Pro Nagios 2.0
Nagios is an open-source software tool that constantly monitors your system and provides feedback when it appears that there may be a problem. Nagios is a Linux based product that allows the administrator to track a wide variety of hosts, systems, services, and just about anything else they would want to know about. Completely configurable, the administrator sets thresholds and the system creates and alert any time this threshold is met. The beauty of this sort of system is that it allows the administrator to be notified of potential problems before they become major problems.
Even the notification method is configurable as it will email a message, create and instant message, use SMS paging, text messaging, etc. Once you are notified if you want to check on the system you can enter the web interface and view the current network status, notifications, problem history, log files, etc.
As is often the case with open-source applications, the product is fantastic but the documentation not quite up to par. That is where this particular book comes in handy. The author goes through all the details of setting up a Nagios server from the beginning decisions of just where to place the server to the set up of individual objects, notifications, groups, permissions and exactly how to check services and objects. He even goes so far as to discuss how to integrate Nagios into other products such as Snort and developing and writing and plug-ins.
Written in a style that is easy to follow for the average Linux user who is comfortable with the Linux filesystem, editing configuration files, and generally working with the command line. This is not for the new user familiar only with the graphical desktop environment. But for the Linux system administrator with an intermediate level or higher skill set Pro Nagios 2.0 is an excellent resource and is highly recommended.
Author: James Turnbull
Publisher: Apress
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219
Berkeley, CA 94710
Copyright: 2006
ISBN: 1590596099
Pages: 366 plus index
Price: $49.99