Re: Watchdog Program

[Richard Stevens <list@richardstevens.de>]

Hi,

> help. Is there a package that I can use to monitor a whole range of
> systems remotely? Any help appreciated.

you could try BigBrother (http://bb4.com/) or BigSister 
(http://bigsister.graeff.com/home.html). I don't know BigSister that much but 
basically it's a clone of BigBrother. BigBrother is just a set of shell 
scripts that can monitor the various services running on the machines you 
want to montor. It gives you a status output (http://bb4.com/bb/) of all the 
machines and you can also get statistics. Also Alerting is possible via 
various means. 

Since it's a set of shell scripts it should be possible to monitor the 
mailserver and trigger a modem dialing your mobild phone number in case the 
mailserver goes down. Otherwise I think mail is the default method for 
alerting. 

I know of a small ISP and telephone provider that uses bb4 as the primary 
alerting mechanism for the tech guys running independant of the larger setup 
with HP OpenView (I think) at the nmc. Often bb4 is quicker :-)

Hope that was the answer to your question.

Regards,

Richard