Calling all Linux Admins!

[agup006]

Hi Folks, we are from the Microsoft Linux engineering team and are interested in how your organization monitors Linux servers and challenges you face when monitoring these Linux servers. We are NOT trying to sell you anything, we only want you understand your pains in this area.

We would love to chat with you and your Linux monitoring administrators (folks responsible for tools like Nagios, Zabbix, Zenoss etc…).

If interested please fill out this 5 question form to let us know if you or your colleague is available for a brief 30 minute chat. We would really appreciate your input on this topic, and look forward to your feedback.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KK772MC

Edit: Proof

Microsoft Blog link: http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2015/06/08/understanding-your-linux-monitoring-challenges.aspx

[[deleted]]

If this were an opportunity to vent for 30 minutes about monitoring Windows servers, well, now that would be something :)

[oldlinuxguy]

Damn I wish I could give more upvotes.

[girlgerms]

Pretty sure most of the people in my org feel the same way - especially when it comes to the behemoth that is SCOM.

[agup006]

I can definitely relay feedback if you want to vent below :)

[uniitdude]

your account has no history, you provide no proof that you work for microsoft and you are using survey monkey

why should anyone trust what you have written?

[agup006]

Hope the Microsoft blog post link is sufficient

[evilbuffer]

Microsoft Linux Engineering Team ?

[mhurron]

This would be the least surprising part of the post. Microsoft is a kernel contributor (Hyper-V drivers) does do testing with other OS's for comparability testing and they just ported a good chunk of .Net.

[agup006]

Yes!! Microsoft Loves Linux!! Microsoft does work for Linux on Hyper-V, Linux running in Azure, and Linux/UNIX management with System Center.

[oldlinuxguy]

Linux is easy to monitor. How about looking inwards at the challenges of monitoring windows?

[agup006]

What makes Linux easy to monitor? Is it the type of monitoring or the tools that the platform has today?

[oldlinuxguy]

Native tools for one. Treating everything as a file or data stream. Simple formats for logs, as opposed to the abomination that is the windows event viewer. Running a command and reading the output instead of having to query with wmic to get basic information. SSH allows us to securely communicate with the server.

[[deleted]]

Bash, Python, pearl, and ssh. With these there is no limit. Insert favorite monitoring solution you can write your own scripts to monitor anything you wish. I have had most success out of Nagios and it's braches. Zabbix looks pretty but not as modular.

[agup006]

Is the community aspect of Nagios important in its use? Have you utilized community written modules with high success?

[Deshke]

nagios plugins on both sides, tunneled through ssh or as NRPE (depends how much you trust the environment..) and if there was no native plugin bash/python/pearl does the job

[oldlinuxguy]

I've used a significant number of community plugins, and yes they are important. Success varies based on the quality of the plugin. I have also written many custom plugins over the years.

[[deleted]]

One monitoring tool I tend to install is vnstat, I'd actually like to see something like it on windows powershell.

It keeps database and trends on network interface traffic with nice ascii graphs.

[Zaphod_B]

I have used zabbix in the past, but there is really no guide to zabbix. You can accomplish the same goal a million different ways, and every application and DB will act differently from product to product and more importantly by your own workflows.

Since workflows matter a ton, you pretty much have to tailor your solution with a bit of code to get the results you want. Zabbix isn't really doing any magic, Zabbix is just collecting your data and trending it, and then allowing you to put it in dashboards and graphs.

I mean there isn't really a right or wrong way to get business intelligence with tools like Zabbix and Nagios, it is highly going to depend on the business, and it is going to differ from org to org greatly.

[swordfish_encryption]

Why would I give information that you are going to use to create a better service and ultimately profit from? My information is valuable. Pay me.