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System Monitoring Overview

What is system monitoring ?

Computer monitoring systems are used to repeatedly gather data from various monitored systems for the purpose of real-time incident notification, system health verification, performance analysis, and longitudinal capacity planning. Various metrics are typically gathered by these systems, including CPU, memory, network, or disk utilization, response time of network services, occurrence of anomalous messages in system log, et al. Without such a tool, like big brother or Xymon, a system administrator would have to login to each machines to collect these information repeatedly. This kind of repetitive task can be automated using a system monitoring tool.

About System Monitoring

See About System Monitoring for a more details overview of monitoring systems.

Generic System Monitoring Features

See Generic Monitoring System Features

Some commercial system monitoring tools

Product Name	Company	Development status	Monitoring model	Main Programming Language	License	Platforms supported	Cost
Big Brother	Big Brother - Quest	actively developed	Client-server	C and Flash	Proprietary	Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Unix	Depends on number of devices
NetIQ		actively developed	Client-server	C	Proprietary	Unix-like, Windows, Mac OS X	Unspecified
HP OpenView	HP Openview	actively developed	Client-server	bash/C	Proprietary	Linux, Windows, iSeries	Unspecified
BMC Performance Manager	[BMC Performance Manager]	actively developed		Merge	Proprietary	Unix-like, Windows, Mac OS X	?
Microsoft System Manager	Microsoft	Active	Client-server	.Net, et al	Proprietary	Server: Microsoft Windows Server; Clients: Mostly Microsoft, but some support for Linux, SNMP, etc	Varies

Examples of some open-source system monitoring tools

Product Name	Company	Development status	Monitoring model	Main Programming Language	License	Platforms supported	Cost
Big Brother	Big Brother - Quest	actively developed	Client-server	C and Flash	Proprietary	Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Unix	Depends on number of devices
NetIQ		actively developed	Client-server	C	Proprietary	Unix-like, Windows, Mac OS X	Unspecified
HP OpenView	HP Openview	actively developed	Client-server	bash/C	Proprietary	Linux, Windows, iSeries	Unspecified
BMC Performance Manager	[BMC Performance Manager]	actively developed		Merge	Proprietary	Unix-like, Windows, Mac OS X	?
Microsoft System Manager	Microsoft	Active	Client-server	.Net, et al	Proprietary	Server: Microsoft Windows Server; Clients: Mostly Microsoft, but some support for Linux, SNMP, etc	Varies

Why use Xymon ?

The source code is open and in GPL license.
There is no seat license fee.
Hobbit Server is highly compatible with Big Brother client.
It has a user and developer community.

How Xymon was designed ?

Please see [1]

Who uses Xymon ?

Please see the user list.

Xymon System Monitoring Tool Wish lists

Delete a host from web page UI.
GUI administration tool.
Prepackaged binary for different OS with lots of add-on modules.
E-mail or SMS notification --allready exists, you can also trigger shell scripts on events
Easily customizable.
Has commercial support.
Remote wake/die capabilities

Open Source System Monitoring Software Comparison

General comparison

There many others system monitoring tools, please add them here if you got some free time. TBC. Pardon the wrong content below, I (TJ Yang) found following great template from other wikibook. Effort is needed to plug in system monitoring stuff.

Monitor Software	Maintainer	Development status	Monitoring model	Main Programming Language	License	Platforms supported	Cost
A2Monitor ‌	A1 Tech, Inc. [2]	actively developed	Client-server	?	Proprietary	Windows	$79
Xymon ‌	Henrik , Inc.[3]	actively developed	Client-server	C	GPL	Unix-like, Windows, Mac OS X	Unspecified
Big Brother ‌	Quest Software [4]	actively developed	Client-server	Flash/C	Proprietary	Linux, Windows, Unix, Mac OSX	Unspecified
Big Sister ‌	Big Sister [5]	actively developed	Distributed^[1]	Merge	GPL	Unix-like, Windows, Mac OS X	Free
Nagios [6]	Nagios [7]	actively supported	Client-server	?	GPL	Server:
GroundWork ‌	GroundWork [8]	actively developed	Client-server	?	GPL	Unix-like, Windows, Mac OS X	[9]

↑ Although Bazaar is a distributed version control system it can also be used in a centralized manner using lock step development and checkouts.

