suggest linux distribution for network monitoring

[ilpadrino]

I would like to replace our current network monitor/analysis box with a new rack-mount server. Can someone suggest hardware and a good distribution for these programs or similar:

nagios
syslog
snort/acid
rrdtool/mrtg

If you have recommendations for better tools than I use, I'm all ears!

Thanks in advance.
Joe.

 

[lgarner]

I have similar programs on a Dell 2850 with an RHEL-equivalent distribution. The hardware required will depend largely on the size of your environment. In my case, Nagios is monitoring about 400 services on 90 hosts with a frequency of 30sec - 1 hour.

 

[ilpadrino]

Is RHEL not a free distribution? Or maybe I should ask what you mean by RHEL-equivalent. I was hoping for something free. I've been using debian, but their packaging system is never current. Would prefer one that works with rpm's. Tried fedora, and couldn't get a simple scsi adapter recognized. Didn't like suse, which is difficult to obtain anyway.

 

[ericbrunson]

I've been using Fedora since the first release and I like it a lot. Core 4 has lots of extras and is very well maintained. Most of what you're looking for is in the core distribution.

http://fedora.redhat.com/download/

They are also extremely well supported by the RPMForge project, which provides a wealth of software in version specific RPMs.

http://dries.studentenweb.org/rpm/packages/nagios/info.html

http://dries.studentenweb.org/rpm/packages/snort/info.html

http://dries.studentenweb.org/rpm/packages/php-acid/info.html

http://dries.studentenweb.org/rpm/packages/rrdtool/info.html

 

[lgarner]

RHEL is not free. There are several redistributions: CentOS, Whitebox, Scientific, Tao to name a few. I use CentOS myself on a few non-critical systems while RHEL gets installed on the critical production ones.

 

[ericbrunson]

I woudn't trust my critical production systems more to RHEL than I would to any other distribution.

 

[groovin]

well, ask yourself what distro(s) you are the most comfortable with right now and go from there. personally i think a distro with a good package manager like gentoo or debian would be good choices.

 

[rzs0502]

I use Slackware 10.1 for this.
Works great for my requirements.

Also take a look at

http://trinux.sourceforge.net/

and

http://www.netwosix.org/

2 Distro's that are built specifically for this task...



"If you always do what you've always done, you will always be where you've always been."

 

[robbym627]

You might also try knoppix-STD or something of that nature.

 

[jouell]

http://monitorsuite.sourceforge.net

This may help for monitoring services simply and to get a "view" of your servers, without spending alot of time with installs, etc...

-John