Hey Guys - I hope this is the best place to post this, but have a quick question, please... I'm looking for suggestions / recommendations for a product (single product if possible) which can monitor my home lab's network & system resource usage for about a dozen systems. Below is the criteria I'm looking for in order of importance: Overall + Process-level monitoring of resource usage (CPU, RAM, HDD Activity) LAN performance (single /24 subnet) Setup & config not incredibly detailed or complicated to set up Prefer Open source (at least for consumers) but will purchase one time license if worth it for environment of my size Mobile interface or better yet phone/tablet companion app Some level of OpenWRT integration for bandwidth monitoring Log file monitoring or consolidated view (App-specific text-based log files on various systems) Cross-platform (~6 Windows systems + ~10 Various Linux Distros) Docker / container host monitoring VM resource usage (ESX 6.7 + Hyper-V) Offers a Web interface or similar GUI Notifications I've tried a few in the past that hit on many of the above criteria. Most were Linux-based installations or containers with web interfaces but were intended for large environments therefore required too much in-depth configuration to meet just a couple of the criteria listed above. I'm currently trying out NEMS (a Nagios fork for Raspberry Pi) , but it seems to only provide a very high level overview intended for Online/Offline statuses. The closest match I can find so far is Pulseway which is a different model that what I've tried in the past as its actually hosted in the cloud and uses its own easy to use but thorough agent although it doesn't monitor the LAN. Unfortunately, pricing is pricey as monitoring over 2 systems starts at $47 a month . Any suggestions? Thanks!

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Best Solution to Monitor Home Lab

bzowk over 5 years ago

Hey Guys -

I hope this is the best place to post this, but have a quick question, please...

I'm looking for suggestions / recommendations for a product (single product if possible) which can monitor my home lab's network & system resource usage for about a dozen systems. Below is the criteria I'm looking for in order of importance:

Overall + Process-level monitoring of resource usage (CPU, RAM, HDD Activity)
LAN performance (single /24 subnet)
Setup & config not incredibly detailed or complicated to set up
Prefer Open source (at least for consumers) but will purchase one time license if worth it for environment of my size
Mobile interface or better yet phone/tablet companion app
Some level of OpenWRT integration for bandwidth monitoring
Log file monitoring or consolidated view (App-specific text-based log files on various systems)
Cross-platform (~6 Windows systems + ~10 Various Linux Distros)
Docker / container host monitoring
VM resource usage (ESX 6.7 + Hyper-V)
Offers a Web interface or similar GUI
Notifications

I've tried a few in the past that hit on many of the above criteria. Most were Linux-based installations or containers with web interfaces but were intended for large environments therefore required too much in-depth configuration to meet just a couple of the criteria listed above. I'm currently trying out NEMS (a Nagios fork for Raspberry Pi), but it seems to only provide a very high level overview intended for Online/Offline statuses. The closest match I can find so far is Pulseway which is a different model that what I've tried in the past as its actually hosted in the cloud and uses its own easy to use but thorough agent although it doesn't monitor the LAN. Unfortunately, pricing is pricey as monitoring over 2 systems starts at $47 a month.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

0 hpstech over 5 years ago

If there was something free that would do all this, we would save a lot of $.
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0 tdowns over 5 years ago

I've always liked Paessler PRTG.   The FREE version now comes with 100 sensors.   I believe that it is fully functioning with no restrictions other than the sensor limitation.   I'm using it for my home network, but probably for a lot less nodes/services than you.
I have PRTG setup (installed on Windows 2012 Server running on several year old Dell Desktop) to monitor:
2 x Windows 2012 Servers (ping, CPU load, Mem, RDP, Plex Server, volumes, hyper-v host, SNTP, DNS)
Linksys AC1900 router (with DD-WRT firmware to be able to have snmp and Net flow enabled)
     - WAN bandwidth
     - NetFlow v5
     - 5GHz & 2.4GHz adapters
PRTG is easy to setup, has a mobile app, does most of what you're looking to do (including Docker), Web GUI and even the paid version is very reasonable. Bang for the buck with this company is very good as well as development pace and support.   We're a SolarWinds shop (and love it), but in another life (and at home) I love PRTG.
https://www.paessler.com/howto-free-network-monitoring
https://www.paessler.com/manuals/prtg/available_sensor_types
Licensed per "sensor". 100 for free isn't bad, but it jumps up to $1600 (perpetual) for 500 sensors.   You can monitor basically 100 "things" and it doesn't matter how many actual servers/devices they're spread across.
EDIT: oh yeah, I almost forgot... they have a DARK THEME (something that *cough* SolarWinds still doesn't have).
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