I constructed a MRTG/Routers2 configuration template for the Cisco ASA firewall which consists the OIDs (graphs) for the interfaces, CPU, memory, VPNs, connections, ping times, and traceroute hop counts. With only four search-and-replace changes as well as a few further specifications, the whole SNMP monitoring for that firewall is configured.
I am very interested in statistics about the usage of IPv6 on Internet routers and firewalls. The problem is, that most routers/firewalls do not have unique SNMP OIDs for IPv4 and IPv6 traffic, but only the normal incoming/outgoing packet counters per interface. Therefore I am using two independent ethernet ports and cables between my outer router and my first firewall, one for IPv4-only and the other one for IPv6-only traffic. Now I have independent statistics for each protocol and can combine them in one summary graph. (Though I know that this will never be a “best practice” solution…)
Continue reading IPv4 vs. IPv6 Traffic Statistics on Routers
Eine sehr praktische Variante, möglichst viele Sensoren übers Netzwerk abzufragen ohne dabei viel basteln zu müssen, ist die Ethernetbox von MessPC. Man kann sie zum Beispiel mit mehreren kombinierten Temperatur/Luftfeuchtigkeits-Sensoren bestücken. Die Auswertung erfolgt am besten über ein zentrales Monitoring-System.
Auf der Homepage von MessPC befindet sich zwar eine kleine Dokumentation für die Verwendung von MRTG, allerdings wird dort ein zusätzliches Skript vorgestellt, was dank der Verwendung von SNMP ja gar nicht nötig ist. Deswegen poste ich hier mein Template von einem MessPC mit zwei Kombisensoren für Temperatur/Luftfeuchtigkeit, welches für die Verwendung mit MRTG und Routers2 gemäß meiner Installation geeignet ist. Mit nur drei Suchen-und-Ersetzen Durchläufen hat man das Template angepasst.
I am always interested in capturing real values via hardware devices in order to generate the appropriate graphs with my monitoring system. Of course, the outside temperature in our city was at the pole position for such a project. Therefore I ordered a few temperature/humidity sensors from PCsensor (via eBay), plugged them via USB on my Raspberry Pi (Raspbian Linux), and queried them via SNMP from my MRTG/Routers2 monitoring server. Here is the whole story:
Continue reading Measuring Temperatures with PCsensor’s TEMPerHUM Sensor
This post describes how to add a Linux machine to the MRTG/Routers2 monitoring server. First, the host must be able to process SNMP requests. Then, a *.cfg file for MRTG/Routers2 is created by running the “cfgmaker” tool with a host-template. Since a few values are wrong in the cfgmaker file, I also explain how to correct them. Finally, I am adding the mrtg-ping-probe lines to the configuration.
The Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG) can, of course, not only monitor routers via SNMP, but any devices that support the Simple Network Management Protocol, e.g., switches. With the tool “cfgmaker” it is quite easy to add switches with many ports to the monitoring system. However, some subsequent work is needed to have a clean configuration. This blog post presents a step-by-step guide for adding a switch into MRTG/Routers2.
This post shortly explains the process of adding a Cisco router into the monitoring system “MRTG with Routers2” as I explained it here. It gives an example on how SNMP is activated on the router and how the *.cfg file for MRTG/Routers2 is created with the additional values for CPU and memory usage.
I always wanted to monitor my private network with an open source tool. Since I knew some nice statistics, e.g. from the DE-CIX (printed with RRDtool) or from the Uni-Gießen (generated with MRTG), I had the idea of installing such a system by myself. Luckily I found a book from Steve Shipway, called “Using MRTG with RRDtool and Routers2“, which actually disappointed me because it did not offer a complete installation guide but mainly further information about fine-tuning the appropriate tools.
Therefore, I want to show a complete step-by-step installation of all the needed tools in order to monitor a network with MRTG, RRDtool and Routers2. “From scratch” means that there are no prerequisite to this installation guide except a plain Linux server (in my case a Ubuntu Linux) such as presented here. Okay, let’s go: Continue reading MRTG with RRDtool and Routers2 – Installation from Scratch