usage, running processes, etc.)

See also

References

  1. ^ first release of NetSaint from the changelog at http://web.archive.org/web/20060501150621/http://www.netsaint.org/changelog.php
  2. ^ Nagios 3.x Version History
  3. ^ Galstad, Ethan (2003-05-03). offi "Nagios: FAQs : What does Nagios mean?". Nagios: Frequently Asked Questions. Nagios Enterprises, LLC. Retrieved 2009-03-06. The official meaning is that N.A.G.I.O.S. is a recursive acronym which stands for "Nagios Ain't Gonna Insist On Sainthood". {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  4. ^ "2005-02-22 - Ethan Galstad". Fosdem 2005. 2005-02-22. Retrieved 2009-03-06. Although we were able to eventually reach an amicable agreement on my future use of the name "NetSaint", I felt it was prudent to change the name in order to prevent any future mishaps.
  5. ^ Top 6 Traffic Monitoring Tools http://sectools.org/traffic-monitors.html

Further reading

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