CheckMK - An Open Source, Self Hosted, Network and System monitoring tool that is easy to setup.

=== Links ===
Show Notes
wiki.opensourceisawesome.com/...
CheckMK Main Site
checkmk.com/
CheckMK Documentation
docs.checkmk.com/latest/en/in...
Support my Channel and ongoing efforts through Patreon:
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=== Timestamps ===
00:00 Beginning
00:09 Introduction to CheckMK
02:25 Thank you to my Patrons over at Patreon, and to my subscribers at KZbin
03:00 The CheckMK Paid Plans for the IT Professional who wants support
05:25 Documentation
07:40 Downloading the CheckMK Raw Edition Server Software
08:55 Following the Docs - Installing CheckMK on a VM or Bare Metal
13:30 Accessing our new Server Web UI
14:10 Installing Agents on Hosts (monitored clients)
16:30 Web UI Overview for Usage
24:45 System Overview for Monitored Hosts
31:18 Setup the CheckMK Server in Docker
38:05 Change the default password
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=== Attributions ===
Intro and Outro music provided by www.bensound.com

[@mynameisjesus88]

Oh, I love CheckMK! Using it since ehm, a couple years now. Monitoring 110 hosts with 1200 service checks, it is just awesome OSS!

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

It is really great stuff! Glad it's working so well for you.

[@chadmarkley]

You are hands down my favorite work distraction. I've tried out nearly every software you've done a video for lol. Good thing I own my own business and I can't fire myself for getting lost in fun opensource projects!

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Chad, I'm, sometimes, my own work distraction, but I try to stay focused on work as much as I can. The best thing is that most of what I cover helps with my work, so it all balances out.

[@chadmarkley]

@@AwesomeOpenSource haha, same. There is ALWAYS something more fun, even at work, that I want to be doing. Keep up the good work. You are appreciated

[@Damarious25]

Used this at 2 workplaces. Introduced at 1, and then deployed RAW from scratch at the second. It can get deep and come off as complicated - but it's very very tunable. I love it. The agent is light weight and the server is very reliable. I've used this extensively and can't speak highly enough about this software. You put in the time and it will reward you for your effort. LPT: Don't touch this if you're a lazy admin.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Great info, thanks for that.

[@egeainc]

Thanks for sharing this tool, I see it as super complete, it's a shame that only 25 hosts can be configured for free. Thanks for the video!!

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

The 26 is if you use the other editions. the Raw edition doesn't have this limitation from what I understand. Maybe it will be a good fit.

[@egeainc]

@@AwesomeOpenSource if so, this tool is great. I'm testing the RAW version with Docker, I'm very happy how easy it is to monitor using SNMP. Thank you very much for these videos and for your time to answer me.

[@ja9176]

Checkmk is a really great tool. Been using it for a few years. Checkmk raw version can do a lot more than 25 hosts for free as well. Really like checkmk

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

It seems like a great option.

[@captainwasabi]

I had never heard of checkmk. Game changer.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

It's a really great product, and check out some of the other comments, as there are a few helpful tips in them as well.

[@SvenMazet1973]

This is pretty awesome software, we used the Enterprise Edition at my previous job. Pretty much a do-all tool: monitoring, dashboards, warnings via just about all corporate messaging systems (slack, mail, etc.), BI setting etcetera.... very extensive. I'll be looking into this for my homelab.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

That's awesome!

[@okjd159]

Doesn't it have the ability to push the agents from your main system so you don't have go each machine?

[@olfino1]

@@okjd159 In the enterprise edition, you can use the agent bakery to manage agents on each machine incl. auto-update.

[@okjd159]

@@olfino1 Nice for large networks

[@hermonkidane1503]

Have you ever tried zabbix and if so what are the advantages of checkmk over zabbix

[@niclas_8669]

How does it work with monitoring docker containers? I think thats an interesting question for HomeLab. Could you please make a video for it?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

That's a great question. I'll have to dig in a bit and see, then can do a follow up video later on.

[@akki9047]

Really it's awesome. my luck is that I have done a subscription to your channel.very helpfull.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Thanks and welcome

[@yourpcmd]

Thanks for the video. Still waiting on that Openfire video though.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Slowly working my way through an ever growing list. So much software, and so little time.

[@JeanLucGARNIER]

One again, a great video that will push me installing the tool! 😉 However, before I jump into the settings, can CheckMK also collect / analyse logs? This could avoid using a dédicated (and complex) tool such as Graylog... 🤔 Thanks in advance for any advice!

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Not sure how the logging side works with CheckMK. Definitely worth a look through their docs.

[@AaronWeissRocks]

This looks like an excellent option to replace nagios. EDIT: Although now I see that this uses nagios in the back end during the docker compose up command.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Yep, it runs on top of Nagios, so you may just want to try it for a different UI and Admin console.

