Until now, I had always used the famous Nagios / Centreon couple for my supervision. Only today the two projects do not get along too much. Nagios devs no longer bother to make their tool compatible with the Centreon historical overlay since version 4. And conversely, the Centreon team no longer seeks to add this to Nagios from the stable version of their engine named Centreon Engine. I tried to give the latter a chance. But after a few hours spent on Tibetan forums looking for a fix for an SQL error, I decided to start from scratch and find myself a new monitoring tool.

Shinken installation

Name: Tremplin Numérique
Price range: $$$

Shinken needs a user to function.

<br />
useradd -m shinken

1	useradd –m shinken

We move on to the installation of the python dependencies necessary for the installation

<br />
apt-get install python-pycurl python-setuptools python-pip

1	apt–get install python–pycurl python–setuptools python–pip

Shinken installation is done via pip

<br />
pip install shinken

1	pip install shinken

This installation gives us the following tree structure

/ etc / shinken : all the configuration of the program
/ usr / bin / shinken- * : the daemon launch scripts
/ var / lib / shinken : shinken modules and monitoring plugins (we will come back to this)
/ var / log / shinken : top secret

We launch the tool with its init script

<br />
/etc/init.d/shinken start

1	/etc/init.d/shinken start

By default, Shinken only supervises itself. Even more, this supervision is very light. If you take a look at the host configuration side under /etc/shinken/hosts/localhost.cfg, you can see that the latter uses a “template” named “generic-host” which just checks that the host is up.

We are going to add some more basic checks on our host. For this we will use a specialized pack. The packs are script boxes to supervise a particular device and are available on this page.

We go under the Shinken user to install the pack

<br />
su – shinken

1	su – shinken

The Shinken CLI needs to be initialized in order to generate the ini file containing the paths to the various tool configuration directories.

<br />
shinken –init

1	shinken —init

Now we can look for our Linux pack

<br />
shinken search linux

1	shinken search linux

Which gives the following result

<br />
glances (david-guenault) [pack,system,linux,glances] : Standard check through checkglances.py and glances server<br />
linux-snmp (naparuba) [pack,linux,snmp] : Linux checks based on SNMP<br />
linux-ssh (naparuba) [pack,linux,ssh] : Linux checks based on SSH without any script on distant server<br />
pack-glances (david-guenault) [pack,system,linux,glances] : Standard check through checkglances.py and glances server<br />
raspberrypi (frescha) [pack,linux,raspberrypi,server,os] : Standard checks

glances (david–guenault) [pack,system,linux,glances] : Standard check through checkglances.py and glances server

linux–snmp (naparuba) [pack,linux,snmp] : Linux checks based on SNMP

linux–ssh (naparuba) [pack,linux,ssh] : Linux checks based on SSH without any script on distant server

pack–glances (david–guenault) [pack,system,linux,glances] : Standard check through checkglances.py and glances server

raspberrypi (frescha) [pack,linux,raspberrypi,server,os] : Standard checks

We will choose the linux-ssh package which is an agent mode. The script opens an ssh connection to run a command on the remote server and retrieve the information. You should know that this mode is not the most recommended because it consumes more resources than a classic SNMP request.

<br />
shinken install linux-ssh

1	shinken install linux–ssh

The pack is installed with all its plugins in the / var / lib / shinken / libexec / folder.

These plugins need a library named python-paramiko. We go back to root to perform this installation.

<br />
exit   # pour repasser root<br />
apt-get install python-paramiko<br />
su – shinken # retour sur l’user shinken

exit # pour repasser root

apt–get install python–paramiko

su – shinken # retour sur l’user shinken

These plugins launch an ssh connection on the remote server, in this case the local server in our case. We will therefore generate a pair of ssh keys and give the public key to the shinken user.

<br />
ssh-keygen

1	ssh–keygen

Do not enter a passphrase otherwise the script would wait for human intervention to enter it at each execution.

Deployment of the public key

<br />
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa shinken@localhost

1	ssh–copy–id –i ~/.ssh/id_rsa shinken@localhost

We will test a plugin to see that everything works perfectly

<br />
/var/lib/shinken/libexec/check_load_average_by_ssh.py -H localhost

1	/var/lib/shinken/libexec/check_load_average_by_ssh.py –H localhost

What must give

<br />
Ok: load average is good 0.59,0.27,0.15 | load1=0.59;1.00;2.00;; load5=0.27;1.00;2.00;; load15=0.15;1.00;2.00;;

1	Ok: load average is good 0.59,0.27,0.15 \| load1=0.59;1.00;2.00;; load5=0.27;1.00;2.00;; load15=0.15;1.00;2.00;;

We will therefore add the linux-ssh tag to the definition of our host. For that we edit /etc/shinken/hosts/localhost.cfg

<br />
define host{<br />
        use                     linux-ssh,generic-host<br />
        contact_groups          admins<br />
        host_name               localhost<br />
        address                 localhost<br />
        }

define host{

use linux–ssh,generic–host

contact_groups admins

host_name localhost

address localhost

}

For more details on the configuration of a host I refer you to the official documentation.

