How to add hosts monitoring on Checkmk Server

In the previous article, you learned how to install checkmk server. Now to monitor a host we need to install an agent on that host. In this article we will show you how to install the agent on Ubuntu/Window and add it to checkmk for monitoring.

As you see no activity would be there on Checkmk because, yet we have not told our monitoring server which machines need to be monitored.

So, whatever machine you want to be get checked by this Linux monitoring tool, we have to first install the Checkmk agent on that including the Server where you have installed the Checkmk itself. To make all this easy, go to the Monitor Agent option available in the Setup menu area and download the files as per the system you want. For example, Deb file for Debian and Ubuntu-based systems, RPM for RHEL/CentOS, MSI for Windows, and so on.

First, access the Web UI to get the agent download link for the client

1.On Ubuntu Client

Go to Agent -> Linux to copy the agent download link on Ubuntu (.deb)

Install Xinetd -Xinetd (Extended Internet Service Daemon), if not already. It is an open-source super-server daemon that manages Internet-based connectivity.

# apt install xinetd

Start và enable xinetd

# systemctl start xinetd 
# systemctl enable xinetd

After that Download the agent file from the Setup area either by directly clicking on it or using the wget : wget address-of-agent-you-copied

# apt install wget
# wget http://173.249.212.116/monitoring/check_mk/agents/check-mk-agent_2.3.0b2-1_all.deb

To install use command: apt install ./downloaded-file-name

# apt install ./check-mk-agent_2.3.0b2-1_all.deb

To check the installed Agent version, we can use :

# check_mk_agent

2. On Windows Client

To monitor Windows OS-based system, we just need to download the MSI package of the Check_mk agent and the installation will be like any other Windows software.

On Windows, you would also need to allow the Check_mk Agent application in the firewall. For that open firewall, select Allow an app through the firewall option.

Click on change settings and then Allow another app.

After that browser the check_mk_agent.exe

3. Add host to Check_Mk

On the Web interface of this monitoring tool, select the Hosts from the Setup configuration and then select the New Host option.

Enter the hostname of the host you want to add and monitor on Check_mk.

If you don’t know the hostname then you can find it by typing the command- hostname on the machine, you want to monitor.

After that save and test it.

Enter the hostname and the IP address of the host server, and click the Save & run service discovery button.

On the services page, you will see a list of all discovered services. If you see any Undecided services, click the Fix all link to fix the issue.

Then, click the yellow-colored sign on the top right corner of the window.

Next, click the Activate on selected sites button.

Go back to the homepage and you will notice the Host and service statistics on it. You will need to configure and create custom dashboards to gather more statistics.

Conclusion

This concludes our tutorial add hosts monitoring on Checkmk Server. If you have any questions, post them in the comments below.

Good Luck!