Today we finally finished a large migration project for a small company.  Migration is more than just an upgrade, it is a major shift to more efficient technology, faster resources, better security and ultimately cost savings.

Here is what this project entailed.

1. Migrate 4 mail servers to new hardware, CentOS 6 and faster resources.
Mail servers are very important to organizations so migrating 4 servers takes time as mail must always be available. Part of this project was to create a MX Backup so if local mail servers were down now mail would be lost as it is collected on a remote mail server sitting on a cloud.  Another aspect of this migration was to enhance the Spam checking with special configuration to Spamassassin and rules to help the organization lower Spam rates.

2. Migration of 2 DNS Server
DNS is where a lot of organizations really slack off.  We have seen repeated situations where organizations set up a DNS server and nothing is done to it in years and by that time no one remembers how to fix it or migrate it to a new location.  For this project we rebuilt two DNS servers at different locations across the country so that no matter what happened locally their DNS was functioning correctly.

3. Migration of 10 Web Servers
When we migrate web servers it is not only moving the domains and setting up SSL certificates for shopping carts but is also involves these key features for security:
* PSAD (Port Scan Attack Detector) – a program to stop attackers from scanning ports
* rkhunter – a rootkit hunter that searches for rootkits daily and sends an email to an administrator
* AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment) – checks for changes in the operating system
* ModSecurity – prevents zero day exploits, a must if you use PHP and MySQL environments

Security is extremely important these days and any migration needs to include an update of current technologies.

4. Updated Technology
One of the goals of this migration was to include daily images of all servers and weekly images of all servers.  This provides a way for organizations to save big when there are problems.  If a server has a security event or if an administrator makes a mistake, it can easily be fixed by pushing out an image in less than 5 minutes.  In the long run this allows organizations to limit their IT staff as they have something to fall back on.

5. Cost Savings
This entire project with faster hardware, better technology, updated systems, etc. actually was completed with the company savings of 40% each month!  That is the big deal about migration, it ultimately provides a better system at less cost.  We often find companies could make big savings if they ultilized some of the new technology that is available.

Migration, it should lead to more efficient technology, better security and ultimately greater savings for an organization.

In the last few months there has been a lot of consulting work we have done for Postfix.  Postfix is a great mail server …meaning, easy to use, secure, stable and intelligent.  One of the major themes we see with consulting for Postfix is that many organizations are moving to Postfix based on a greater need for performance.  The primary mail server they are moving away from is Sendmail.  Now Sendmail is also a good mail server, but does not seem able to meet the performance that Postfix can provide.  One of the reasons this is true is that Sendmail is monolithic, in other words it is one application that does everything.  While Postfix is a modular system that has a number of applications that work together.  In addition, Postfix is easier to work with.  The config files and the terminology for getting things done is based on information that is just plain easier to understand.  Anyone who has picked up the O’Reilly book on Sendmail knows, Sendmail configuration is anything but easy.

The other theme that we are seeing with Postfix is that organizations are using Postfix as a gateway to their internal mail server.  This is often done to protect an Exchange server that is used by employees.  The security that is inherent to the Linux operating system and the rock solid security that is provided in Postfix are great ways to protect that internal mail server.  When you set up Postfix as a gateway you can lock down all access to the box for users so that it can become a very hardened box.

Postfix provides both excellent performance and security, features specifically needed in today’s mail focused world.

CyberMontana Inc. (spidertools.com) in joint partnership with Nagios Enterprises will provide a 1 hour weekly training session for Nagios. This FREE training session will be provided to help support the Nagios community.

 Class Time and Topic:

Friday November 18 at 3 PM Eastern
The Class session will last one hour and will provide a time for students to ask questions and suggest topics for upcoming sessions.
Using Passive Checks with NSClient++
This class will demonstrate how to set up passive checks with NSClient++.  The advantage of these kinds of checks is that Nagios can be used to monitor a Windows server that is behind a firewall.

