Pro Nagios 2.0 (Expert's Voice in Open Source) [Hardcover]

James Turnbull (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2006 | Series: Expert's Voice in Open Source

Pro Nagios 2.0 explains how to install and administer Nagios, the web-based enterprise management tool that helps monitor Unix, Windows, network devices, infrastructure equipment, and applications. You’ll learn how to architect Nagios installations, deploy agents and plug-ins, and monitor a variety of assets, which include applications across a variety of platforms and operating systems. Nagios has the power to alert you to current and future incidents that could impact the availability, performance, and security of monitored assets.

The books real-world configurations and supporting materials will enable you to deploy Nagios and integrate other tools (like MRTG and Snort) on a helpful step-by-step basis. Integrating Nagios with a variety of other tools can add more functionality to its internal monitoring and alerting capabilities. The book covers additional topics like security, redundancy and failover, and plug-in development. And it shows you how to create your own Nagios plug-ins, to monitor devices for which Nagios may not provide plug-ins.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Turnbull is the author of five technical books about open source software and a longtime member of the open source community. James authored the first and second books about Puppet, and works for Puppet Labs, running client services. James speaks regularly at conferences including OSCON, Linux.conf.au, FOSDEM, OpenSourceBridge, DevOpsDays and a number of others. He is a past president of Linux Australia, has run Linux.conf.au and serves on the program committee of Linux.conf.au and OSCON. James is Australian but currently lives in Portland, Oregon. His interests include cooking, wine, political theory, photojournalism, philosophy, and most recently the Portland Timbers association football team.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (April 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590596099
• ISBN-13: 978-1590596098
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 1.1 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,457,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Turnbull works for Puppet Labs as VP of Technical Operations
managing the customer-facing business units including Services,
Sales Engineering, Support, Operations, Education and Community Management.

James has previously for the National Australia Bank as the manager of
the CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) and as an Executive
Manager of IT Security at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the CIO of a medical research
foundation doing Web-based clinical trials, managing the architecture
group of an outsourcing company and in a number of IT roles in gaming,
telecommunications and government.

He is an experienced infrastructure architect with a background in
Linux/Unix, AS/400, Windows, and storage systems. He has been involved
in security consulting, infrastructure security design, SLA and service
definition and has an abiding interest in security metrics and measurement.

James is involved in the Free and Open Source Software community as a
developer and contributor. He was the Treasurer, member of the papers
committee, and coordinated the mini-conference program at linux.conf.au
2008 in Melbourne, Australia. He is also a member of Linux Australia,
including serving on the Executive Council in 2008 and President in 2010.

In his spare time his interests include cooking, wine, political theory,
photojournalism, philosophy, poetry, and cats.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideal introduction to Nagios for all skill levels September 4, 2006

By Richard Bejtlich

Format:Hardcover

I recently received review copies of Pro Nagios 2.0 (PN2) by James Turnbull and Nagios: System and Network Monitoring (NSANM) by Wolfgang Barth. I read PN2 first, then NSANM. Both are excellent books, but I expect potential readers want to know which is best for them. The following is a radical simplification, and I could honestly recommend readers buy either (or both) books. If you are completely new to Nagios and want a very well-organized introduction, I recommend PN2. If you are somewhat familiar with Nagios and want detailed descriptions of a wide variety of Nagios plug-ins, I recommend NSANM.

PN2 is an extremely well-written book. James Turnbull's style is very easy to understand and his message is well thought-out. One of my favorite aspects of PN2 is the author's multiple recommendations. He doesn't just explain options and features; he says what he thinks works best. Turnbull's syntax examples are very helpful and thorough.

I found PN2's approach to be just what I expected and needed. A basic Nagios user could read the first five chapters (Installation, Basic Object Configuration, Security and Administration, Using the Web Console, and Monitoring Hosts and Services) and have a working, capable Nagios installation. The last five chapters (Advanced Commands, Advanced Object Configuration, Distributing Monitoring, Redundancy, and Failover, Integration Nagios, and Developing Plug-ins) address more advanced topics.

I was particularly glad to see security addressed as an important topic. I liked his explanation of why not to use .htaccess files with Apache (p 92-93). PN2 also introduces working solutions for redundancy and failover (topics not explicitly covered in NSANM). The author takes steps to ensure readers really understand Nagios; for example, he explains macros well, while NSANM mentions them without much thought.

I did not encounter any real technical problems with PN2, hence its high rating. I saw the author mention TCP as the transport protocol for SNMP on p 181; it should be UDP.

PN2 is an ideal book for anyone who wants to run Nagios. I believe new Nagios readers should read PN2, and strongly consider NSANM as a complementary reference volume.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Deploy Nagios with Ease June 26, 2006

By J. P. Mens

Format:Hardcover

On 360 odd pages, the author discusses Nagios in quite some detail. From installation of Nagios, through object configuration, Turnbull brings the ins and outs of Nagios to the reader. Security and administration, the web console and, of course, monitoring of hosts and services make up a good chunk of the book. I specially liked the discussion of monitoring through firewalls; there are some very interesting solutions there, that I hadn't thought about.

Turnbull discusses SNMP and a number of additional programs that are useful in conjunction with Nagios (also for Windows systems). In the chapter Advanced Commands, performance data is discussed together with methods of graphing that data; interesting.

Chapter seven discusses dependencies and notification escalations in such a way as that the reader can actually grasp the difficult topic.

What I liked best was chapter eight: Distributed Monitoring, Redundancy and Failover which goes into the very nitty gritty of getting Nagios to perform even in a disaster case and large installations with multiple Nagios hosts using NSCA. Having had some experience in that area, I read that most carefully.

In the next chapter, the book discusses integration with syslog-ng, as well as with MRTG and other interesting programs. Developing Nagios plugins and a short discussion of the Nagios Event Broker round off the offerings.

Sundry examples and good tips are given throughout all chapters. I strongly recommend this nicely bound and set book to any systems administrator; both those who already use Nagios and especially of course, to those who intend to deploy Nagios

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Advanced monitoring solutions for senior IT staffs July 24, 2006

By Nils Valentin

Format:Hardcover

--- DISCLAIMER: This is a requested review by Apress, however any opinions expressed within the review are my personal ones. ---

With 366 pages this is the most compact Nagios monitoring solutions guide on the marcet. Period !
You can easily take the book with you anywhere you go.

Note however, that Turnbull seems to hit the ground running. The reader is assumed to have at least
some general knowledge of Linux, the command console and roughly how the system works.

Also Turnbull does give a basic function rundown of Nagios in the first 80 pages of the book, it is more
the advanced users that will appreciate the countless documented approaches for monitoring solutions
that are documented in the rest of the book.

He covers a wide range of topics and virtually goes the extra mile. While I found especially the sections
on Security, NRPE, NCSA and SNMP very detailed, the book does really cover a lot of ground in ALL
chapters with a nice mix of details within the text.

Turnbull clearly covers topics which are either not at all or at least not in such detail documented in other
books I have read so far (f.e. failover, redundancy, indirect monitoring, on demand macros, daisy chaining,
adaptive monitoring, freshness checks, the event broker, the embedded perl interpreter, the NSClient++ etc.)

... and the good thing is he doesnt stop there ;-)

Therefore, I would consider Apress's book focused towards software architects, system integrators,
senior system administrators, programmers and developers and I believe it serves this marcet very well.

The books contents is at least 3-6 months newer than other books on the marcet. So simply put, if you are
serious about learning advanced monitoring solutions than you currently have no choice but to get this book.

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