Preface

This book is a practical guide to setting up the Nagios 3.0 open source network monitoring tool. Nagios 3 is a system that watches to see whether hosts and services are working properly, and notifies users when problems occur. This book covers installing and configuring Nagios 3 on various operating systems, but focuses primarily on the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

This book takes the reader through the steps from compiling Nagios from the source, through installing and configuring it up to advanced features such as setting up redundant monitoring. It also mentions how to monitor various services such as e-mail, WWW, databases, and file sharing. This book describes what SNMP is and how it can be used to monitor various devices. It also provides details on monitoring Microsoft Windows computers. This book contains troubleshooting sections that aid the reader in case any problems arise when setting up Nagios functionality.

No previous experience with network monitoring is required, although a basic understanding of UNIX systems is assumed. This book provides examples for extending Nagios in several languages including Perl, Python, Tcl, and Java so that readers familiar with at least one of these technologies can benefit from extending Nagios.

When you finish this book, you’ll be able to set up Nagios to monitor your network, and have a good understanding of what can be monitored and in which ways.