[Xymon] why do you use xymon?

[Tim McCloskey]

I recently had to deploy a (commercial) monitoring system based on SNMP.  It was quite fun since we had removed all traces of SNMPd years back from all client systems.  None of the custom scripts that were deployed over the years for XyMon would fit that mold, resulting in a monitoring system that did not give the systems folks what they needed to do their jobs effectively.   Fortunately, I left our XyMon servers and client binaries running in the background.  

Having the ability to customize and tune your monitoring system is priceless.  Those canned systems just don't allow that flexibility, and waking up to some annoying false/worthless alert at 0300 for a few days/weeks may help in the decision making process to choose an Open Source system.


________________________________________
From: xymon-bounces at xymon.com [xymon-bounces at xymon.com] On Behalf Of Ralph Mitchell [ralphmitchell at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 8:03 PM
To: Jones, Elizabeth
Cc: Xymon at xymon.com
Subject: Re: [Xymon] why do you use xymon?

I took a quick look at the Zenoss community page, and fairly quickly noticed one interesting thing - apparently it's agentless.   No agent to install on target systems, because it picks up information using SNMP.  That's not necessarily bad, but some companies don't like it.  Or you can use "zencommand" to run nagios binaries on your target.  That info is dated May 2008, so maybe it grew up since?

Right now I'm running a somewhat modified xymon client out of cron on AIX, RHEL and SuSE systems, delivering reports over https on port 443 (which is open anyway) instead of opening port 1984.  It doesn't use any compiled binaries other than the standard system commands, which means that I don't have to recompile for system updates.  Bourne shell all the way...  :-)

My situation may be unique, though - we have to comply with both PCI *and* DIACAP requirements.

Ralph Mitchell


On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 8:45 PM, Jones, Elizabeth <Ejones at egov.com<mailto:Ejones at egov.com>> wrote:
Would any of you mind telling me why you use xymon? I have a co-worker who is pushing hard for zenoss, and his arguments include “gui discovery tool”, “no hand editing of config files”, “it is an enterprise level monitoring system and you can buy support and bring in a consultant to set it up for you”, and the ever popular “everyone is using zenoss now”.

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Elizabeth Jones


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