System Monitoring with Check_MK – Part 2: Advanced topics
Have you attended our first course System Monitoring with Check_MK – Part 1: Basics already, or have comparable knowledge through practical experience? Then the second part of our Check_MK training is just right for you!
Our 5 day advanced training will introduce you to many exciting topics around monitoring with Check_MK and beyond. We also share best practices and advanced methods – such as Check_MK on the command line.
We use OMD – the Open Monitoring Distribution as a platform. OMD simplifies installation and updates of the entire monitoring ecosystem greatly and offers further advantages such as professional, globally standardized system integration and multi-instance capabilities.
An important part concerns the architecture of the monitoring system. Here we discuss distributed monitoring – installations with more than one monitoring server. We show you how you can build a central configuration with WATO, how to monitor security areas (eg. DMZ, internet servers) safely, and discuss advantages and disadvanages of the possible architectures.
As well as the established Check_MK Event Console, we present new topics such as reporting and hardware/software inventory.
Remark: If you do not yet have practical experience with Check_MK, our basic training System Monitoring with Check_MK – Part 1: Basics is better suited for you.
Topics
OMD – The Open Monitoring Distribution
- omd diff
- Backup with omd backup and omd restore
Check_MK on the command line
- Working with the cmk command
- Overview of the file system – what is stored where
- Editing config files by hand
- Reading log files
Advanced features of Check_MK
- Simulating complex environments on a test system
- Monitoring clusters with and without a service IP address
- Manage hosts automatically with the WATO web API
- Installing and configuring agents manually
- Fetching cache files
The Check_MK Micro Core
- Architecture and advantages of the CMC
- Differences when changing the monitoring core
Architecture of distributed monitoring
- Distributed monitoring with Livestatus
- LQL = Livestatus Query Language
- The Livestatus Proxy Daemon
- Central configuration management with WATO
BI – Business Intelligence
- Representing business processes with Check_MK BI
- Rules that discover applications automatically
- BI in distributed monitoring
- Turning BI aggregations into ‘normal’ checks
The Event Console
- Difference between states and events
- Setup and configuration of the Event Console
- Connecting Syslog, SNMP Traps and log files
- Structure and features of event rules
- How to respond to events from an operating perspective
- Automatic an manual triggering of actions
- The Event Console in distributed monitoring
Reporting
- Availability evaluation with Check_MK
- Introduction to the Check_MK reporting module
- Using instant reports
- Creating custom reports
- Static page elements such as logos, page numbers etc.
- Views, PNPGraphs and availability tables
Hardware-/Software inventory
- Extending the Check_MK agent with the inventory plugin
- How Check_MK collects information about hardware and software from hosts
- Representing inventory data tree-like and in table form
- Exporting data to other systems
User management via LDAP
- Introduction to the LDAP module
- Connecting Active Directory and OpenLDAP
- Mapping LDAP gropus to contact groups and roles
- Mapping of other attributes
- search filters
Monitoring in practice
- Monitoring ORACLE
- Monitoring ESX
Extending Check_MK
- Short introduction to developing custom checks
- Inventory plugins
- Writing custom notification scripts