Automated Server Monitoring

I have been looking for a decent, non resource intensive server monitoring program. There are a number of them out there (many written in Perl, and getting a bit long in the tooth) but it has been some time since I explored this in any detail. Actually, I think it's been several years since I did this. I'm getting old.

Last time around, I wound up trying and abandoning a number of solutions, and writing a simple Java process that polled a list of servers & ports, and sent an SMS, email, and page when it was unable to connect to something on its watch list.

Talk about rudimentary.

As I recall, there were a few packages that did what I wanted, but they ate CPU cycles like they were going out of style, which was unacceptable. I hope things have improved over time.

Ideally, the monitoring software will track cpu usage, system temperature, disk space, maintain a list of processes to watch and keep up, memory usage, track logins, and so forth. It should also support a "dashboard" of services, statistics, and allow for historical reporting.

I've compiled a short list (which will no doubt grow as I get into the research) of projects to try out, and I'm going to start with Nagios.

I'll keep you posted.