Repository model describes the relationship between various copies of the source code repository. In a client-server model, users access a master repository via a client; typically, their local machines hold only a working copy of a project tree. Changes in one working copy must be committed to the master repository before they are propagated to other users. In a distributed model, repositories act as peers, and users typically have a local repository with version history available, in addition to their working copies.
Concurrency model describes how changes to the working copy are managed to prevent simultaneous edits from causing nonsensical data in the repository. In a lock model, changes are disallowed until the user requests and receives an exclusive lock on the file from the master repository. In a merge model, users may freely edit files, but are informed of possible conflicts upon checking their changes into the repository, whereupon the version control system may merge changes on both sides, or let the user decide when conflicts arise. Note that distributed version control almost always implies a merge concurrency model.

Features	Hobbit	Big Brother	Big Sister	OpenNMS	Nagios
HomePage	http://www.hswn.dk/hobbit/	http://www.bb4.org	http://www.bigsister.ch	http://www.opennms.com/site	http://www.nagios.org
Commercial Support	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Main Programming Language	C	Shell	Perl	Java	C
License type	Open source	Source code available but only free for non commercial use	Open source	Open source	Open source
Install base	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Development	Active	Stalled	Active	Active	Active

Hobbit vs BB BTF

This is a detail comparison chart why a current BB site want to migrate to Hobbit. Opinions could be biased toward Hobbit.

Features	Hobbit 4.2.0 above	Big Brother BTF(Better Than Free, 1.9c version above)
Home Page	http://www.hswn.dk/hobbit/	http://www.bb4.org
Community contributed addon modules.	Hobbit: http://www.trantor.org/theshire/, BB:http://www.deadcat.net, bb modules can be reused without much rewrite efforts.	http://www.deadcat.net
Monitor Server on Windows	Not directly, Unix platform only so far. See BBWin.	Yes, only binary are available.
Monitor agent for Windows	Yes. Opensource and use WiX for MSI packaging. http://sourceforge.net/projects/bbwin	Yes, but only binary are available.
Software in package format	Yes. Will have complete package for different OS over time.	No. due to license issue.
Software Age	?	?
Commercial Support	Yes. Available from the main author, Henrik Storner or cookit.	Yes. Available from Quest Software.
Main Programming Language	C, use as much C as possible to improve performance.	Shell, use C only for bottleneck area of code.
License type	GPL Open source. No need to have accurate count how many clients you have deployed.	BB BTF(1.9c above) version require seat-license of every deployed bb client. Source code is available but it is not open source. Only free for non commercial use for version 1.9c and below.1.9c above version is per-seat license. Need to match the license purchased and number of bb client deployed.
Install base	Large. See the Xymon users list.	Very Large.
Development	Active.	Stalled. Active only in BB profession edition and BB PE is closed-source.
Process alert differentiation	Yes. "oracle listener process died" alerts can be configured to send to oracle team only.	No.
Disk Partitions alert differentiation	Yes. "/oracle partition is 96% full" alerts can be sent to oracle team directly while "/ is 96% full" alert sent to unix team.	No.
Base features	Hobbit has larger basic features set. LARRD Trending is included by default.	BB has smaller features by default, need more customization works.
Centralized configuration	Modify hobbit/bb client configuration from one central configuration.	Need to login to each hobbit/bb client to perform the changes.
Client version update automation	Enhanced 1984 protocol to perform binary update automatically.	Need login into each clients to update binary.
Performance	Hobbit can handle the number of monitored clients in the thousands range.	BB by default without tweaking can only handle hundreds of machines and thousands of machines with tweaking.
Client report	Hobbit provide detail information about hosts monitored.	No.
Search	Hobbit provide search ability to help get to a machine quickly.	Yes, available on http://www.deadcat.net
Menu System	Hobbit provide better menu system for ease of browsing.	No.
LDAP authentication	Yes.	Yes.
RT Ticket system integration	Yes, via external module.	Yes, via external module.
Remedy Ticket system integration	Yes, via external module.	Yes, via external module.
BB messages compatibility	Hobbit server can accept BB messages from bb clients.	BB server can receive BB messages from hobbit clients.
Alerts on different alert color codes	hobbit can act different color codes.	bb server can only act on yellow or red.
subtests combination for SLA.	pingable + web process running + port 80 is answering request = web server is green.	Yes. Using bbgen (not under active development though).
SNMP Integration	Not by default. http://devmon.sourceforge.net/	Not by default. http://devmon.sourceforge.net/
Classification and actions on different priority levels of monitored hosts	default support.	No. may be via external moudles.

