Tell me more ×
Server Fault is a question and answer site for professional system and network administrators. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite
1

I want to monitor my Windows Server 2008 and get notified if there're any issues.

examples of what to monitor: running out of space, service shut down, errors in event log, unsuccessful (and successful) log-in attempts, etc.

any suggestions? preferably free or cheap solution. I host on vps, it wouldn't make sense for monitoring to cost as much as 1-2 years of hosting.

share|improve this question

closed as off topic by Sam Jan 18 '12 at 21:15

Questions on Server Fault are expected to relate to professional server, networking, or related infrastructure administration within the scope defined in the FAQ. Consider editing the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about closed questions here.

4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Zabbix - the only tool you need.

share|improve this answer
Wow! that's a pretty laconic answer but i've ever found solutions to my monitoring problems using zabbix. But you frequently need to use snmp in conjunction with the agent custom checks implementation. So +1 anyway. – Maxwell Dec 23 '09 at 22:33
up vote 1 down vote

If you're using Win2k8 you can use perfmon to monitor and launch a batch file or powershell script to send you an email using alerts.

If you're planning on monitoring more than one server, or want graphing you'll probably want to look at implementing Nagios. If you go the Nagios route I recommend implementing a frontend such as Centreon.

share|improve this answer
+1 perfmon, use the tools you have already paid for – shufler Dec 23 '09 at 17:30
up vote 1 down vote

I definitely recommend Zabbix too. It's user friendlier then other similar solutions(cacti, nagios) And the built in capabilities are great - graphs, notifications, dashboards.

It has a monitoring agent for windows, but because you host on vps, you will probably need some sort of VPN tunnel to access it.

share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

You could setup SNMP and then run Nagios to do the actual monitoring on the server itself. You won't get graph data out of Nagios without a little bit of hacking though, and it's not the greatest. For graphing you could look into Cacti or MRTG. I personally use Cacti and Nagios for monitoring.

SNMP Service: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb726987.aspx

Nagios: http://nagios.org/

Cacti: http://www.cacti.net/

share|improve this answer
looks overwhelming. are there any guides on how to set it all up? – Sumrak Dec 23 '09 at 16:45
It may be a little too 'hands on' if you're used to the Windows world. I've never used any frontends for Nagios configuration so I couldn't recommend any, as I do all my work on that by hand (Only ~30 hosts, ~70 points monitored). Cacti is a bit of work to wrap your head around as well, but well worth learning as it's quite versatile. Check the respective sites for how-tos/docs – brent Dec 23 '09 at 17:08

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.