Search for a solution to track network activity using pings and notifications on Linux or Windows systems.
Search for a solution to track network activity using pings and notifications on Linux or Windows systems.
I have a small lab setup with FreeNAS, two Ubuntu servers and one Windows Server. I want to keep track of their status. Recently a DNS went down for more than a month without me realizing it, so I need a way to check regularly and get alerts if something fails. I’m after a solution that can send pings or use SNMP and notify me via email if a machine isn’t reachable. Nagios seems too heavy for this task. I’d like to run it on both Ubuntu servers so redundancy is maintained. Are there any free tools that fit this requirement? My APs and switches are Unifi, which already sends alerts when they go down. That’s essentially all I need. I also found PRTG, but it only works on Windows machines, which isn’t ideal for my setup.
PRTG is commonly adopted and suggested for business settings. If you can afford it, proceed. From the OSS perspective, I suggest pairing Prometheus, AlertManager and Grafana. I apply them to oversee four locations (homelab, cloud plus two others), all linked via Wireguard. I rely on snmp-exporter for network gear data, node-exporter for host/VMs metrics, and cadvisor for container workloads. Nagios seemed outdated to me; I haven’t become very comfortable with it. Still, there are users who prefer it. Deploying Prometheus + Grafana felt more straightforward (especially with everything in containers). I also use healthchecks.io—it’s affordable and has proven dependable so far. If a ping fails after a certain duration, it triggers alerts.
Prometheus seems too much for my needs. I just need a quick check every few seconds to see if a device is running. I don’t want to track disk or CPU usage or store all the stats and graphs. I just need an alert if, say, ten pings fail.
I discovered Monit, which was straightforward to configure and successfully launched on both my Linux servers. It continuously pings and, upon failure, sends an email containing the details. Topic resolved.