References

http://www.hswn.dk/hobbit/help/about.html

Hobbit System Monitoring at home

To monitor your computers at home,perhaps integration with X10 stuff.
This section is about Hobbit and your home system monitoring.
porting hobbit to linksys's nlsu2 or wrt54g.

Hobbit Support

Commercial Support

TWW offer Hobbit email support. The Server and clients are prepackaged for TWW supported OS via commercial subscription service. server and client package source are also available for download per GNU license. You can create your own package from the package source if you know TWW HPM system.
VM Assist, Inc., http://www.vmassist.com.
McNatton Technologies, LLC, http://www.mcnatton.com/monitor.php
Reverse Polarity, LLC - We offer full support for Xymon, including on-site server installation, client configurations and custom scripting where required. Call us and see how we can help!
Cook IT Services: http://cookitservices.com/index.html (Site seems to be offline 02/19/09 - waa)

Free Community Support

Your questions will not necessary got answered.

Maillist Archive: http://www.hswn.dk/hobbiton/
Project page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/hobbitmon/

Hobbit Demo Site

Here are a few best hobbit implementation sites.

Official Hobbit Site
A home hobbit instance running on i386 Solaris 10 vmware appliance Unresponsive as of 18-MAY-2009


 Sat Apr 21 06:25:43 CDT 2007 up: 07:35, 1 users, 70 procs, load=0.01

System clock is 0 seconds off


   PID USERNAME  SIZE   RSS STATE  PRI NICE      TIME  CPU PROCESS/NLWP       
   407 root     1724K  976K sleep   59    0   0:01:16 0.1% vmware-guestd/1
   542 root       10M   11M sleep   59    0   0:00:55 0.1% Xorg/1
  8112 hobbitc  4440K 3948K cpu1     0    0   0:00:00 0.1% prstat/1
  8081 hobbitc  1052K  796K sleep    0    0   0:00:00 0.1% hobbitclient-su/1
   640 root     9572K 6868K sleep   59    0   0:00:18 0.0% dtgreet/1
  8077 hobbitc  1048K  796K sleep   51    0   0:00:00 0.0% hobbitclient.sh/1
     1 root     2004K 1080K sleep   59    0   0:00:01 0.0% init/1
   474 root     8248K 2868K sleep   59    0   0:00:05 0.0% httpd.prefork/1
    96 root     3424K 2324K sleep   59    0   0:00:03 0.0% nscd/24
  1148 hobbitc  1056K  756K sleep   59    0   0:00:01 0.0% hobbitlaunch/1
   459 hobbits  1080K  720K sleep   59    0   0:00:02 0.0% hobbitlaunch/1
   461 hobbits  4844K 1540K sleep   59    0   0:00:04 0.0% hobbitd/1
   256 root     1060K  632K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% utmpd/1
   234 daemon   2336K 1540K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% statd/1
    93 root     2132K 1268K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% syseventd/15
   159 root     2480K 1560K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% picld/4
   250 root     1884K 1092K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% ttymon/1
   195 root     2236K  884K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% cron/1
   373 root     2488K 1924K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% vold/6
   222 daemon   2412K 1140K sleep   59    0   0:00:00 0.0% rpcbind/1
 NPROC USERNAME  SIZE   RSS MEMORY      TIME  CPU                             
    36 root      134M   86M    15%   0:02:56 0.3%
     4 hobbitc  7596K 6296K   1.1%   0:00:01 0.2%
    23 hobbits   104M   42M   7.5%   0:00:12 0.0%
     4 daemon     10M 5996K   1.0%   0:00:00 0.0%
Total: 67 processes, 182 lwps, load averages: 0.01, 0.01, 0.0

