When you have multiple servers or client computers under your control it's nice to have a centralized way of monitoring them for health or unexpected errors.
There are a few different solutions out there but we'll have a go at installing and configuring [munin](https://munin-monitoring.org/).
## Munin
I set one up on [this](https://munin.86thumbs.net/) domain for demonstration purposes.
You can log in with the account details I'll hand out in class.
### Architecture
Munin has a server client architecture where they refer to the server as **master** and the clients as **nodes**.
When monitoring for example ten workstations or servers you will have **one** master and on each workstation or server you'll install **one** node but in total you'll have **ten** nodes connected to your **single** master.
First we'll install one munin **master** for everybody in the classroom.
The installation documentation on the official [website](http://guide.munin-monitoring.org/en/latest/installation/install.html) is very good so we'll follow that one.
The overall processes has three components.
1. install munin
2. configure the master to query some future nodes
3. install a web server to serve the monitor pages
Nginx is really easy to install on Debian. Just type `sudo apt install nginx` and when you get your prompt back, you'll have a web server running.
To verify it's working we can use any web browser we want.
The main configuration directory for nginx can be found at `/etc/nginx`.
Nginx is a bit different compared to most configuration we've done up until now.
The server itself is configured via the `/etc/nginx/nginx.conf` file and the `/etc/nginx/conf.d/` folder but the **websites** your server serves to the outside world are stored in `/etc/nginx/sites-available` and `/etc/nginx/sites-enabled`.
Each site should have an actual configuration file in the `/etc/nginx/sites-available` folder and if you want the lite to be *live* you should create a [symbolic link](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39080375/nginx-symbolic-link) to this site in the `/etc/nginx/sites-enabled` folder.
First have a look at the `/etc/nginx/sitex-available/default` file to understand how the configuration works.
**Can you change something on the default webpage please?**
We can add a new file in the `/etc/nginx/sites-available` directory called `munin`.
You can name this any which way you want.
For example, on my vps that runs our domain I have the following files which offer websites:
```
➜ sites-enabled ls -l
total 36
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2049 Mar 25 20:56 86thumbs.net
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1813 Mar 25 12:42 gitea.86thumbs.net
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1646 May 24 12:00 ipcdb.86thumbs.net
The nodes have to be in the same network in order to be contactable by the master.
There are nifty ways to overcome this *problem* but that is for a later date.
If you do feel like diving deeper into it, have a look [here](https://guide.munin-monitoring.org/en/latest/tutorial/monitoring-the-unreachable.html#unreachable-index).
On any virtual machine you have around you can install the node by simply doing `sudo apt install munin-node`.
The node is now up, running and listening for incoming connections on port 4949 (by default).
It is however quite picky in accepting incoming connections!
The configuration file for the node is located at `/etc/munin/munin-node.conf`.
Open it up and have a read.
You should see two lines very similar to the one below.
```
allow ^127\.0\.0\.1$
allow ^::1$
```
Can you tell me what those are?
Yes, that's a **regex**!
By default the node only accepts incoming connections from the localhost.
We can add as many **masters** as we like to this list but we must respect the regex syntax.
Munin works with [plugins](https://guide.munin-monitoring.org/en/latest/plugin/use.html#plugin-use) to supply the master with data to plot.
You can install extra plugins or even write your own in [bash](https://guide.munin-monitoring.org/en/latest/develop/plugins/howto-write-plugins.html#howto-write-plugins) or in [python](https://aouyar.github.io/PyMunin/).
To have your node auto detect which plugins should be used you can execute the following command as root (not sudo).
```
munin-node-configure --shell --families=contrib,auto | sh -x
Because the munin server client model is so basic you can find node software for most operating systems.
I've run it successfully on [freeNAS](https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/install-munin-node.79224/#post-549934) but you can try a [windows](https://github.com/munin-monitoring/munin-node-win32) node as well.
You might feel munin is too simple or basic because it does not offer any tweaking via it's web GUI but that's the main reason why I *like* and use it so much.
Because it's so simple, it's not a real security risk.
I would however **not** expose a master to the internet without **SSL** and a good **htpasswd**.
There are some known exploits in the CGI part of munin.
* if your dynamic zoom is not working have a look [here](https://serverfault.com/questions/615048/munin-dynamic-graph-zoom-dynazoom-not-working-nginx-php-fpm)
There are quite a few alternatives out there to choose from.
One of the better known is [nagios](https://www.nagios.org/) which can be installed on Debian as well.
There are ways to have munin and nagios work together that are described [here](https://guide.munin-monitoring.org/en/latest/tutorial/nagios.html?highlight=nagios).
## Cacti
Cacti is a very similar monitoring system compared to munin.
Where munin shines in it's simplicity, cacti can be fine-tuned host by host, monitor even more diverse clients such as Cisco routers and switches.
