Submitted by “This tutorial shows how to install and configure the Zenoss network monitoring tool on a Ubuntu 6.06 system. Zenoss is a free open-source tool that allows you to monitor servers, applications, networks, power, etc. regarding their configuration, availability, performance, and so on. It can also alert you by email if it finds inappropriate actions.”
The link in the article does not work. I think this is the link that it was suposed to be:
http://www.howtoforge.com/zenoss_network_monitor_ubuntu
While the article is nice I object to enabling root just so the user does not need to use sudo. That is sloppy from an admin standpoint. If an experienced admin has a reson to activate root fine. Installing an appis not a good reason though.
Also what are the advantages/disadvantages of Zenoss to Nagios. I had not heard of Zenoss before today.
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They didn’t “activate root”, root is still there on Ubuntu but with a password you don’t know.
They didn’t “activate root”, they changed the password.
On ubuntu, any users in the ‘admin’ group can just ‘sudo passwd root’ becasue they have full root anyway through sudo (you can change this with visudo if you’d like).
I don’t think this is more secure becasue for most ubuntu users the account they use for every day stuff (the one they created in the install) has sudo privs, so it isn’t much different than just using the root account for your every day things (surfing, checking email etc.).
Er… yes root is activated in those instructions. The password hash is set to !, which an an alias for ‘no password matches this ever’.
Though you seem wildly missinformed about how sudo works. You need to type a password before doing anything with sudo. So no, it is nothing like using root to do everyday things.
Edited 2006-10-01 23:55
Though you seem wildly missinformed about how sudo works. You need to type a password before doing anything with sudo. So no, it is nothing like using root to do everyday things.
If you’ve recently used sudo under Ubuntu, then you probably won’t need to use a password. Not the most secure idea, but tradeoffs between security and convenience are inevitable.
Regardless, ‘sudo -i’, and you’re at a root shell; So far, haven’t been able to tell a difference between that, and logging in “as root”.
Still though, that’s no reason to activate the root account. The root account is active on my machine only because of an experience where sudo got hosed under Dapper. I still use sudo for day-to-day administration stuff.
Er… yes root is activated in those instructions.
The password is locked but the account is still there and usable (e.g sudo bash).
“You need to type a password before doing anything with sudo.”
This is a valid point, but I still don’t see how Ubuntu’s setup is any more secure than just using ‘su root’.
What about the Zenoss network monitoring tool?
Is it any good? Is SNMP secure enough to do monitoring thru a WAN?
Been using NAGIOS, and have customized it too the point it no longer is a network monitoring tool, but is monitoring all sorts of things..
1) Temperature/Humidity/Security Lighting
2) EDI Transactions with my Vendor
3) AXIS middleware/webservice gateway processes
4) WIFi signal characteristics and pages me when reception goes bad, or I lose an AP.
In short, NAGIOS is not really a network tool anymore, it is sorta all knowing supreme being in my enterprise.
🙂
In fact, all of my data goes into postgres, so I can ask stuff like “What was the average temperature last year on the roof?”
I even track global warming trends!!!
🙂
-Hack