Hobbit System Monitoring Foundation

http://sourceforge.net/project/project_donations.php?group_id=128058

List of Donors

URL for donation to this project is at http://www.hswn.dk/hobbit/, look for PayPal icon.

2006

T.J. Yang

2007

Hobbit Logo

No hurry but we need a good logo. Put your design here for voting later on.
The icon should/better be associated with Henrik's idea of Hobbit love green.
We may consider using GNUStep's approach to contract out the logo design.

Renaming Hobbit

I've(Henrik Storner) been going over the various suggestions this past week, and I've
setup a few loose criteria for judging the names. In no particular
order:

*) No references to Tolkien characters. Although I might be able to
   get away with "hobbitmon" or Gandalfr (thanks, Anna - didn't know 
   those names came from the Edda), I do not want to push my luck
   any further.
*) Likewise, no names that might infringe on existing characters from
   movies, books etc. 
*) Nothing that is trademark'ed.
*) The name should be somewhat meaningful. Not necessarily obvious,
   but enough that it is understandable. Also, somewhat "business-
   like". (Sorry Vernon - I enjoyed Your ventures into Mesopotamian
   astronomy and egyptology, since those are also hobby-interests
   of mine, but very few would know who "Horus" is, or what was
   the role of Aldebaran).
*) The name should be short. Preferably two or three syllables, and
   fit into the space currently on the webpages where it says "Hobbit"
   now. This is because the name is frequently used in speech; I often
   have people at work asking me "what's on Hobbit right now?" if they
   need to know what issues there are currently. It just wouldn't feel
   right if that was "what's on smart-and-open-systems-monitor right
   now" ...
*) .com, .net and .org should preferably be available.

Please put down your suggested new name for hobbit. also Under "Sponsors", please vote with your name behind the original sponsor. so we can do the tally in "Total Supporters" field.

Name Candidates	Comments	Domain Avaiability	Sponsors	Total Supporters
hobbitmon	"hobbit mon"intor	Yes. Owner is hobbit author, Henrik.	Henrik: tj, jluthman	3
HobbitMonitor	Keeping Hobbit origin with Monitor wording to clarify its purpose.	Yes. resolved for hobbit community by T.J.	T.J. Yang	1
OpenGuardian	Open source guardian software for your IT.	Yes	Darren Cotton	2
HobbitTrac	Integration With [Trac] SCM.	Yes, not registered.	T.J. Yang	1
HobbMon	Just like hobbitmon only shorter - and low google count.	Yes, not registered.	Phil Wild	1
x	x	x	x	0
x	x	x	x	0

Hobbit Renamed to Xymon

Greetings!

As I wrote some time ago, I was contacted by the owners of the 
"Hobbit" trademark back in June.

Several names have been suggested by you on the mailing list
(see http://www.hswn.dk/hobbiton/2008/08/msg00193.html), but
the decision has now been made.

As of today, the official name is "Xymon" (pronounced just
like "Simon").

At the moment this renaming has not caused much of a change,
but it will be implemented over the coming weeks.

* The Sourceforge project URL remains at 
  https://sf.net/projects/hobbitmon/ due to project renamings
  currently being suspended on Sourceforge. Once the suspension
  is lifted, however, there is a queued request to rename the
  project. It will then be available at
  https://sf.net/projects/xymon/

* The mailing list address remains "hobbit@hswn.dk" for the
  moment. A new "Xymon" mailing list will be setup, but 
  this will be announced separately.

