The following article guides through the steps of installing and configuring Nagios3 and Check_MK on a Ubuntu 12.04 LTS VPS.
Once deployed, you will be able to monitor your virtual servers and the services running on them.
Nagios3 is a robust and very powerful monitoring system, which in combination with Check_MK will provide you with a nice and easy way to monitor your virtual servers and services.
UPDATE THE SYSTEM
Make sure you are in a screen session and check if your Linux VPS is fully up-to-date by running:
## screen -U -S nagios-check-mk ## apt-get update ## apt-get upgrade
INSTALL DEPENDENCIES
Install some required (useful) packages on the system using apt
## apt-get install dialog xinetd build-essential apache2 libapache2-mod-python
INSTALL NAGIOS
Install Nagios and Nagios NRPE (Nagios Remote Plugin Executor) Plugins on your Linux VPS by running
## apt-get install nagios3 nagios-nrpe-plugin
you should be prompted to enter your nagiosadmin user’s password as shown below
if for some reason you’re not, then use the following command to set your nagiosadmin user’s password:
## htpasswd -c /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users nagiosadmin
proceed with adding Apache’s www-data user to the nagios group:
## usermod -a -G nagios www-data
edit Nagios3 configuration file in /etc/nagios3/nagios.cfg and enable external commands by setting check_external_commands from 0 to 1:
## vim +/check_external_commands /etc/nagios3/nagios.cfg
restart Nagios and Apache
## service apache2 restart ## service nagios3 restart
INSTALL CHECK_MK
At the time of writing this article, the latest version of check_mk is ver 1.2.4. Make sure you check here if a newer version is available.
## cd /opt
## ver=1.2.4
## wget http://mathias-kettner.com/download/check_mk-${ver}.tar.gz
## tar -zxf check_mk-${ver}.tar.gz
## cd check_mk-${ver}
run the installer by executing the setup.sh script
## ./setup.sh
once the installation is completed, check if check_mk is installed on the system using:
## check_mk --version
RESTART SERVICES
Restart the Apache webserver and the Nagios monitoring system using the following commands:
## service nagios3 restart ## service apache2 restart
INSTALL CHECK_MK AGENT
In order to be able to monitor other servers, you need to install an agent which will communicate with the check_mk server. The easiest way to test the set-up is to install an agent on the Nagios server itself, so since this is an Ubuntu based virtual server, download the latest version of the agent from here and install it using:
## wget -P /tmp http://mathias-kettner.com/download/check-mk-agent_1.2.4-2_all.deb ## dpkg -i /tmp/check-mk-agent_1.2.4-2_all.deb
edit agent’s configuration file in /etc/xinetd.d/check_mk and set the following:
## vim /etc/xinetd.d/check_mk only_from = <YOUR_NAGIOS_IP>
restart xinetd for the change to take effect
## service xinetd restart
Of course you don’t have to do any of this if you use one of our Linux VPS hosting services, in which case you can simply ask our expert linux admins to install Nagios and Check_MK on your server for you. They are available 24×7 and will take care of your request immediately.
PS. If you liked this post please share it with your friends on the social networks using the buttons on the left or simply leave a reply below. Thanks.