Requirements:

The class is open to anyone, however, to listen to the class you will need either speakers on your computer or you can also call in using a phone.  If you want to ask questions you will need to have a headset or microphone.  The best set up is a USB headset (about $10) because the USB does not have the echo in audio sometimes found with other options.
* audio connection
* microphone if you want to ask questions (or you can call on a phone)

 Registration Procedure:

We have decided to make this easy…the code is posted here for the GoToMeeting ID which will get you into the class.  The first 15 to log in will get in class.  Sorry the limit is 15 users.  Here is the code:

http://gotomeeting.com/join/376580802

Format:
The Free Nagios Training  will use GoToMeeting so that people can login and not only view demonstrations but ask questions and discuss options with other students.  Best audio is with a USB headset as other options often echo.  Class size will be restricted to 15.

Previous Topics:
Students can send requests for topics to mweber at spidertools.com and I will review the topic to see if I can set up a demo for what you want to learn.  Topics will be posted on the spidertools.com blog so that you will always know what is in the queue for training.

Monitoring with NRPE
How to Monitor a Windows Machine

When:
The class will be held on Fridays at 3 PM Eastern Time and will last for one hour.

One of my goals for going to the Nagios Conference in St. Paul was to listen to what Nagios users needed in order to use Nagios more effectively.  The one thing I heard repeatedly was the desire for more hands on learning opportunities.  Well, we have decided to make that happen on a weekly basis.  We will provide one hour of Free Nagios Training each week as a way to help support the Nagios community.

Format:
The Free Nagios Training  will use GoToMeeting so that people can login and not only view demonstrations but ask questions and discuss options with other students.  Best audio is with a USB headset other options often echo badly.  Class size will be restricted to 15.

Topics:
Students can send requests for topics to mweber at spidertools.com and I will review the topic to see if I can set up a demo for what you want to learn.  Topics will be posted on the spidertools.com blog so that you will always know what is in the queue for training.

October 7, 2011 — How to Monitor a Windows Machine
This session will demonstrate how to use Nagios Core and Nagios XI to montitor a Windows machine using NSClient++.

October 14, 2011 — How to Monitor a Linux Server with NRPE
This session will demonstrate how to monitor a Linux server with NRPE, both Nagios Core and Nagios XI will be used  in the demonstration.

October 21, 2011 — How to Set Up a Cisco Router
This session will demonstrate using Nagios Core and Nagios XI how to begin monitoring a Cisco router.

Who Can Attend:
We are going to give priority to previous students of the Official Nagios Training and then open the class to anyone in the Nagios community once those students have had an opportunity.  Initially, we will have a class limit of 15 so that I suspect we will have 7 – 10 open slots for the Nagios community each week.

When:
The class will be held on Fridays at 3 PM Eastern Time and will last for one hour.  The first class is Friday October 7, 2011.

How Do You Determine Who Can Come:
On Tuesday morning by 10 AM Eastern previous students of the Official Nagios training will have first shot at the class on Friday.  On Wednesday morning at 10 AM Eastern the remaining slots will be open to the Nagios community.  I am currently going to restrict the class size to 15 but may consider expanding depending upon the interest.  Those students who sign up for a class and do not show up will be moved to the bottom of the list…I do not want to waste slots.

How Do You Sign Up:
I will post the topic on Monday on this blog site.  Tuesday from 10 AM Eastern to Wednesday at 10 AM Eastern past students of the Official Nagios Training can sign up by sending an email request to mweber at spidertools.com.  After 10 AM Eastern on Wednesday we will accept requests from the community.  I will post an update on the remaining slots on the spidertools.com blog so you will know what is left.  I will confirm all those students who are accepted and will send those who will attend a unique key to login on Friday.

The Nagios Conference just ended with a question and answer session and a promise for a larger conference next year.  Everyone I talked to was extremely pleased with the Conference.  One thing that everyone emphasizd was the time people had to network and get tips from other administrators deploying Nagios.  There certainly was a wide range of experience at the conference.  I talked with admins who had deployed Nagios 2 days before the conference as well as admins who had used the first version of Nagios way back at NetSaint.