* The demo website http://www.xymon.com/ is active. The old
  address - www.hobbitmon.com - will remain in place for
  some time, but no longer than August 2009.

* Changes to documentation, code, webpages inside the
  Hobbit monitor etc. will be happening over the next couple
  of weeks, and will be fully implemented in the upcoming
  release.


Best regards,
Henrik

[[Category:Template:FULLBOOKNAME|Template:FULLCHAPTERNAME]]

[1] Although Bazaar is a distributed version control system it can also be used in a centralized manner using lock step development and checkouts.

[1]

@@ Line 78: / Line 78: @@
 * [http://www.opennms.org/ OpenNMS]
 * [http://www.zenoss.com/ Zenoss]
+{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size: 85%; text-align: center; width: 100%;"
+|-
+! Product Name
+! Company
+! Development status
+! Monitoring  model
+! Main Programming Language
+! [[Software license|License]]
+! Platforms supported
+! Cost
+|-
+! Big Brother
+| [http://www.quest.com/bigbrother Big Brother - Quest]
+| actively developed
+| [[Client-server]]
+| C and Flash
+| Proprietary
+| [[Linux]], [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[Mac OS X]], [[Unix]]
+| Depends on number of devices
+|-
+! NetIQ
+|
+| actively developed
+| [[Client-server]]
+| C
+| Proprietary
+| [[Unix-like]], [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[Mac OS X]]
+| Unspecified
+|-
+! HP  OpenView
+| [http://h20229.www2.hp.com/ HP Openview]
+| actively developed
+| [[Client-server]]
+| bash/C
+| Proprietary
+| [[Linux]], [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[iSeries]]
+| Unspecified
+|-
+! [http://www.bmc.com/products/products_services_detail/0,,0_0_0_2001,00.html BMC Performance Manager]
+| [BMC Performance Manager]
+| actively developed
+|
+| Merge
+| Proprietary
+| [[Unix-like]], [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[Mac OS X]]
+| ?
+|-
+! [http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/operationsmanager/en/us/default.aspx Microsoft System Manager]
+| Microsoft
+| Active
+| [[Client-server]]
+| .Net, et al
+| Proprietary
+| Server: Microsoft Windows Server; Clients: Mostly Microsoft, but some support for Linux, SNMP, etc
+| Varies
+|}
 == Why use Xymon ? ==

System Monitoring with Xymon/User Guide: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:27, 14 October 2009

Contents

System Monitoring Overview

What is system monitoring ?

About System Monitoring

Generic System Monitoring Features

Some commercial system monitoring tools

Examples of some open-source system monitoring tools

Why use Xymon ?

How Xymon was designed ?

Who uses Xymon ?

Xymon System Monitoring Tool Wish lists

Open Source System Monitoring Software Comparison

General comparison

Hobbit vs BB BTF

References

Hobbit System Monitoring at home

Hobbit Support

Commercial Support

Free Community Support

Hobbit Demo Site

Hobbit System Monitoring Foundation

List of Donors

2006

2007

Hobbit Logo

Renaming Hobbit

Hobbit Renamed to Xymon

Navigation menu

System Monitoring with Xymon/User Guide: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:27, 14 October 2009

System Monitoring Overview

What is system monitoring ?

About System Monitoring

Generic System Monitoring Features

Some commercial system monitoring tools

Examples of some open-source system monitoring tools

Why use Xymon ?

How Xymon was designed ?

Who uses Xymon ?

Xymon System Monitoring Tool Wish lists

Open Source System Monitoring Software Comparison

General comparison

Hobbit vs BB BTF

References

Hobbit System Monitoring at home

Hobbit Support

Commercial Support

Free Community Support

Hobbit Demo Site

Hobbit System Monitoring Foundation

List of Donors

2006

2007

Hobbit Logo

Renaming Hobbit

Hobbit Renamed to Xymon

Navigation menu

Search