Monitoring multiple servers with Munin

Munin is a network/system monitoring application that presents output in graphs through a web interface. Its emphasis is on simple plug and play capabilities. A large number of monitoring plugins are available. Using Munin you can easily monitor the performance of your computers, networks, SANs, and quite possibly applications as well. It makes it easy to determine “what’s different today” when a performance problem crops up. It makes it easy to see how you’re doing capacity wise on all limited resources.

Master monitoring server

1. Install Munin and Munin node daemon:

apt-get install munin munin-node


2. Configure server being monitored (pico /etc/munin/munin.conf):

[host.domain.com]
address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
use_node_name yes


Replace host.domain.com with the server’s fully qualified domain and xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with it’s IP address. Type this code for each and every server being monitored including the master server.

3. Configure the Munin node daemon (pico /etc/munin/munin-node.conf).

Set the master server host name (Must be the same as used in /etc/munin/munin.conf):

host_name host.domain.com


4. Restart Munin node daemon:

/etc/init.d/munin-node restart


All other servers being monitored

1. Install Munin and Munin node daemon:

apt-get install munin munin-node


2. Configure the Munin node daemon (pico /etc/munin/munin-node.conf).

Set this server’s host name (Must be the same as used in /etc/munin/munin.conf on the master server):

host_name host.domain.com


Allow the master server to connect and grab data:

allow ^xxx\.xxx\.xxx\.xxx$


Replace ^xxx\.xxx\.xxx\.xxx$ with your server’s IP address. For example if the master server’s IP address is 192.168.1.1, you would use: ^192\.168\.1\.1$. The master server will connect to this server on port 4949 so make sure that port isn’t blocked on firewalls.

3. Restart Munin node daemon:

/etc/init.d/munin-node restart