NetMRG - network monitoring, reporting, and graphing

What is Netmrg ?

NetMRG is a tool for network monitoring, reporting, and graphing. Based on RRDTOOL, the best of open source graphing systems, NetMRG is capable of creating graphs of any parameter of your network.

NetMRG Requirements

PHP, Version >= 4.1

MySQL, Version >= 3.23

RRDTOOL, Version >= 1.0.28

libxml2, Version >= 2.30

gcc/g++/libstdc++, Version >= 3.2

Versions earlier than this may compile just fine, but may experience runtime issues. Specifically, we experienced software crashes on an SMP machine running version 2.96 that were resolved by upgrading to 3.2.

NET/UCD-SNMP, Version >= 4.2.2

NetMRG Features

NetMRG tries its best to distinguish itself from other network monitors; here's a few ways we're trying to do that:

Slide Show (global, per-group) w/ auto-scroll - allows you to see an entire device's graphs without doing anything, then move onto the next device.

Graph Templates - reduce the amount of work you do to add new devices

Events, Responses, and Notifications - get notified when key items in your network behave oddly.

Workday Highlighting - so you can tell when your customers are commonly in-office and when things are out-of-norm.

Several methods to gather information: SNMP, [My]SQL, or Scripts (use your favourite language)

Updater tool - very little admin interaction is required to stay current with NetMRG

Netmrg Screenshots

http://www.netmrg.net/screenshots.php

Download NetMRG

http://www.netmrg.net/download.php

NetMRg Documentation

http://wiki.netmrg.net/wiki/Main_Page

First you need to install the following applications in your Debian server

For apache Webserver installation with php support check here

For mysql database installation check here

If you want to use latest rrdtool check here

Installing Net-SNMP in debian

#apt-get install snmpd snmp

If you want to configure snmp you need to configure snmpd.conf file located at /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf check here for example configuration files.

Installing Netmrg in Debian

#apt-get install netmrg

This will start the netmrg installation at the time of installation it will prompt you for some important questions about how do you want to setup netmrg in your system.

After completing this installation process you can access your netmrg using the following

http://you-server-ip/netmrg/

Important Note:- Default Username and Password for netmrg is username as admin with password nimda. Once you logged in using these details you need to change the password immediately for security reasons.

Now you need to add your Server or Device to monitor with the required services you want to monitor.

Take a look at this basic tutorial about adding devices services

If you want to create a custom graph check this tutorial

If you are not getting graphs check this troubleshooting guide

NetMRG Graph Example - An Ethernet Switch

Here I’ll show you an example of how to use NetMRG to graph an Ethernet switch.

Define a custom graph template

Click the Template Graphs tab and then click the Duplicate icon beside item Linux Box - LAN Traffic.  Now edit the duplicate template and change the name and title as shown:

Name:  Cisco - LAN Traffic

Title: %dev_name% - %ifDescr%%n - %ifAlias% (ifAlias optional)

Comment: Interface: %ifDescr% - %ifAlias%

Vertical label: bytes / sec

Customizing a graph template

Monitor an Ethernet switch via SNMP

1.   Add a template group called Cisco switches.

2.   Add an Ethernet switch under Monitored Devices for the Cisco Switches group, set the IP or hostname, SNMP v2c, and the switch’s community string.  Click Save.

3.   Click the Re-cache Interfaces' icon next to the new Switch item.  NetMRG will draw a table of Switch-A's interfaces including

·      Interface index number

·      Status (Up/Up, Up/Down, etc)

·      Name (Fa0/1, Gig3/12, etc)

·      Alias (Cisco IOS user customizable description)

·      IP address (if any)

·      Mac Address

Select the template Cisco - LAN Traffic in the lower right corner of the window,click the checkbox beside each interface you want to graph, and then click the link Monitor/Graph All Checked.

Click Admin -> Cisco Switches, click the new switch and notice that the interface(s) you chose above are now listed as sub-devices.

NetMRG Data Polling

1.   Run the netmrg gatherer manually in verbose (-a for “all”) to verify polling setup.  If you have no errors you may proceed and set cron.

sudo -u root /usr/bin/netmrg-gatherer -a

2.   Set the netmrg gatherer in cron to poll devices every 5 minutes.

#sudo -u root (or preferred user) crontab -e

*/5 * * * *  /usr/bin/netmrg-gatherer

Viewing Graphs

Click Reporting -> Tree -> Cisco Switches, and then select your new switch.  The orange graph icon links will display your graphs.