File Monitoring

Overview

Nagios offers robust file monitoring capabilities, enabling you to track various file attributes and ensure the integrity and availability of critical files. It provides comprehensive monitoring of files, including file count, file presence, file size, and more. By continuously tracking these attributes, Nagios helps in identifying potential issues before they escalate into significant problems.

With Nagios, you can monitor the presence and size of critical files, detect unauthorized changes, and receive alerts when specific conditions are met. This proactive approach allows administrators to quickly respond to anomalies, ensuring that important files remain secure and accessible. Additionally, Nagios supports custom file monitoring configurations, allowing you to tailor the monitoring to meet the specific needs of your environment. Its extensive plugin architecture further enhances its capabilities, enabling the monitoring of virtually any file attribute, providing a versatile and scalable solution for file management.

Key Features

1. File Count Monitoring: Track the number of files in a directory to detect unexpected changes.
2. File Presence Monitoring: Ensure that essential files are present and accessible.
3. File Size Monitoring: Monitor file sizes to identify anomalies or potential storage issues.
4. Modification Detection: Detect when files are modified, updated, or deleted.

Benefits

• Detection of Failed Batch Jobs: Quickly identify when batch jobs fail due to missing or corrupted files.
• Advanced Planning for System Upgrades: Monitor file system usage to plan for necessary upgrades.
• Fast Detection of Storage Issues: Identify storage subsystem problems early to prevent downtime.
• Reduced Risk of Unexpected Downtime: Initiative-taking monitoring helps in early detection of potential failures.

Tools and Wizards

• Folder Watch Wizard: This tool helps you set up monitoring for specific directories, including subdirectories and hidden files. It allows you to configure parameters and customize monitoring based on your needs.

Implementation

Nagios provides various plugins and wizards to facilitate file monitoring. The Folder Watch Wizard, for example, allows you to set up parameters and adjust the information you want Nagios to monitor. This includes configuring the wizard to monitor remote hosts using SSH, setting up passwordless access, and customizing the monitoring using search patterns and wildcards.

Use Cases

• System Administrators: Monitor critical system files and directories to ensure system integrity and performance.
• Developers: Keep track of log files and other important files to debug and maintain applications.
• IT Operations: Ensure compliance with data retention policies by monitoring file presence and size.