[@olfino1]

@@AwesomeOpenSource It leverages the Nagios Core in the open source edition for the checking element. That's it. Checkmk is way more than a Nagios UI. It brings like thousands of different and much better concepts to the old Nagios 🙂

[@eliasvoelker2314]

Alternatively the Enterprise Edition has its own core (not Nagios)

[@checkmk-channel]

Checkmk is not using Nagios as a backend. The Raw Edition (aka Community) uses Nagios as a monitoring core, which initiates checks, collects results, provides states, and generates notifications. While of course being a key piece, it is only a minor element in the overall architecture.

[@mosth8ed]

I installed it using Docker on a Rasp pi 4, but the interface is painfully slow when trying to load any pages. I only am monitoring 5-6 machines. Is it just too heavy of a system for a rasp pi? I noticed Apache processes were what were pegging the CPU on every page load. Is there any amount of tuning / Apache settings that might help?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

That's a better question for the CheckMK team I'm sure.

[@sabarinathanvaithiyanathan3181]

Hi, kindly suggest any application other than grafana to visualise time series data of plc

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I think influx db can do this, and i believe InfluxData is built on it, just not sure about the icensing.

[@FelipoGoncalves]

Hey! Have you tried ZABBIX? I think the interface does not look as good/polished, but I think is a bit superior.

[@esra_erimez]

I was wondering how it compares to Zabbix

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I haven't tried it yet, but will in the future. A lot of the folks making comments have used both, and have feedback in their comments about the two.

[@udirt]

I loved this from the moment i found due the simple approach over old times nagios. I got to see a lot of the innards and the possibilities were even greater than one could have imagined. There's downsides in every piece of software, but for the long run what you want is that the core architecture is stellar. Thats the case here. Everyone shall make their own chocies but back when working on it and even up to now, most alternatives make me, well, cringe, why anyone would even bother. Otoh it does work best if you take time to sit and learn, for people who don't want/like/can put in the time the differences might just be smaller than what they appear to me. No, seriously, read all the docs and try all examples, you will rarely have such powerful a tool available as with that.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I think CheckMK is one of those jewels that people just need to discover to really appreciate.

[@DamjanDimitrioski]

Hi , is it possible to find and review few apps looking like Asbru, Putty; but also can do SNMP protocol and you can save you credentials for web assets like wordpress, drupal sites and other web apps logins. And it's self hosted web app :).

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Let me see what I can find on Asbru. Maybe it will help me know what you're looking for.

[@DamjanDimitrioski]

@@AwesomeOpenSource Well mostly like password manager + SSH manager. Anything extra needed to be saved to a given SSH connection, all in one place. Imagine you have some CRM/ERP/CMS web apps running on a server you manage via SSH, but other than the certificate link and ssh password to connect to be able to store extra logins for other parts of the server (those won't do anything just information secrets for admin access).

[@SanjayAroraIN]

- Can we run this on a Pi for a home network? - What about a partitioned network....a home/local one on a fiber broadband and a cloud VPC....what best way to handle local broadband downtime?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Not sure if it will run on a Pi, but you could certainly give it a shot. As for the VPC part, yes it's made to connect up your various networks and cloud and local systems for monitoring all in one place.

[@eliasvoelker2314]

@@AwesomeOpenSource it does run on a pi, although not officially. But search the interwebs and you will find a build for it :-)

[@lolololowbx280]

Does checkmk support automatic network discovery? Need that to record new devices on network

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

One of the other comments mentioned that you can setup your network to have some auto discovery with CheckMK, so definitely scrub through the comments for that.

[@lolololowbx280]

@@AwesomeOpenSource Awesome! thank you

[@jimbob12372]

😊89i9i7😅o990😊0😊888⁸⁸😊😊😊😊​@@AwesomeOpenSource

[@joostbackaertloogo]

Librenms is also a good one

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I've seen it too. Maybe I'll get to a video on it at some point.

[@bend3058]

Zabbix I think is a much better package. Just as easy to setup. (actually easier) is fully open source and free no premium models. Has builtin templates for popular hardware and software. Much better integration options. Agent and agent less services. The new V6 has native support for cluster/ha setups. Proxy servers for bigger remote sites saving resources etc.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'll definitely take another look at it. When I initially looked at it afew years ago, the documentation made me feel like it was a much more complicated beast.

[@JamesGreen-gv4yn]

Thank you for this overview. I have to admit that I was disappointed to see that this is using Nagios under the covers. I had a very bad experience trying to get Nagios working in the past and have never recovered from it. Secondly, it appears that this doesn't provide historical trend graphs from the dashboards you showed. This is a MUST have in any monitoring solution I plan to implement now days. If it does have that, it would have been nice to see it included in the video. For now, I am off to look at other solutions.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

If this doesn't fit your needs, I also did a video on Zabbix. It's a pretty nice option. CheckMK may have the historical trends, I just didn't go deep into setting up reports and dashboards because ti's such a huge system.

[@MrBrutalmetalhead]

You can use sudo !! to add sudo at front of the previous command but great video

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Yeah, I never remember it...but thank you for reminding me.

