Weblog entry #9 for e5z8652
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Updated 29 October 2008: OpenNMS 1.6.0 is now stable, and supports PostgreSQL 8.3. So you do not need the snapshot.debian.net repository.
OpenNMS has packages for Debian up to the recommended 1.5.93 release. However 1.5.93 does not support PostgreSQL 8.3 that is found in Lenny. It does support PostgreSQL 8.2, recently removed from Lenny.
You can quickly set up an OpenNMS server with Lenny by using the snapshot.net service. Using the sources.list file below, you can take a base image of Lenny and be a quick `apt-get install opennms` away from OpenNMS happiness!
I hear that the snapshot.debian.net people are having a large problem with bandwidth. :( Hopefully we can see a snapshot.debian.org sometime.
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deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free deb http://debian.opennms.org/ unstable main deb-src http://debian.opennms.org/ unstable main #Postgresql 8.2 from snapshots: deb http://snapshot.debian.net/archive/2008/04/23/debian unstable main
Comments on this Entry
I've been looking around for a decent NMS solution for a while, and thought I'd have another look at OpenNMS after reading the above. I still don't really like using Java for this sort of thing (my dislike of Java is not really rational, I just prefer native code really, or python -- you can see why it's a non-rational dislike ;-), but thought I'd take another look through the demo and see what it's like now.
Oddly, while I use Firefox, which handles SVG imagery quite happily all by itself, OpenNMS refuses to display the maps, stating that it can't find an Adobe SVG viewer plugin... Sorry, but that's just plain stupid. I'll have a look at submitting it as a bug, but it shouldn't demand unecessary software, and refuse to work if it's not there (needed or not).
Other than that, it looks quite nice, but I'm not sure if gives me enough, over an above that which Nagios provides, to warrant installing Tomcat and Java on my monitoring/management server...
Cheers.:wq
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]
The Tomcat dependency is gone, you'll get Jetty instead. There is no configuration for Jetty with these packages, it just works.
I find that I rarely use the map, so it isn't even enabled on my current installation. You can change the graphic from SVG to PNG though. It takes up a few more CPU cycles on your server, but OpenNMS isn't CPU bound anyway -- the critical element is disk i/o for your database and rrd graphs.
I looked at Nagios, but I don't like it's UI and I didn't like the requirement to install clients everywhere. So a few years ago I went with OpenNMS with an eye to watching my network and letting the server owners watch their servers. As time went on, I started monitoring more servers by watching their network visible services (SQL, etc.) Just lately I've been playing with OpenNMS' ability to monitor ANY service, including non-network visible ones, through Windows' SNMP server. OpenNMS sends e-mails to me when it finds a problem, so I can often address issues before my users even know something is wrong. So it meets my needs.
I think you have to be comfortable with whichever NMS you choose though, especially if it's going to be something you work with regularly. I know that Nagios has more mindshare, so people must like it. Anyhow, if you have an afternoon to play around fire up VirtualBox, install a base Lenny install, and then throw the latest OpenNMS debian packages on. The configuration isn't automatic, but you should only have to touch a few files to get it going well.
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