Unix Monitoring

Argent offers seven options for monitoring Unix systems:

Each of these options provides different features and benefits.

For example, Telnet and SSH are agentless options; nothing needs to be installed on the monitored server.

Telnet communication, of course, is completely plain-text, making it not secure. SSH, on the other hand, is completely encrypted from end to end, making it secure.

The Secure Script Agent and the Shell Script Agent can be easily installed on each monitored server, providing a dedicated communication channel.

The Secure Script Agent is a binary executable.

The Shell Script Agent is just that — a shell script.

This allows for user customization, and for use on systems where a Linux Secure Agent binary does not yet exist.

The SSH Relay Agent shifts the SSH connection workload from a Windows monitoring engine to a Unix machine, which generally can make SSH connections more efficiently. A Windows monitoring engine sends the Rule (a Unix shell script) to the SSH Relay Agent, which then makes the connection to the monitored servers via SSH, executes the Rule, then sends the information back to the monitoring engine.

The Unix Rule Engine retrieves its marching orders from the main Argent server, makes SSH connections to the monitored servers, and sends back the results to the main Argent server. This provides additional fault tolerance, as well as removing the connection load from a Windows monitoring engine. Since each Unix Rule Engine initiates the connection to the main Argent server, firewall configuration is also simplified, since you only have to open one port.

For more information, click the links below.