I personally *prefer* munin mostly because I know it better but let's have a go at installing cacti to see if we like it better or not!
### Architecture
The architecture for cacti is very similar to munin and can be seen below.
They serve the same **purpose** but do two main things **differently**.
1. how cacti **fetches** the data
2. how cacti **stores** the data
#### Fetching data
Munin fetches it's data via a simple telnet connection.
To restrict access it defaults to blacklisting all IP's except the ones we allow in the configuration file located at `/etc/munin/munin-node.conf`.
Cacti relies on the more elaborated [SNMP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Network_Management_Protocol) protocol.
As it's a full blown protocol it can do a lot more than just fetch data and hence is more prone to [exploits](https://www.exploit-db.com/search?q=snmp).
#### Storing data
Munin stores it's data as simple binary files located at `/var/lib/munin/$DOMAIN_NAME`.
It's not the quickest nor the most compact way of storing data but as it's not a high demand service it can get away with it.
Cacti on the other hand uses an [SQL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL) database to store it's information which is a more *mature* way of dealing with data availability but comes at the cost of an other server, a mysql in this case, and more configuration and potential security threats.
### Installing the master
Debian has a good all-in-one package to install [cacti](https://packages.debian.org/stable/cacti).
It takes care of all the heavy lifting for you and will prompt you with some questions.
You install it with the good old package manager `sudo apt install cacti`.
First you'll be prompted with a choice of web server to install.
You can choose any which one you like, or choose *none* if you want to use `nginx` for example.
Depending on your choice, apt will fetch the necessary packages.
Once that's all done you'll be prompted to configure the database.
Here I highly advise you to choose **yes** as sql databases can be a bit of a pain to set up.
If you chose yes you'll immediately be prompted to set a password for the cacti user in the database.
This will also be the admin password you'll use to log into the web GUI.
For testing purposes you can choose a simple one but if you think you'll use the server for anything serious, you need a serious password!
That's it, your cacti server is now up and running!
You can visit it's login page by going to the IP address of your cacti server.
If you see the default apache2 page as seen below, append `/cacti` after your IP.
You need to use the password you set during the installation, but the username for the default user is `admin`.
### Configuring the nodes
Now that we have a server up and running it's time to add some clients to it.
Contrary to munin, cacti does not install it's *node/client* component on the server in order for you to be able to monitor *itself*.
Now, which package do we need to install on a client in order for it to be able to submit data to our server?
The answer lies in the protocol used by cacti.
The following command will install the SNMP **daemon** onto our first client, our cacti server.
```
sudo apt install snmpd
```
This is a quick install and the server should now be ready to report to itself.
Let's try to add it as a client.
In the web GUI you need to go to the `create->new device` tab.
In the description you can put anything you want, but the `hostname` field needs to be the IP address of your server, which in our case is the loopback device `127.0.0.1`.
You'll see the following screen if your device was successfully added, which should be the case if you followed the isntructions.
You can now inspect the data collected in the `graph` tab of the web GUI.
It should look similar to the screenshot below.
It's very possible that the graphs are *not yet* showing.
This depends a bit on whether the poller has already finished polling the SNMP daemon but this should be a one time problem fixed by waiting a couple of minutes.
The procedure above is how you add clients to the server.
It's basically a two step process, but we'll see in a minute we need one extra *half step* to make it work with clients that are not the server *itself*.
1. install `snmpd` on the **client**
* configure which IP the client listens on
2. add the client IP to the **server**
So, let's add an other client to the master.
Take any Linux machine you have and install the snmpd package.
Once installed try to add it's IP address to the web GUI of cacti.
You'll be confronted with an error screen like the one below.
The client was **added** but there is an error message in red.
What's happening here?
`System SNMP error - SNMP::get(): No response from 192.168.0.222` means that the client is not listening for incoming connections.
We can fix this by configuring the client to listen on **all** interfaces.
By default the SNMP daemon **only** listens on the loopback device but it's an easy fix.
Open the following file `/etc/snmp/snmp.conf` with your favorite text editor and the problem is sitting right in front of your nose.
```
#
# AGENT BEHAVIOUR
#
# Listen for connections from the local system only
agentAddress udp:127.0.0.1:161
# Listen for connections on all interfaces (both IPv4 *and* IPv6)
#agentAddress udp:161,udp6:[::1]:161
```
You should comment the active `agentAddress` in exchange for the second one.
The second one makes the daemon listen on all interfaces for both ipv4 and ipv6.
If for some reason you configured your Linux kernel to only do ipv4, you'll need to remove the ipv6 entry as follows `agentAddress udp:161` otherwise the daemon will fail to restart.
If you restart the service with `sudo systemctl restart snmpd.service` you're client should be contactable by your server!
