One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of -Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few -days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system -Nagios. The previous release had automatic configuration of trend -analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step -further.
- -When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically -configured as a Munin and Nagios server. In addition, it is -configured to be a server for the -SiteSummary -system I have written for use in Debian Edu. The SiteSummary -system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I -work. In short, the system provide a centralised collector of -information about the computers on the network, and a client on each -computer submitting information to this collector. This allow for -automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine, -which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the -packages got etc. This also allow us to automatically generate Munin -and Nagios configuration.
- -All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the -munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin -client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show -up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.
- -All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are -automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network -services detected). In addition, all computers (also laptops) with -the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way -sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software -raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on -the machine.
+The next version of Debian Edu +/ Skolelinux will include a new tool +sitesummary2ldapdhcp, which can be used to quickly set up all +the computers in a school without much manual labour. Here is a short +summary on how to use it to set up a new school.
-The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu -based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation -with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time -keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.
+First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the +central server in the network. Next, PXE boot all the client machines +as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to +allow the clients to report their existence to the central server. When +this is done, log on to the central server and run +sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a in the konsole to use the +collected information to generate system objects in LDAP. The output +will look similar to this:
-The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running -is to set the password used to get access via HTTP. The system -administrator need to run "htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users -nagiosadmin" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for -it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages. After that, -everything is taken care of.
++% sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a +info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05. +info: Create GOsa machine for auto-mac-00-01-02-03-04-06 [10.0.16.20] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:06. -