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Easy Server Monitoring

Do you find Cacti like me too cluttered? Find PHP nonsense on a Server for a single Tool? Then maybe you will install Monit / SimpleMonitor. Simple Tools without major dependencies and with a simple web interface. Monit causes problems with the SMTP / Submission Checks, so I installed also Simple Monitor.

First we installed and configure the monit tool.

Monit

pacman -S monit

The configuration can be found in the file /etc/monitrc, but it is recommended to create the directory /etc/monit.d and store your own configurations there and to activate the corresponding directory in the monitrc.

mkdir /etc/monit.d

Let us create the alert stuff:

set mailserver meinmailser.com port 587
        username "username" password "password"
using tlsv12

set mail-format {
   from: monit@pi
   subject: $SERVICE $EVENT at $DATE
   message: Monit $ACTION $SERVICE at $DATE on $HOST: $DESCRIPTION.
} 

set alert meinealtertmail

Of course, you have to adapt this to your Situation. Next, we can create the Hosts. I created a file for each Host.

check host myserver with address myserver
    if failed
        port 22
        protocol ssh
    then alert
    if failed
        port 587 and
        expect "^220.*"
        send   "HELO myserver\r\n"
        expect "^250.*"
        send   "QUIT\r\n"
        for 3 cycles
    then alert
    if failed
        port 993
        protocol imaps
    then alert
    if failed
        port 443
        protocol https
        status = 200
        content = "Silvio Siefke"
    then alert
    if failed
        port 80
        protocol http
        status = 301
    then alert

Then start monit and you can see the result in the built-in web interface. If you use a Server like me, you have to bind the web server to the public ip in /etc/monitrc.

systemd enable --now monit
Monit at work

Simple Monitor

Now let us installed SimpleMonitor. Installation and configuration is easy like with monit. Simple Monitor need some python modules and python version 3.

pacman -S python-colorlog python-pydbus python-paho-mqtt

Let us clone the Github Repo.

git clone https://github.com/jamesoff/simplemonitor.git

Simple Monitor use two files, the file monitor.ini for the program settings, monitors.ini for the hosts settings which you want to monitor. Both files should be in the same folder like monitor.py.

nano monitor.ini

[monitor]
interval=300

[reporting]
loggers=logfile
alerters=email

[logfile]
type=html
folder=/srv/http/sisi/monitor
filename=/srv/http/sisi/monitor/index.html
header=/srv/http/sisi/monitor/header.html
footer=/srv/http/sisi/monitor/footer.html

[email]
type=email
host=localhost
from=root
to=siefke

For Settings details take a look on the website. I use only the webinterface but also you can use a log, a database or a combination of it. The webinterface I take in my nginx folder, so I copy also the file from html directory in it. Next you can see my monitors.ini.

nano monitors.ini

[ru-mail-ping]
type=host
host=ru-mail.silviosiefke.com
tolerance=2

[silviosiefke.ru]
type=http
url=https://silviosiefke.ru
allowed_codes=200

[ru-mail-dovecot]
type=tcp
host=ru-mail.silviosiefke.com
port=993

[ru-mail-smtp]
type=tcp
host=ru-mail.silviosiefke.com
port=25

[ru-mail-submission]
type=tcp
host=ru-mail.silviosiefke.com
port=587

I use shell script to start the tool.

cat /usr/local/bin/monitor.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

cd /usr/local/simplemonitor && exec /usr/bin/python3 monitor.py -q >> /var/log/simplemonitor.log

For system start I use systemd.

cat /etc/systemd/system/monitor.service

[Unit]
Description=Monitoring my network
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/monitor.sh
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
SimpleMonitor at Work