What a good tool to monitor network activity

Question

I work in a neighborhood WIFI network in a rural environment .

Now I am looking for a monitoring tool to run on a server (Windows or Linux) that will monitor bandwidth, uptime (clients, as well as Internet connection), etc. Most of this information is displayed via SNMP using my routers and access points, so SNMP support is required.

Additional functions:

• Representation of graphic data
• free license

So what is the best choice for me?

Edit These tools are mentioned so far:

• MRTG
• Munin
• Nagios
• Zenoss core
• ntop
• cacti
• Zabbix

Answer 1

MRTG is probably the easiest to configure. If your router has SNMP (as you mention) to configure it with one command:

cfgmaker --output=mrtg_myrouter.cfg public@1.2.3.4 

MRTG is good for high-bandwidth routers and similar devices. This is not very good for other data (it can be forced to graphically display most things, but it is a little unintuitive to configure)

For monitoring other things, I like Munin . I would describe it again, but I recently posted an answer (on graphical disk usage).

Munin can, of course, use graphical network usage and easily retrieve data through SNMP (in fact, the recommended setting for capturing data from Windows servers is to run the SNMP daemon on the Windows machine and connect Munin to this). Graphs are also prettier than MRG, I would say (obviously the most important factor ...)

Here is an example of installing MRTG here , and Munin here

Answer 2

IMHO, Cacti is the easiest to install and use.

Zabbix is interesting, but harder to use.

And here is a very complete list of all network monitoring tools.

Answer 3

Not sure if this matches your usage, but many web hosting providers use Nagios to monitor the network.

Answer 4

Zenoss Core is free and open source. It supports RRD charts (like the other monitoring tools mentioned here). To monitor settings other than the underlying network bandwidth (and state status), the definitions of the SNMP switch or router and MIB should be available as ZenPack , runs on a Linux server (virtual?). Uses Google Maps to display link status.

Answer 5

I use ntop , it is free on linux and for purchase if you want a Windows binary and do a great job with us

Answer 6

I had the same question last week and tried several options.

For basic graphical needs, snmp cacti is fine, but the graphical display is apache, mysql, etc. too complicated, I think.

ntop is also a great tool, but different from the others on your list.

You should see Zenoss . The basic version is FOSS, friendly and very powerful. I did not need an Enterprise version, but your needs may vary. It performs graphics, monitoring, and alerting of all the main features, but it loads some ZenPacks, and you can easily add Apache, MySQL, or many other statistics. All configuration can be done through a graphical interface. The interface is clear and responsive and makes it easy to manage very large networks.

In short, I'm glad that I never spent much time on Nagios , because I think Zenoss is the best option.

Answer 7

Also consider CactiEZ in a virtual machine or on a small server, it is a system based on the centerless CentOS 6.