Comments on: A review of MONyog http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/ Stay curious! Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:57:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Rohit Nadhani http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8907 Rohit Nadhani Sat, 26 May 2007 13:22:32 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8907 Currently the MONyog webserver does not allow remote access which means that you can only connect from localhost. This has been done intentionally in the current beta because we don’t have an authentication system in place. Once that is built in the next beta, you can access it from any client. Therefore, both of the following scenarios are possible: 1. MONyog web-server/agent running on Windows monitoring Windows and Linux servers. To retrieve OS counters MONyog uses SSH for Linux and WMI for Windows. 2. MONyog web-server/agent running on Linux monitoring Linux servers. To retrieve OS counters MONyog uses SSH. At this point in time, MONyog web-server/agent cannot collect Windows OS counters if it’s installed on a Linux machine. I believe this combination would be required only by an extremely small percentage of our potential customers! Of course, the client can be any browser supporting AJAX. Currently the MONyog webserver does not allow remote access which means that you can only connect from localhost. This has been done intentionally in the current beta because we don’t have an authentication system in place. Once that is built in the next beta, you can access it from any client.

Therefore, both of the following scenarios are possible:

1. MONyog web-server/agent running on Windows monitoring Windows and Linux servers. To retrieve OS counters MONyog uses SSH for Linux and WMI for Windows.

2. MONyog web-server/agent running on Linux monitoring Linux servers. To retrieve OS counters MONyog uses SSH.

At this point in time, MONyog web-server/agent cannot collect Windows OS counters if it’s installed on a Linux machine. I believe this combination would be required only by an extremely small percentage of our potential customers!

Of course, the client can be any browser supporting AJAX.

]]> By: Xaprb http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8885 Xaprb Sat, 26 May 2007 11:09:30 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8885 Will that limit MONyog to running on Windows itself, or can you interface with WMI from another operating system? Will that limit MONyog to running on Windows itself, or can you interface with WMI from another operating system?

]]> By: Rohit Nadhani http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8848 Rohit Nadhani Sat, 26 May 2007 03:56:21 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8848 We are going to use WMI to get OS counters for Windows. WMI is installed by default on Win2K and later. Therefore, we will still be able to collect all OS counters without requiring any agent on the servers. Agent-less monitoring is the most important feature of MONyog that sets it apart from other monitoring tools. Our research indicates that a lot of people just hate installing new components on a production server. We are going to use WMI to get OS counters for Windows. WMI is installed by default on Win2K and later.

Therefore, we will still be able to collect all OS counters without requiring any agent on the servers. Agent-less monitoring is the most important feature of MONyog that sets it apart from other monitoring tools.

Our research indicates that a lot of people just hate installing new components on a production server.

]]> By: Xaprb http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8766 Xaprb Fri, 25 May 2007 19:39:46 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8766 <p>Thanks for clarifying that. I have little knowledge of it myself, and perhaps shouldn't have passed on the gossip I heard without checking it.</p> <p>About SSH and Windows, yes; my comment about agentless monitoring is more generally "why are most systems using agents when they don't necessarily need to." Some systems are Linux-only, for example, and still use agents when they could better use SSH. Sometimes this is not hard to work around. I've eliminated the Nagios agents by writing short plugins that use SSH, for example; now my Nagios installation just requires a normal SSH account on every system I want to watch.</p> <p>I was able to extract the RPM without trouble, but still could not get MONyog to work on my Ubuntu machine (various troubles I won't go into; I wanted to review the system, not mess with trying to debug a closed-source app that has no documentation and won't run). Rohit told me:</p> <blockquote><p>The linux version is old and untested on Ubuntu. Of course, all of these will be fixed before GA. Out "showcase" version right now is Windows. Would it be possible for you to try the Windows version?</p></blockquote> <p>At the time of writing, the Windows version is 0.20, and the Linux is 0.16.</p> Thanks for clarifying that. I have little knowledge of it myself, and perhaps shouldn’t have passed on the gossip I heard without checking it.

About SSH and Windows, yes; my comment about agentless monitoring is more generally “why are most systems using agents when they don’t necessarily need to.” Some systems are Linux-only, for example, and still use agents when they could better use SSH. Sometimes this is not hard to work around. I’ve eliminated the Nagios agents by writing short plugins that use SSH, for example; now my Nagios installation just requires a normal SSH account on every system I want to watch.

I was able to extract the RPM without trouble, but still could not get MONyog to work on my Ubuntu machine (various troubles I won’t go into; I wanted to review the system, not mess with trying to debug a closed-source app that has no documentation and won’t run). Rohit told me:

The linux version is old and untested on Ubuntu. Of course, all of these will be fixed before GA. Out “showcase” version right now is Windows. Would it be possible for you to try the Windows version?

At the time of writing, the Windows version is 0.20, and the Linux is 0.16.

]]> By: Jan Kneschke http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8765 Jan Kneschke Fri, 25 May 2007 19:16:54 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2007/05/25/a-review-of-monyog/#comment-8765 The agent is written in C and needs NO jvm. It collects all the information which is not available through MySQL itself: CPU data, disk usage, ... The idea of using SSH breaks as soon as you hit Windows as target platform. A side-note on RPMs: $ mkdir foo; cd foo; rpm2cpio ../foo.rpm | cpio -id; tar czf ../foo.tar.gz; cd .. The agent is written in C and needs NO jvm. It collects all the information which is not available through MySQL itself: CPU data, disk usage, …

The idea of using SSH breaks as soon as you hit Windows as target platform.

A side-note on RPMs:

$ mkdir foo; cd foo; rpm2cpio ../foo.rpm | cpio -id; tar czf ../foo.tar.gz; cd ..

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