The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, January 8. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Network Monitoring with Zenoss How do you keep tabs on your equipment? Do you remember to check free disk space on a regular basis? Have you set up MRTG to monitor every single network interface on every single system? Have you set up Nagios to alert you whenever any service on any server goes down? Most people dont have satisfactory answers to these questions. MRTG and RRDTool are time-consuming and sometimes difficult to set up, and ongoing configuration is difficult. Getting Nagios going can be an exercise in frustration for the newcomer to network monitoring, and ongoing configuration is a task best left to experts. Monitoring the dozens (or hundreds) of parameters that tell you whether a system is working properly or not is, quite simply, a royal pain. The developers of Zenoss thought that, too. Rather than building another bolt-on front-end to an aging platform (nagios) or a limited-function tool (mrtg) they just started building a new system that worked the right way. Enter Zenoss. Zenoss isnt 100% feature-complete vis--vis expertly- installed Nagios and MRTG, but its enough of the way there to make it a lot easier to set up and get going. Zenoss automatically discovers devices on your network, then using SNMP, TCP probes, WMI or telnet discovers what services exist on those devices, and automatically sets up polling of several relevant pieces of information. Adam Thompson, who's with the Divisional IT Department of the St. James-Assiniboia School Division, will be our presenter for this month. Adam will attempt to cover the fundamentals of how Zenoss works, how to get Zenoss up and running on your network, and time permitting will demonstrate some of its features on a live network. The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. ********************************************************************** Please note our meeting location: The IBM offices, at 400 Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the reception desk, and then wait for someone to take you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15pm, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30pm. Don't be late, or you may not get in. (But don't come too early either, since security may not be there to let you in before 7:15 or so.) Non-members may be required to show photo ID at the security desk. Limited parking is available for free on the street, either on Ellice Ave. or on some of the intersecting streets. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $3.00 for the evening. Bicycle parking is available in a bike rack under video surveillance located behind the building on Webb Place. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil@muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609