5 Server performance Monitoring artifact Introduction (smokeping, Cacti, Nagios, Zabbix, ntop)

1. Smokeping

Smokeping is RRDtool's author Tobi Oetiker's work, written in Perl, mainly monitoring network performance, including regular Ping, using echoping to monitor the performance of the WWW server, monitoring DNS query performance, monitoring SSH performance, and so on. The bottom is also rrdtool do support, characterized by the picture is very beautiful, network packet loss and delay with color and shadow to express. Less used in the enterprise.

2 Cacti

Cacti is a set of graphical analysis tools for network traffic monitoring based on PHP,MYSQL,SNMP and RRDtool development.
Simply put, cacti is a PHP program. It obtains remote network devices and related information by using the SNMP protocol (in fact, it is obtained using the Snmpget and Snmpwalk commands of the NET-SNMP package) and is presented through a PHP program through the RRDtool tool drawing. We use it to show the status of the monitored object over time or the performance trend chart.
Cacti is snmpget to get the data, use RRDtool painting graphics, and you can do without the need to understand RRDtool complex parameters. It provides a very powerful data and user management capabilities, you can specify that each user can see the tree structure, host and any map, but also with LDAP for user authentication, but also can add their own templates, the function is very powerful and perfect. Friendly interface. CACTI
The development of software CACTI is based on making RRDTool users more convenient to use the software, in addition to basic SNMP traffic and System information monitoring, CACTI can also plug Scripts and add Templates to make a wide range of monitoring charts.

3 Nagios

Nagios is an open source free network monitoring tool, can effectively monitor Windows, Linux and UNIX host State, switch routers and other network settings, printers and so on. When the system or service status is abnormal, send an email or SMS alert the first time to notify the site operators, in the state of recovery after the normal mail or SMS notification.
The functions that Nagios can monitor are:

Monitor network Services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, ping, etc.);
Monitor host resources (processor load, disk utilization, etc.);
Simple plug-in design allows users to easily expand their own service detection methods;
parallel service checking mechanism;
Have the ability to define the network hierarchy structure, using "parent" host definition to express the relationship between the network host, this relationship can be used to identify and clear host downtime or unreachable state;
Send the alarm to the contact person (via email, SMS, user Defined Way) when the service or host problem arises and resolves;
Some handlers can be defined so that they can prevent the service or host from failing;
Automatic log scrolling function;
can support and realize redundant monitoring of the host;
The optional web interface is used to view current network status, notification and fault history, log files, and so on;

4. ntop

NTOP is a monitoring network traffic tool, using NTOP Display network is more intuitive and detailed than some other network management software. NTOP can even list the network bandwidth utilization of each node's computer. He is a flexible, full-featured tool for monitoring and solving LAN problems, especially when ntop and Nprobe are used together. It provides both command-line input and Web pages that can be applied to embedded Web services
Ntop mainly provides some of the following features:

Automatic identification of useful information from the network;
The intercepted packet is converted into an easily identifiable format;
Analyzing the failure of communication in the network environment;
Time and process for probing network traffic

5. Zabbix

Zabbix is an enterprise-class open source solution based on the Web interface that provides distributed system monitoring and network monitoring capabilities. Zabbix can monitor various network parameters, ensure the safe operation of the server system, and provide a soft notification mechanism for the system administrator to quickly locate/resolve the various problems. The Zabbix is composed of 2 parts, Zabbix server and optional component Zabbix Agent. Zabbix server can provide monitoring of remote server/network status through Snmp,zabbix agent,ping, port monitoring, data collection, etc., which can run on Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, free BSD, Open BSD, OS x platform.