System Monitoring with Checkmk - Part 1: Basics

Description

With Checkmk, the setting up of a monitoring system is a breeze, even on large installations. Working with the command line is reduced to a minimum, as WATO provides a powerful graphical configuration interface. With this you do not need to be a Linux expert to implement a monitoring system that easily manages big and complex setups.

Using the Open Monitoring Distribution (OMD) as a basis makes installation and updates run very smoothly, including many popular addons such as NagVis (graphical visualization) and PNP4Nagios. (long-term recording of metrics) In our basic course System Monitoring with Checkmk, you learn how to set up a professional monitoring system and structure it in a sensible way, to monitor the network, servers, operating systems and applications. You do not need any Linux expertise. All that you need to know, you will learn in the course. For this we follow a very practical approach. First we install a full monitoring environment with OMD, then we address the monitoring of Windows and Linux, network devices and services as well applications step by step. This way you learn how Checkmk operates, how acknowledgements and downtimes work, the difference between passive and active checks, how to configure notifications, how to assign hosts and services to users, and a lot more. Of course you will also learn all about the advantages Checkmk has compared to other systems and what it’s users love about it, such as:

• Automatic discovery and configuration of monitored services
• The rule-based configuration based on host tags, that is an advantage especially in complex environments
• Distributed Monitoring (centralized visualization of multiple monitoring servers)
• The very customizable UI of Checkmk

With the add-on PNP4Nagios we will record and graphically evaluate metrics (e.g. PING times, network load, cpu utilization) over a longer period of time.

With NagVis we create graphical maps and diagrams to represent current system states clearly.

Note: After completing this course or if you already have the contents by working with Checkmk in practice you are optimally prepared for our exciting second part.

Prerequisites: Experience in the administration of network services. Knowledge of Scripting languages like Bash, Perl or Python are useful, but not mandatory.

Contents

Introduction and installation

• Installation of Checkmk and addons with OMD
• Using OMD: Create and manage sites
• The virtual appliance Checkmk virt1
• Snapshots, backup and restore
• Updating Checkmk

Checkmk overview

• Existing Modules
• The Data Model: Hosts and Services
• The principle of active and passive services
• Staleness

The graphical user interface

• Sidebar and snapins
• Using and customizing views
• Editing dashboards
• Tips and tricks

Working with WATO - Checkmk’s configuration tool

• Adding Hosts and Services to the monitoring
• Structuring the environment with host tags, folders, host and service groups
• Configuration of levels and other parameters
• Work with many hosts: Bulk Inventory and Bulk Import
• Mapping network dependencies of hosts using Parents

The Checkmk Agent

• Monitoring Linux and Windows
• Packaging of self-adapted Checkmk agents
• Automatic Agent Updates
• Monitoring via SSH

Monitoring of various services

• Functionality of Checkplugins
• Overview of the 1,300 included plugins
• Monitoring log files
• Monitoring of processes and Windows services
• Monitoring file systems in detail
• Monitoring of network devices via SNMP
• Monitoring of network interfaces in detail

Extend Checkmk with your own checks

• Integration of own scripts (local checks)
• MRPE

Alarm, part 1

• The concept of alarms
• Assignment of hosts and services to persons via contact groups
• Acknowledgment of problems
• Definition of time periods (e.g. only workdays from 9:00-17:00)
• Alerting by email, customizing the mail content
• Configuration of the Linux Mail Service
• Work with Scheduled Downtimes
• Rule-based configuration of notifications
• Alerting rules that users create themselves

Users, roles and permissions

• Administration of users and authorizations
• The role-based rights system
• Visibility of hosts and services

Distributed monitoring, part 1

• Reasons for Distributed Monitoring
• Establishment of distributed monitoring with live status and Checkmk Multisite

Measurement data processing, part 1

• Long-term recording of measurement data
• Use of the graphing system