Here are the biggest highlights that I experienced at the conference:

The most informative session I went to was from an admin at a large insurance company who detailed, page after page, all of the small things that they did to enhance performance in a large environment.  This kind of information could not be gathered on the Interent or in any other way because of the detail and the scale that it required to attain.  I will certainly put this in place even in small settings just to prepare for the option of scaling.

The time I was able to talk with other admins working on Nagios was really beneficial as I had a programmer give me a tip on perl that I would have not figured out on my own.  I had admins confirm things that I had taught in classes but in a training situation you cannot always try things on the same scale as some of these people.  I have worked with Nagios Enterprises directly in the training area for over a year now which gave me a great foundation to help people with specific problems that they were facing in their environment.  And it was great to see students who had been in classes for Nagios training that were now at the conference.

It was interesting to be able to talk face to face with the Nagios staff who I send email back and forth with daily.  I had beneficial conversations with Ethan Galstad about some of the specifics we are facing with training and some of the things happening to Nagios XI development.

This Nagios Conference was certainly worth the time and effort to attend.

One of the highlights of the conference was to listen to some of the new features and get a review of current features with Nagios Core and Nagios XI.  Ethan Galstad presented an interesting session that demonstrated some of the upgrades that will occur with both Core and XI.  Most of the people that I have talked with here are using Nagios Core, which is interesting.   So most of these people have good skills at the command line and have been working with Core for a long time.  It was encouraging to see that Nagios is putting new emphasis on developing a number of issues with Core, mostly under the hood stuff, that will increase speed and reduce resource usage.  This is something everyone wants when they begin to scale Nagios.

The Nagios XI feature that I hear most people request is automated reporting.  This is where you can set up who, when and what people will get automated PDFs sent to them to review.  It is great news to hear this is in the testing phase and will soon be rolled out.

I also talked with Ethan about updates on a bug issue or two that have been resolved and will be fixed in the next release so that is also good news on the XI front.

Understanding better the Nagios XI reporting and alerting features will be a project for me in the near future as the presentation clearly demonstrated aspects that I did not know existed.   So I will document these and pass them on to students.

Again, it is great to be able to talk shop about Nagios to everyone at the conference.

I did two sessions this morning which provided some interesting feedback and I learned a few things from people as well.  I did a session on monitoring Linux mail servers and a session on criteria for choosing Nagios plugins.  One thing I learned from a programmer was the difference in impact on a Nagios server whether you are using the standard perl of embedded perl.  Really stuff I should know but didn’t.

One of the great things about the conference has been the ability to walk into any small group and immediately start up a conversation about Nagios and how it is implemented.  There are so many eager people here talking about Nagios it is really a unique situation. I guess I was just surprised at the level of interest.  Having taught Nagios for years, it has given me a foundation for discussions about a lot of aspects about Nagios.  No doubt about it, I am learning a lot as well.

During lunch I had the opportunity to talk with the staff at Nagios.  I just sat down at a table and started talking not realizing who they were.  Of course I exchange email and communicate with them on a regular basis but never had seen them face to face.  Interesting to talk with the staff about Nagios growth and the processes they go through to support Nagios.

The Nagios Conference registration was a great opportunity to get to talk with people.  I spent a lot of time talking with a person from a large company that was testing one of the addons for Nagios Mod-Gearman.  Mod-Gearman is an application that helps you offload the work load on your Nagios server to other workers.  It is all about the ability to scale Nagios in a large environment.  This is one the major advantages of a conference,  rubbing shoulders with people evaluating the same issues that you are because you are bound to learn some valuable information.  There is just so much to know about Nagios.

This company is performing scale as they are dealing with 3 million checks with their Nagios deployment.  It was encouraging to hear that on a large scale deployment of Nagios using Mod-Gearman, it was getting the same positive response that I have found while teaching how to use it in the Advanced Nagios class.  One of the great things about Mod-Gearman is the ease of set-up and the ability to use older hardware as workers.  The other feature that is great about Mod-Gearman is that it is very easy to set up and use.  This provides a rapid method of scaling for situations that occur.

