First off let me explain my situation. I work for a small consulting firm that has no strong minded linux people. We mainly build networks and do windows server task etc. Well I have been dabbling in linux and my direct boss knows this and in a move to make more money they picked up a linux client and made me primary on the account. Awesome right? Not really. My knowledge of linux is limited and I honestly don’t think I should be in the position based on my knowledge and the amount of other projects i have going on. I know basic commands and can get around and do task on it like any average user.
This is the problem I am now facing. The client runs about 8 mandriva linux servers and were taken care of fairly well. The network is monitored using Nagios network monitoring software and seems to run like champ. We get e-mail alerts whenever something goes down etc.
Well as of late we have been getting e-mails stating the Web/FTP (one server) server could not be pinged. What sucks about this is the e-mails are setup to go straight to my bosses cellphone cause I’m not cool enough to have e-mail on my phone (in all honesty I don’t want it). So my boss normally forwards me the messages stating It went down and came back up (normally between 10-30mins later although I have seen it shorter than 5 and longer than 30). Does me no good getting both at the same time cause I can’t test it for myself and see if it is actually down or see what I can find out. The log files state nothing happened and the client states they do not experience any problems. And since this is the web and ftp server and I’d say 50% of there job requires them to use those services I find it hard to believe it is actually going down.
Therein lies my problem. I can’t figure out why Nagios is reporting the server is down and my boss says “It needs to be fixed”. They are giving me space cause they no I have a lot on my plate and the customer isn’t complaining. However I like to get him off my back.
To recap:
Linux Newbie
Mandriva Linux
Nagios Monitoring tool
E-mails stating our server hosting web/ftp services is not returning a ping request.
Proftpd is the FTP software used (incase you need to know)
Any help or insight anyone could provide will be greatly appreciated. If you need anymore information from me please let me know Smile I apologize for the long post but I like to make sure everyone gets the whole story so no information is missed or misconcieved.
Best,
JKane