Slashdot Mirror
The Debian Telemetry Box
SquadBoy writes "The fine people at Debian have created a Telemetry Box Distribution this is what they have to say about it. "Version 1.0 of the Telemetry Box Distribution has finally been released. The Tbox distribution is a Debian GNU/Linux 'potato' based custom Linux version for remote monitoring and maintenance of networks. A telemetry box allows remote management and diagnostics. It uses a customized version of netsaint to gather data. Netsaint has been enhanced so that the configuration is possible via the Tbox Webinterface through SQL structures. Netsaint logs into a SQL table. Tools on the Tbox can then display the data in a variety of ways (graphs or reports)."" Storie's a bit old, but it's a cool little box.
Any time you see something advertise that it has a web interface, you know that you're about to be confronted with something that lacks all the power of the command line AND lacks all the ease of use of a conventional gui application. These things make my ears steam.
No - It does have a command line version. The Web Interface is an extended feature, you can disable it if you want.
This is a customized version of Debian created by the people at siteROCK. Debian developers may have been involved but it isn't an official Debian project.
-- Jaldhar
Netsaint is a really good program. And the web interface isn't neccesary for its functionality.
/user partition is 95% full {sell HDD|remove files}"
Basically, Netsaint is daemon, which through various plugins (premade or your own scripts), monitors your network. The plugins are just CLI programs or scripts. Netsaint either performs active service checks; e.g. the "check_pop3" plugins log into the pop3 server, and check if it works, or passive checks; the remote host delivers the result of a service check to the netsaint monitoring host. Of course, one can also perform remote checks through OpenSSH, if you don't want to run a deamon on the remote host, or the function one wants to monitor isn't a service as such (load average etc).
The results of these checks goes into a standard text logfile (just grep and awk). But the strong point of Netsaint is not so much its ability to monitor services, but in its handling of the service checks:
E.g.: if the pop3 doesn't work after 3 tries, and it is a working day, during business hours, send me a mail, and page me asap. If it is weekend, just send me a mail, but both mail and page Poor Joe.
If I haven't responded to the problem within X hours, escalate the problem to this list of people.
If the pop3 goes back online again, send me a mail too.
Or: if the 5 min load average during business hours goes above 1.5, write a warning in log, but don't mail me. If the 15 min load average goes above 2.0 mail me. If it goes above 3.0, write "Slashdot effect" in the logfile, and mail everybody on this list, turn on the sprinkler system, and dial out using this modem, on this spare POTS, and leave a naughty message on cowboyneals telephone answering machine.
Of course, one can also mointor and check whether the service checks are performed or not.
In short, Netsaint can monitor all kinds of events, and has a rather powerfull way of dealing with these events, and none of this is in any way, dependent on the web interface. This is mostly used for viewing log-files, or give one a quick overview of the health and status of the network. It is nice, but not neccesary.
So in this case, your "web interace prejudice" isn't warranted;-)
I somewhat agree with you, that web interfaces, as a primary interface, usually feels clunky and sluggish. But web interfaces can be quite usefull, not perhaps for the Sysadmin himself, but because it means that he can delegate rutine stuff to lesser mortals, like adding or removing users, managing mail lists etc., without exposing the l^Husers to anything "complicated", and at the same time, easily restrict them to only the small and limited subset of priviliges they need to perform the job.
Now, this Tbox looks very good. It is yet another reason, for "sneaking" in a Linux box on the network, or sell as a service; it is nice as a consultant or sysadmin to have good diagnostic logfiles, when the costumer calls in, and says "the Internet isn't working".
And better still, since Netsaint is pro-active, call your costumer in the morning, saying "Your
Everybody loves screenshots, so check_url www.netsaint.org
Regards
Peter H.S.
Sounds like an open source Carnivore to me...
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
a whole box dedicated for monitoring? Hmm...ssh and GNU tools seemed good enough for monitoring for me....
This is not a Fugazi
This is not a Fugazi
Check out WebTelemetry.com it offers similar features to NetSaint, but requires no installation. WebTelemetry monitors systems remotely from their servers, its no good having NetSaint on your network try to send you an email message to your pager when it can't get to the internet either! WebTelemetry also comes with a nifty JAVA applet GUI. WebTelemetry does have a server component, which you can install on your own server. The only need for this is monitoring systems behind a firewall. WebTelemetry also has WAP (wireless web) access already running... So if your are a server admin you can check on your systems from anywhere... very useful for diagnosing problems when you can't get to the internet via land lines... something that netsaint is now doing (or should I say copying!).
Check out http://cricket.sourceforge.net/
noah
Any time you see something advertise that it has a web interface, you know that you're about to be confronted with something that lacks all the power of the command line AND lacks all the ease of use of a conventional gui application. These things make my ears steam.
No - It does have a command line version. The Web Interface is an extended feature, you can disable it if you want.