# How do you monitor your system?

## 69link

I would like to get ideas on howto monitor my server.

Today I got different consoles with:

* coloured tail of syslog etc.

* a hard to read "top" like program.

I want to:

* Monitor CPU, disk, network usage

* Monitor syslogs, iptables, snort, httpdlog, ftpdlog etc.

* have a nice desktop which automatically or easily boots into this "monitoring" mode.

Do you have:

* a screenshot of your desktop with above?  :Very Happy: 

* tips on utilities or scripts to do the above?

Then please reply.

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## guero61

http://www.gkrellm.net

Do a websearch for gkrellm and you'll find loads of screenshots

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## viperlin

yeh mine

[img:0473501aff]http://viperlin.gotdns.org/st/09_thumbnail.png[/img:0473501aff]

(sorry i was searching for help on snort but still maybe this could be usefull)

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## sparklesdan

gkrellm is definitely going to be what you want.

here there is a post detailing how to run gkrellm securely over an ssh connection. So not only can you monitor multiple servers on your desktop you can also do it securely :o)

(although I do things the easy way and just limit gkrellmd so only my desktops IP can connect, then connect using "gkrellm2 -s server.name". As all the boxes I'm monitoring are within the same firewalled network this isn't really a problem for me...)

Viperlins image above shows you a desktop with multiple instances of gkrellm running, but incase you want more here's mine with gkrellm monitoring my desktop (binary) and main server (behemoth).

 [img:fcae53817b]http://gonzo.cybermuppet.co.uk/~dan/images/desktop_th.png[/img:fcae53817b] 

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## RangerDude

Viperlin,

You have a smart desktop.

What programs do you use for the notes? Where do you have var/log/messages from? I don't have that file.

And what app gives you the weather?

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## viperlin

top text output is from my server, it outputs my syslog and apache access_log and the snort alerts log

the bottom one is my local syslog output.

yours could be /var/log/syslog depending on what system logger you installed. i use syslog-ng

i use Eterm to tail the output "tail -f /var/log/messages"

notes prog is called "sticky notes"

and the weather on my desktop is just a gdesklets theme

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## RangerDude

Thanks.  :Smile: 

I have metalog and

```
# ls /var/log/

XFree86.!.log      XFree86.1.log.old  everything  mail     snort    xdm.log

XFree86.!.log.old  apache2            kdm.log     mysql    speechd

XFree86.0.log      critical           kernel      news     sshd

XFree86.0.log.old  cups               lastlog     pwdfail  telnet

XFree86.1.log      emerge.log         lircd       samba    wtmp
```

I can't find userlogins in any of them??

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