Server monitoring with munin and monit

When running a production server, whether it is under heavy load or otherwise, it is very much desirable to keep track of the various physical aspects of the server like the CPU load, memory usage by the services, whether the required services are running, the network traffic and so on. As well as make sure that all the necessary services are running even when under heavy load and do not die on you.

The Linux server administrators have a perfect combination of tools in Munin and Monit to accomplish the above said situations. Munin surveys the computer and presents all the information in graphs through a web interface. And it is Monit's job to keep track of the processes and restart them if they do not respond or even completely stop a process if it is under heavy load which it cannot bear. You can use monit to monitor files, directories and devices for changes, such as timestamp changes, checksum changes or size changes. You can also monitor remote hosts; monit can ping a remote host and can check TCP/IP port connections and server protocols. These two tools are developed and maintained by different people but in conjunction with each other, they present a powerful medium for system administrators to monitor and manage the services running on Linux/Unix servers in an optimal manner.

Falko Timme has jotted down his experiences in installing and configuring these two nifty tools (munin and monit) on his server to monitor his server statistics and control the running processes which gives a sound understanding of the use of these two rather powerful tools.