[@okjd159]

When you add the agent to Windows you will have access the personal firewall on Windows and open the ports that CheckMK use or you'll never be able to monitor these hosts.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I imagine if you have firewalls enabled that block the ports the system needs you'll need to do something to allow traffic, but the agent, I think should be able to reach out back to the server, at least that would be ideal.

[@okjd159]

@@AwesomeOpenSource I had to modify the firewall to get it to work. It's a Windows thing.

[@kellymoses8566]

We use solarwinds and I really hate the GUI.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I really like CheckMK. It's really nice, and a lot of the folks leaving comments use it and seem to like it as well.

[@AcidiFy574]

Is there any FOSS note apps that can be synced without the need of Cloud services ?? Available for PC & Mobile ?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'll see what I can find. On the mobile side, not sure how iOS would sync anything without a cloud aspect somewhere in the mix, but we shall see.

[@AcidiFy574]

@@AwesomeOpenSource screw iOS honestly

[@fbifido2]

@22:56 - can't you tell the agent to connect to the server? or let it know how to find the server ? - adding the clients manually, seems like a pain.

[@Samzehboy]

You could use the "Network Scan" option which is available in the folder properties.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'm just going by what their instructions say to do. It would be nice if the agent "autoconnected" back to the server though.

[@PatipanWongkleaw]

Why someone would want this over Prometheus and Grafana? Everyone keeps mentioning its completeness but I find that it could do a lot of things, but it's only good for a few things. I don't know, maybe someone could tell me the advantage of this over Prometheus? I didn't give this much consideration.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'm not familiar enough with Proetheus to know how this may benefit over it. I plan to look at proetheus in the future, so maybe then I'll have a better idea. If prometheus works for you, then definitely use it.

[@PatipanWongkleaw]

@@AwesomeOpenSource Please take your time, learning curve of Prometheus is quite steep, you need to know about the plugin, the way it collect metrics, the way for you to queries the metrics. Basically, Prometheus is pulling exported metrics from node exporters running on the target machines.

[@Samzehboy]

As a "Monitoring" consultant I use CheckMK on a daily basis for a couple of years now. In comparison with other monitoring tools i think this is the most complete solution out there especially when it comes to managing/configuring the so called "monitoring clients" you install on your servers. Together with the great community on the forum this is by far my favourite monitoring tool ;-)

[@esra_erimez]

Sam, how does this compare to Zabbix?

[@Samzehboy]

@@esra_erimez In my opinion CMK is more flexible than Zabbix and has a lot more plugins/checks out of the box. Also the integrations with InfluxDB/Grafana and ntopng are a great plus. When using the cee (Enterprise edition) or cme (Managed Services edition) it comes with it's own core CMC (Checkmk Micro Core) which is a lot faster then the nagios backend.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Very cool, and love the information in your reply below as well.

[@hasanmougharbel8030]

Hey there...God bless your efforts I have little knowledge about ethernet or network based connection inside a firm; i have simple enquiry. How can i know if any person in the IT department is intending to spy on my screen while working. Please, that is a critical case for me as and i seek to remain anonymous while working with confidential information.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

If you can't trust your IT division, then you should either not work for them, or find out why they would feel the need to spy on you. Not sure there is a way to detect every possible spyware out there. You can try to work completely offline until network or internet is needed, then connect. But usually if the people in charge of the network and machines want to see what's going on, they can.

[@justinthomas1877]

1st comment

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Indeed.

[@TechySpeaking]

First

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Indeed you were.

[@DrMerciless]

They keep changing everything about the gui. This video isn't even that old and I can't even follow it.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'll see if I can make an update video in the next couple of months, and get you an updated option.

[@DrMerciless]

@@AwesomeOpenSource Actually, I was impatient when I was adding assets to monitor. I just had to wait for the scan to happen and I got the checkboxes for all the individual services. But, the UI seems to change a lot from videos with just minor versions. So far I am really liking this application.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

@@DrMerciless that’s awesome! Glad you got it worked out, and that you are enjoying it!

[@veepee78]

Zabbix is pretty awesome. Open source, free, no limits.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Indeed it is. I did Zabbix a few weeks after this one. All great stuff in the open source world!

[@xlalatx]

since the so called "open source" version is limited to 25 hosts only, i will stick to zabbix

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

The Raw Edition or "open source" version isn't limited to 25. That's for their hosted options and unpaid plans for other editions.

[@semirauthsala6001]

looks good. How this differs from already good zabbix.

[@bend3058]

I think zabbix is better. Plus it's actually 100% free all features.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I haven't tested Zabbix yet, so can't speak on how it compares. Others have posted their thoughts on it though.

[@talbech]

Thanks for sharing this.. Doubt it will get me off Zabbix though. Invested too much time in that setup already.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I just like to provide options for folks. If zabbix is already configured and working well, then no need to move. If, however, at any point you do decide to look around, here's one more option.

[@Mikesco3]

This looks a lot easier that zabbix.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I thought so too.

[@gg-gn3re]

has it gotten any better? everyone has hated this for years and use Prometheus, zabbix or something else

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I can only say that many people have commented on this video that they love it. Take it for what it's worth...but better yet, give it a try and see.