The three hours I spent talking with people at registration was time well spent.  As a trainer it is always important to listen to what people want to learn, the problems they are having and the solutions they have discovered because those are the things we want to be teaching in the classes.

After a 2.5 hour flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul for the Nagios Conference, I had a couple hours this afternoon after arriving to work on a few changes for my presentations.  I am using a laptop to virtualize Nagios Core, Nagios XI and a Postfix mail server for the first presentation.  This can offer a few challenges in terms of resources for a laptop but it is working OK. I am providing a slide presentation with demonstrations from the live Nagios Core and XI instances.  My goal in this presentation is to demonstrate the flexibility that Nagios has in terms of how to monitor critical services on a mail server.

These type of training sessions are tough because you never know the level of skill that may be in the class and the classes do not last that long, only 50 minutes.

Since this is the first Nagios conference in the US there is a lot of anticipation to see how it goes.  I know attendees will get a lot of resources because they are providing PDFs of the conference and access to videos of all of the sessions. That will be a great resource as there are 4 sessions at a time during the conference.

Well, I can hear people in the atrium as they prepare to go to registration.  Sounds like people very interested in the Nagios conference.  The conference should be full as they sold out.

Administrators who will be monitoring their networks using SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) usually struggle with the initial stages of SNMP.  It is not easy to be productive until you have struggled through some of the basics.
The the 1st Nagios World Conference in North America being held in Saint Paul, Minnesota (USA) September 27th-29th, 2011 provides an avenue for us to provide training for those trying to get started with SNMP.  The Nagios Conference offers multiple options for training and networking with other administrators.  One of the sessions we will be providing is outline below.

SNMP Library: Trying to Locate Relevant Information
When you enter a library to locate a book typically you browse the books that are available, trying to survey your options.  Once you have a topic in mind you begin to move to a section that is close to the book you are interested in.  For example, if you were interested in a book on ironclads during the Civil War you would go to the American History section.  Within the American History section you would find a section called Civil War and then you would start looking for an individual title that would provide the content you were interested in learning.

In the same way, SNMP provides a large library of information that contains titles on specific topics.  The SNMP library is divided into sections just like your favorite public library.  Within those sections may be sub-sections that ultimately lead to specific titles which in the library are called books but within the SNMP library they are called OIDs or Object Identifiers.

SNMP Library Organization by Numbers
Obviously to find  a book in a large public library means that the library, in fact all libraries, must be organized in the same way.  So, if you know how to find a book on cooking fish in your small hometown library, the process of finding a similar book in a large library has to be similar.  In fact this is true as public libraries have historically used the Dewey Decimal system or the Library of Congress to number books throughout the library.

Just like your public library SNMP is numbered so it is easier to find what you are looking for.  The SNMP library starts with the number 1 and flows outward like a tree with sub-numbers.

The sections in the SNMP library are labeled with the term MIB (Management Information Base).  The MIB structure is required of every device using the SNMP library so as a Nagios administrator you know you have a structure or tree that will be similar on all devices.  One of the most significant MIBs or sections is MIB-II which has sub-sections just like the “history” section or your public library has “american history”, “greek history”, “european history”, etc.  This MIB-II section includes information that is very valuable when monitoring a device with Nagios.  For example, one of the sub-sections is interfaces (mib-2.2) which provides you information about each of the interfaces on the machine you want to monitor.

SNMP Library Discovery Tools
When you go to a large library you can waste a lot of time “browsing” when in fact there are specific tools that can be used to help you locate just the book you are looking for.  In a similar way, in order to access the SNMP library you will need a tool like snmpwalk or snmpget  from the command line.  These commands allow you to access the library and choose a section to browse and ultimately locate the OID (book) you are looking for.  The tool snmpwalk, walks or traverses the entire tree or library.  The tool snmpget looks only for one book in the library.

The session will demonstrate the several available tools and how to create Nagios checks using the tools so that you can leave the presentation with the ability to start monitoring with SNMP.