Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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

--- 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.

>> Please find a more detailed review and book comparisons by deploying my profile. <<

This book is great as an introductory book for Nagios. Although it doesn't cover some advanced functionalities of Nagios in depth, it tells you enough to know about them and research more.

It takes you step by step to configuring your Nagios the right way, and exploring all of it's many features along the way. I bought this book to start with Nagios, and it has succeeded to completely fulfill my expectations.

There are good checkpoints on the end of each chapter, which is a nice touch.

What I liked the most myself, is that author has put in "best practices" to show you not only how to do things, but also how to do them the way they should be done, which is what I expect to get out of a good book.

A very good introduction to Nagios. V. thorough and detailed. I would have liked more detail on monitoring SNMP devices and server monitoring especially gathering stats from HP servers with Compaq (HP) agents installed but this may be too specialised for this book. Basic Windows server monitoring is covered. Highly recommended for Nagios novices.

Of the books that deal specifically with Nagios, this is a good one. It goes into greater depth on topics the product documentation doesn't, such as passive checks. On other topics it makes a good companion to the documentation, providing additional examples and alternate explanations.

Only down sides are several typos, and that Nagios v3.0 is nearly ready for release! So I can only hope these authors are encouraged enough to do a second edition when that happens.

Nagios is an open-source software tool that constantly monitors your system and provides feedback when it appears that there may be a problem. Nagios is a Linux based product that allows the administrator to track a wide variety of hosts, systems, services, and just about anything else they would want to know about. Completely configurable, the administrator sets thresholds and the system creates and alert any time this threshold is met. The beauty of this sort of system is that it allows the administrator to be notified of potential problems before they become major problems.

Even the notification method is configurable as it will email a message, create and instant message, use SMS paging, text messaging, etc. Once you are notified if you want to check on the system you can enter the web interface and view the current network status, notifications, problem history, log files, etc.

As is often the case with open-source applications, the product is fantastic but the documentation not quite up to par. That is where this particular book comes in handy. The author goes through all the details of setting up a Nagios server from the beginning decisions of just where to place the server to the set up of individual objects, notifications, groups, permissions and exactly how to check services and objects. He even goes so far as to discuss how to integrate Nagios into other products such as Snort and developing and writing and plug-ins.

Written in a style that is easy to follow for the average Linux user who is comfortable with the Linux filesystem, editing configuration files, and generally working with the command line. This is not for the new user familiar only with the graphical desktop environment. But for the Linux system administrator with an intermediate level or higher skill set Pro Nagios 2.0 is an excellent resource and is highly recommended.