MoSSHe 1.3.11 review

MoSSHe (MOnitoring with SSH Environment) is a simple, lightweight (both in size and system requirements) server monitoring package de

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 26K Developer: Volker Tanger

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MoSSHe (MOnitoring with SSH Environment) is a simple, lightweight (both in size and system requirements) server monitoring package designed for secure and in-depth monitoring of a handful of typical/critical internet systems. For example in a current setup I do 264 checks on 29 servers - on average 9 checks for each system. MoSSHe supports email alerts out of the box - and whatever you can script.

The web interface to status and logs reflects this approach: less than 10 systems are ideal for the "big" (showall) web display, less then 50 for the problem-centric (tactical) view. More than 100 systems should easily be possible, but I have not tested such an extended setup.

In contrast to many other NMS (Network Management Systems) it is not possible to "overload" a MoSSHe system - the minimum checkup intervals will simply extend with each added system, though. For the setup mentioned above the time needed for 264 checks on 29 servers is 100 seconds. But for your setup it may vary significantly.

Via the web interface you can view the overall status (tactical.py), server status and service history, but you cannot modify anything - which makes it quite safe for even non-admin multiuser use...

Requirements:
for MoSSHe-server:

SSH (client) with DSA key authentication support
Unix Shell (tested with BASH)
standard Unix text tools (fgrep, cut, head, mail, ...)
"netcat" networking tool

for additional checks (only if performed):

"dig" for DNS check
"free" memory display for memory check
"lpq" BSD(compatible) printing for printing check
"smbclient" for samba check
"snmp" networking tools (especiall "snmpget") for SNMP check
"mbmon" for motherboard checks (CPU temp, fan speed)
/proc/mdstat for Linux SoftRAID monitoring

for web interface:

webserver supporting CGI scripting
Python interpreter

for each monitored server/system

SSH (server) with DSA key authentication support
Unix Shell (tested with BASH)
standard Unix text tools (fgrep, cut, head, mail, ...)

What's New in This Release:
To enable server checking beyond firewalls that block ICMP echo-requests, a feature was added to allow checks on unpingable servers.
Now MoSSHe can (and will) re-schedule a check faster, directly after each status change.
A "noping_" feature was added.
The RETRYSLEEP variable was added.
A bug which left stale status information in the server stat file was removed.