What typical monitors could be used to check resources available on Linux-powered computers?
Q: Are there specific monitor types that should be used to monitor Linux servers?
A: SNMP monitors can be quite useful in getting information about Linux-powered computers.
Prior to setting up SNMP custom monitor on your IPHost Network Monitor, make sure net-snmp package is installed on the Linux computer. Note that in many current Linux distributions the mentioned package is provided as part of standard repositories. Note there are tutorials ready for a variety of cases.
Make sure you set up at least v2 of SNMP (we strongly discourage using v1 of SNMP due to security considerations). Make sure read-only community (in case of v2) or user with read-only access (v3) is set up and can be used from IPHost Network Monitor installation (contact us for security-related suggestions, since they vary depending on actual Linux distributions used).
Create a new SNMP custom monitor and open MIB browser. In case the package is set up, you should be able to access several SNMP variables suitable for monitoring resources.
OID branch 1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.11 (systemStats) can be used to track CPU load parameters.
OID branch 1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.4 contains memory utilization variables (free, cached, swapped etc).
To get disk available information, first modify your snmpd.conf file: add statements similar to these:
disk / disk /home
for every mount point you wish to monitor. Save the snmpd.conf and restart SNMP daemon on Linux computer. After that, open 1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.9.1 (dskEntry) branch in MIB browser. You will be able to track available disk space, drive data etc.
We suggest exploring your OID tree, using mnemonic string as filters to select only required variables. After that, add conditions to your monitor to raise alarm whenever necessary. You will find more information on setting up monitors on this page.
Also, there are 4 predefined hardware resources monitors that obtain their data over SNMP. You can keep track of various CPU load characteristics, several memory usage metrics, control used and available disk space on any filesystem, and watch varied processes statistics for any SNMP-enabled devices.
Related Topics:
How to add a MIB (how to teach IPHost Monitor to recognize unknown OIDs)?
How to measure traffic speed on Linux server?
