Nagios is an open-source monitoring solution, now included as part of the robust Nagios Core Services Platform (CSP). It delivers end-to-end visibility across the entire IT infrastructure, covering everything from websites and DNS to servers, routers, switches, workstations, and critical services. It helps organizations proactively detect issues, minimize downtime, and ensure the reliability of their systems.
Nagios Core features
Nagios offers a set of features designed to keep networks and systems running smoothly. It provides monitoring of network services such as SMTP, POP3, HTTP, and PING, as well as host resources like processor load and disk usage.
Through its plugin interface, users can extend monitoring capabilities with custom-developed methods tailored to their environment. One of its strengths is the ability to define a host hierarchy, using “parent” hosts to distinguish between systems that are truly down and those that are simply unreachable due to upstream issues.
When problems occur, Nagios ensures administrators are notified through email, pager, or other user-defined channels, and it supports event handlers for proactive issue resolution. Logs are automatically rotated and archived to maintain efficiency, and an optional web interface provides at-a-glance access to network status, notifications, problem history, and archived logs.
Nagios is available for free on GitHub. It’s distributed as part of the Nagios CSP distribution in two formats:
- Pre-compiled and installed with plugins and critical addons in a pre-made virtual machine
- In source code format for Open Source enthusiasts and developers
Must read:
Subscribe to the Help Net Security ad-free monthly newsletter to stay informed on the essential open-source cybersecurity tools. Subscribe here!
