A company offering low-cost remote access equipment based on uClinux has embraced a popular open-source network and device monitoring package. OpenGear says its gateways and console servers now enable managed service providers to offer customers an affordable monitoring solution based on Nagios.

Opengear was founded two years ago by uClinux pioneer Bob Waldie, with the aim of using open-source software to reduce the cost of remote access and network center management equipment. Its IM4200 gateways and CM4000 console servers aim to offer secure, remote, in-band access based on VNC and RDP tunneled through SSL — an approach said to cost less and be easier for users than enterprise-wide VPN gateways. The devices also offer out-of-band management, for instance enabling users to remote reboot crashed servers without involving hosting provider staff.

Nagios, formerly “NetSaint,” is a highly modular, customizable, and extensible open-source network and device monitoring software suite aimed at enabling system administrators and admin teams to keep an eye on device and network health. It comes standard with hundreds of plugins, including those that test response times for network services based on protocols such as http, nntp, smb, and many, many others. Users can also easily write custom system and network tests — for example, to make sure that databases have not crashed — and schedule them using Nagios. If responses fall outside of configurable ranges, alarms can be sent to pagers, email accounts, or phone gateways.

Opengear says it has added two components of Nagios to both the IM4200 and CM4000 devices. The Nagios NSCA (Nagios service check acceptor) client component will enable the devices themselves to be integrated more easily with existing Nagios-based monitoring infrastructure. And, the NRPE (Nagios remote plugin executor) is expected to enable the devices to run checks in conjunction with the master Nagios server.

Opengear notes that after Nagios alerts administrators to problems, admins can use its devices to repair the problem remotely. The devices are said to offer:

• Secure access to text consoles (hosts or network devices) over RS232 ports (Telnet, SSH, etc.)
• Secure access to network consoles of servers and devices at remote LAN (HTTP, VNC, RDP)
• Securely access service processor management consoles (IPMI, iLO, RSA) over TCP/UDP
• Remote power cycling through service processors and intelligent power distribution units
• Remote KVM connections through service processors or local KVM over IP appliances
• Embedded console monitoring and logging in gateways and console servers for onsite problem analysis

According to Opengear CEO Bob Waldie, “Nagios [is] the most popular open-source host and network monitoring program available, and monitors some 200,000 hosts worldwide.”

Ethan Galstad, Nagios developer, noted that Nagios is “seeing increased integration into infrastructure management appliances like Opengear's console servers.”

Waldie added that Opengear has “worked hard to [integrate Nagios.] Configuration files are automatically generated depending on what services and devices are configured through the console server/gateway. Round-robin checks of all selected services are then routinely scheduled. Plug-ins to monitor connectivity and logs are provided. And we have a compiler suite to embed additional plug-ins into the IM gateway firmware.”

Availability

Opengear appears to be shipping devices with integrated Nagios software now.

 
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