We relaunch shinken to take into account

<br />
/etc/init.d/shinken restart

1	/etc/init.d/shinken restart

Alerts can be viewed in the log file

<br />
tail -f /var/log/shinken/schedulerd.log

1	tail –f /var/log/shinken/schedulerd.log

Well, a console is not great for displaying the status of our machines. We are going to install the Shinken web interface to make it more pleasant.

Installation of the web interface

The web interface is a module of the daemon broker which will read, interpret and display the results obtained in the log files.

The installation is done from the prompt of the user shinken

<br />
shinken install webui

1	shinken install webui

The configuration is in the file /etc/shinken/modules/webui.cfg

<br />
define module {<br />
    module_name         webui<br />
    module_type         webui<br />
    host                0.0.0.0<br />
    port                7767<br />
    auth_secret         CHANGE_ME<br />
    allow_html_output   1<br />
    max_output_length   1024<br />
    manage_acl          1<br />
    play_sound          0<br />
    login_text          Welcome on Shinken WebUI    </p>
<p>    modules<br />
}

define module {

module_name webui

module_type webui

host 0.0.0.0

port 7767

auth_secret CHANGE_ME

allow_html_output 1

max_output_length 1024

manage_acl 1

play_sound 0

login_text Welcome on Shinken WebUI

modules

}

This module must be added to the main broker in the /etc/shinken/brokers/broker-master.cfg file

<br />
modules webui

1	modules webui

We relaunch shinken

<br />
/etc/init.d/shinken restart

1	/etc/init.d/shinken restart

And you connect to the web page via your browser at the address of the machine on the port defined in the configuration file of the webui module.

We log in using the admin identifiers found in the configuration file /etc/shinken/contacts/admin.cfg

<br />
define contact{<br />
    use             generic-contact<br />
    contact_name    admin<br />
    email           shinken@localhost<br />
    pager           0600000000   ; contact phone number<br />
    password        admin<br />
    is_admin        1<br />
}

define contact{

use generic–contact

contact_name admin

email shinken@localhost

pager 0600000000 ; contact phone number

password admin

is_admin 1

}

And the… .. fail!

fail_login_shinken

It's normal, I reassure you. Authentication is managed by a module. It must be added. Let's take a look at the available authentication modules

<br />
shinken search webui auth

1	shinken search webui auth

Who gives:

<br />
auth-cfg-password (naparuba) [module,auth,authentification,mod-auth-cfg-password,auth-cfg-password,cfg-password,webui] : Shinken module for UI authentification from simple password for configuration file<br />
auth-htpasswd (naparuba) [module,webui,auth,authentification] : Shinken module for UI authentification from Apache passwd files<br />
auth-pam (mingbo_wan) [module,auth,authentification,auth-cfg-pam,cfg-pam,webui] : Shinken module for UI authentification via pam

auth–cfg–password (naparuba) [module,auth,authentification,mod–auth–cfg–password,auth–cfg–password,cfg–password,webui] : Shinken module for UI authentification from simple password for configuration file

auth–htpasswd (naparuba) [module,webui,auth,authentification] : Shinken module for UI authentification from Apache passwd files

auth–pam (mingbo_wan) [module,auth,authentification,auth–cfg–pam,cfg–pam,webui] : Shinken module for UI authentification via pam

cfg-password: simple authentication based on the password saved in the contact's conf.
htpassword: based on an apache htaccess file
active-directory: authentication based on AD or LDAP

We install the first

<br />
shinken install auth-cfg-password

1	shinken install auth–cfg–password

There is nothing to declare in the module's conf file (/etc/shinken/modules/auth_cfg_password.cfg) but you still have to declare the latter as for the others in the webui module under / etc / shinken / modules / webui.cfg

<br />
modules auth-cfg-password

1	modules auth–cfg–password

And the restart that goes with it

<br />
/etc/init.d/shinken restart

1	/etc/init.d/shinken restart

This time the login passes. In the “all” view you should see your host as well as all the services of the linux-ssh package.

shinken_localhost

It is normal to get a type error

<br />
Error : cannot fetch cpu stats values from host

1	Error : cannot fetch cpu stats values from host

The CPU information recovery plugin is based on the sysstat program. It must be installed on the system.

<br />
apt-get install sysstat

1	apt–get install sysstat

If we go to the “/ dashboard” view, we get a huge error message

shinken_dashboard_error

This is also normal. The dashboard is specific to each user. The WebUI module needs to save the preferences of each user in a flat file or a database. Here we will use sqlite.

Installation via shinken user

<br />
shinken install sqlitedb

1	shinken install sqlitedb

And we add the module to the Webui module under /etc/shinken/modules/webui.cfg

<br />
modules     auth-cfg-password,sqlitedb

1	modules auth–cfg–password,sqlitedb

The famous restart

<br />
/etc/init.d/shinken restart

1	/etc/init.d/shinken restart

You can now add widgets on the page / dashboard

widget_shinken

Here it is finished for the installation. In the next article I will talk about adding hosts and services. In the meantime there is still the official documentation.