Lucas Schill Brent Grover Ed Schilla Advisor: Danny Miller

Lucas Schill

Brent Grover

Ed
Schilla

Advisor: Danny
Miller

Overview


Comparison of Nagios, Shinken, and
Icinga


Performance comparison of common
features


Usability


Scalability


Extra feature testing for usability


Scoring procedures


What it is


Monitoring System


Runs checks


Ability to alert


Track trends


Centralized Interaction


Monitor many devices from one location


View all states


Goals


Provide an in
-
depth analysis of the
software.


System load


Network Load


Usability


Complete the project this semester

Setbacks


Hardware


Limited hardware availability


Bad RAM


Support


OS Licensing


Monitoring software support

Network design

Servers


Hostname

Operating
System


Purpose

Processor

RAM

pfSense

pfSense 2.0.1

Routing

Dual P3 1GHz

3GB

SINSVR01

RHEL 6.3

Icinga

Dual P4 2.8GHz

2GB

SINSVR02

RHEL 6.3

Nagios

Dual P4 2.8GHz

2GB

SINSVR03

RHEL 6.3

Shinken

Dual P4 2.8GHz

2GB

SINSVR04

Debian 6.0.7

KVM Host

Core2quad 2.5GHz

3.5GB

SINSVR05

Debian

6.0.7

KVM Host

Core2quad 2.5GHz

6GB

SINSVR06

Debian 6.0.7

Multipurpose

Dual P3 1GHz

2GB

SINSVR07

Debian

6.0.7

KVM Host

Dual
-
core
Opteron

2GHz

4GB

SINSVR08

Debian 6.0.7

Storage

Atom 1.66GHz

4GB

SINSVR09

Debian

6.0.7

KVM Host

Core2quad 2.4GHz

2GB

SINSVR10

Debian 6.0.7

KVM Host

Quad
-
core AMD 2.5GHz

8GB

Client Setup


KVM


5 host machines


297 Debian clients


Scripted installation and management


Minimal client installation

○
64MB RAM

○
1GB disk space


Windows Clients


3 Windows 7 clients with NSClient++


100
clients for each software
suite

Nagios


Version 3.4.4


Written in C


Web
Interface


Exfoliation


Nagios Open
Source


Free
to
use


Forum
Support


Nagios XI


User Interface


Framework


Enterprise Support


Nagios (continued)


Nagios Version 4


Not yet available


Complete rewrite


Support


Currently unable to receive direct support



Nagios
-

Thoughts


Simple


Could use more features


Difficult to configure


Confusing configuration file layout


Would be better with a database as a
backend


Stable


Lacks features but works well


Icinga


Version 1.8.4


Modular


Written in C


Classic Web


Automated Apache integration


Icinga
-
cmd

group


Apache, Icinga user,
etc


Authentication



Icinga
(continued)


Check scripts run locally


Check_by_ssh


Similar to Nagios


Third party plugins/scripts


Embedded
perl

interpretation


Config

changes so far:


Check intervals


Icinga
(continued)


Windows integration


Icinga 2.0


New Web


Icinga

-

Thoughts


Quick


Highly customizable


Easy to install


Not very independent, or a “Fork”


Easy to change the installation
(modular)


Third party scripts
-

simple

Shinken


Version 1.2.3


Designed as a Nagios drop in
replacement that provides many of the
features Nagios lacks by default


Written in Python


Open source


Very modular

Shinken

-

Thoughts


Custom built installer


Installs all dependencies, configures the
system, and can install additional plug
-
ins


Configuration


Complex, Nagios with Shinken mixed in


Skonf

WebUI

Beta


Interface


Looks good, lacks functionality



Conclusion


Nagios

was the best over all


No major downsides, or upsides


Shinken

&
Icinga

tied in second.


Each strong in some areas, but weak in
others


Final score (out of 10)


Nagios
: 7.8


Icinga
: 7.1


Shinken
: 7.1

Rubric




Shinken

Icinga

Nagios

Weight

Installation

10

6

6

5%

Configuration

4

7

8

15%

Support

7

6

8

10%

Interface

2

9

7

5%

Plugins

9

8

8

10%

Availability

10

10

10



Ease of installation

8

6

6



Mobile Application

4

8

7

5%

Documentation

10

10

10

15%

Administration Total

64

70

70

65%











Server Resources

7

5.5

6.5

20%

Load

10

1

5



Memory

4

10

8



Net Resources

8

6

8

15%

Performance Total

29

22.5

27.5

35%











Overall Weighted
Score (Out of 10)

7.1

7.1

7.8



Load

Graphs

Nagios

Icinga

Shinken

Memory

Graphs

Nagios

Icinga

Shinken

Network

Graphs

Nagios

Icinga

Shinken

Budget

Starting Funds

$300.00

Second Semester Funds

$300.00

Spent Funds

($140.70)

Remaining Funds

$459.30

Spend Funds Detailed

Rail Clips

($27.54)

4x SCSI Hard Drives

($40.00)

2x4GB DDR3 RAM

($73.24)

Final Thoughts


Testing advanced features


Individual priorities


Shinken

great backend


Icinga

great frontend


Open source
–

combine projects


Fun and rewarding project


Questions?

Ice breaker, ask about this ^