Archive for the 'Cool Stuff' Category

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Monitoring Weblogic Metrics with Nagios XI

Weblogic is a popular Java-based application server that acts as a middleware between the application and the Java environment.  It provides a framework for developing traits such as reliability (recovering from failures), scalability (dynamic service scaling) and security (unified security system for apps).  Nagios XI has the ability to monitor various aspects of Weblogic using wlsagent as outlined in our document Monitoring WebLogic With Nagios XI. In this post I will expand upon some of those metrics, such as what they mean and why they are important.  Links to further reading will be provided where relevant.

Nagios XI Service Status Dashboard

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How to Monitor Domain Expiration with Nagios XI 2014

Nagios XI - Domain Expiration WizardAnyone who rents or owns a domain knows that its registration will expire unless it is renewed. An expired domain can cause loads of issues for groups who rely on the accessibility of said domain whether they are large or small. One major issue that can stem from an expired domain in which you may have forgotten to renew is that a “squatter” could potentially register that domain under their own name and grab your valuable traffic for themselves. With the new Domain Expiration Wizard you can monitor down to the day of when your domain will expire. This is done by checking against the registrar to determine the time remaining so that you can renew your registration before it becomes too late. This is only one of the new wizards included in our latest release of Nagios XI 2014.

The Domain Expiration wizard can be ran in a few easy steps:

  • First, Enter the address of your domain:

Nagios XI - Domain Expiration Wizard

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Monitoring Website Defacement with Nagios XI 2014

There’s a new wizard in town and I don’t mean Gandalf the White!  The Website Defacement Wizard is a new wizard available in the latest release of Nagios XI 2014.

One of the worst things a company can suffer PR-wise is website defacement. At best, it will require restoring the page, and at worst it can be a nightmare of log review, security patches, and damage control. Time is of the essence in such a situation, so being alerted as soon as possible is of utmost importance. That’s where the Website Defacement Wizard comes in handy.

The Website Defacement Wizard allows you to monitor a web page for certain keywords, either alerting if they are present in the case of offensive or spam-related words, or alerting if they are missing, which may indicate a whole-page defacement. We provide a few pre-defined lists of words you may wish to look for, sorted into categories such as Profanity and Gambling. You can also add your own words or phrases, or remove certain words if they might be expected on the page (such as “unisex” on a page discussing clothing). If you would rather check to ensure the existence of a word or phrase, the process is similar and will be described in this article.

So without further delay, let’s walk through setting up a check:

In the Nagios XI interface, go to the Configure tab and click Run the Monitoring Wizard. Scroll all the way down the page and click Website Defacement.

Website Defacement Wizard - Nagios XI

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Using the New SLA Report within Nagios XI 2014

New to Nagios XI 2014, is the ability to generate reports based on service level agreement (SLA) statistics. In addition to the already included Availability Report, the SLA Report gives you the ability to prove, via already monitored hosts and services within your Nagios system, that you are meeting or exceeding those pesky up-time agreements.

Options for SLA Reporting in Nagios 2014

As per traditional Nagios XI reporting capabilities, there are a wide variety of included time periods that will fit most use cases, as well as the ability to generate reports based on custom time periods. Reports can also be filtered by Host, Hostgroup, and Servicegroup for maximum flexibility when only specific hosts and services need to have reports generated. The final important aspect when generating a report is the modifiable SLA Target value. This allows you up to 5 points of precision when generating reports and can fully calculate the five 9s(99.999%) used in so many cases.

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