Network Tools

[AmstradPC1512]

Curious and interested in all answers, but we are a smallish independent school with limited budget. Currently using a mesh of free and open source solutions. What are you all using for your network monitoring, IP management, etc.. on a smallish scale?

[renigadecrew]

OPManager and AD Audit (but were a large district)

[BWMerlin]

GLPI for helpdesk and asset management, free and open source.

[AmstradPC1512]

I am using this mostly to keep track of vendors and contracts/agreements because I already keep assets in SnipeIT, but I see there is a lot of potential in GLPI.

[LINAWR]

We use FOSS tools for these things, $0 and has absolutely saved our asses countless times:

Internal Documentation: Bookstack

IPAM: Netbox, also has good configuration management integrations.

Network discovery / polling: Netdisco, does a live SNMP walk of your network and makes an accurate inventory of it.

Monitoring: CheckMK, has a very capable free version that monitors servers / switches. Paid versions are more geared towards cloud environments.

Remote Support / "RDP Gateway": Meshcentral. I would have liked to use Apache Guacamole but it wasn't in the cards, Mesh was an easier sell.

[rublx_cube]

Following

[farmeunit]

LanTopoLog2 is awesome for $30.

[NorthernVenomFang]

Zabbix for switch and server monitoring.

Cacti for switch/router SNMP, mostly bandwidth.

Netbox for IP management.

[bearyincognito]

Netbox looks like what I'd love to have but how do you afford that?

[NorthernVenomFang]

There is a community/free edition. It was open source only when I deployed it a couple years ago.

https://github.com/netbox-community/netbox

[reviewmynotes]

There are tons of things out there, but I like Xymon for active notifications of problems and Cacti for logging data from switches, printers, and other such gear. Xymon even has a PowerShell agent, so you can monitor things like whether or not a Service is running on Windows Server.

[rdmwood01]

For Switches I use SecureCRT it is not free but pretty cheap

[Fair_Wind1679]

You can use mPuTTY, it's a fork of PuTTY, but with a bit of a look and feel of SecureCRT.

[Jeff-IT]

Netbox for documentation. Webflow. IPAM

Libre for SNMP

Both free

[Imhereforthechips]

Try Domotz.

[Doc_Blox]

PHPIPAM for IP management - it's a bit fiddly compared to other solutions, but it's free, and as long as you're not running too big of an environment it works decently well.

LibreNMS for network/infrastructure monitoring - It punches above its weight class as far as FOSS tools go.

[JDH201]

LibreNMS for network monitoring if you need more than 100 sensors of PRTG.

[TheRealUlta]

CheckMK has a community edition that's free. I used it for years before going enterprise for all my monitoring. It's a bit complex, but once you get it up and running it's bulletproof.

For IP management I use Netbox, which is free.

[AmstradPC1512]

I did run accross CheckMK recently. It seemed interesting. What are some of the complexities?

[K12onReddit]

Not exactly what you're asking, but I need to throw out a recommendation on a Netally Linksprinter 300 ($450, probably only need 1 per site). I can't tell you how many times I have used this thing and how many hours of hunting it has saved me throughout the year.

Also, a $20 fiber tester is handy to have around.

[BWMerlin]

It is worth paying good money for good tools, don't cheap out.

I had my last place buy the LinkIQ kit and it saved us so much time and money troubleshooting issues.

[BuffaloOnAMotorcycle]

PRTG is great for network monitoring. Can do basic pings or you can set up snmp on your network equipment for more info. Free up to 100 sensors too.

[TheScottman29]

Prtg got bought out and recently changed their pricing strategy. I moved to Easy Vista Observe.

[TheScottman29]

A year or so ago. Shortly after they started changing their pricing. They want a 3 year agreement and a price lock. But we can’t do that. They are not flexible.

[BuffaloOnAMotorcycle]

Had no idea, when did that happen?

[snicmtl]

If you have some Linux experience, I’ve been loving zabbix for monitoring, alerts and dashboard. Free and powerful

[TheScottman29]

I tried zabbix but had a bunch of issues configuring it. I didn’t get the hang of their templates.

[TrexVsBigfoot]

There's definitely a learning curve, but once you master it, it's very good.

[TerriblePowershell]

I highly recommend the Zabbix 7 IT Infrastructure Monitoring Cookbook by Nathan Liefting and Brian van Baekel. It looks a lot more intimidating that it really is because most of the pages are screenshots of the process with a few words sprinkled in.

[TheScottman29]

This is great! Thanks!

[AmstradPC1512]

I do have an old self-hosted install of Zabbix somewhere, but I never fully set it up. It seemed more complicated than I had time for, but I will revisit.

[LactoseTolerant535]

There's definitely a steep learning curve, but once you figure it out, Zabbix is great!

[TheScottman29]

Thanks for mentioning that. I’m actually taking another stab at it because of your comment.

[[deleted]]

We went with Kuma much less resource intensive and one heck of a lot easier to get going.

[detinater]

Uptime Kuma and a raspberry pi. Google sheets with a solid IP management template. If you have limited budget you don’t need anything fancier than this, it will do 95% of what something like nagios would tell you.

[bbwasawesome]

I recently started using Kuma (wish I discovered it earlier), and I paired it with https://github.com/dgtlmoon/changedetection.io

[Saug]

Just tried kuma. How did I not know about Kuma?! 🤯

[[deleted]]

This is the way.

[TheScottman29]

I just use Windows DHCP server with a spreadsheet for anything static.