## About NetSaint

What Is NetSaint?

NetSaint is a network monitoring application. Or perhaps more correctly, it is a system monitoring application. It monitors hosts and services (alerting you when things go wrong), but does not perform traffic anaylsis, packet sniffing, etc.

NetSaint was originally designed to run under Linux, although it should work under most other unices as well. For more information on what OSes NetSaint will and will not run under, see the OS ports page at http://www.netsaint.org/ports.php.

Some of NetSaint's many features include:

- Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING, etc.)
- Monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk usage, etc.)
- Simple plugin design that allows users to easily develop their own service checks
- Parallelized service checks
- Ability to define network host hierarchy using "parent" hosts, allowing detection of and distinction between hosts that are down and those that are unreachable
- Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email, pager, or user-defined method)
- Ability to define event handlers to be run during service or host events for proactive problem resolution
- Automatic log file rotation
- Support for implementing redundant monitoring hosts
- Optional web interface for viewing current network status, notification and problem history, log file, etc.

NetSaint is not...

- An SNMP manager
- A security vulnerability assessment tool

NetSaint is not technically a security tool, even though it has been classified in this manner by many security professionals. Why has it been classified as such you ask? Well, for the benefit of the non-technical users out there (managers, lawyers, etc.), the reason that NetSaint can be considered to be a security-related application is the fact that it helps ensure the security of your job and give you peace of mind. After all, if you walk into the office one morning and find that the web server (for which you are in charge) was down all night, you just might get your ass fired. Enough said.

System Requirements

The only requirement of running NetSaint is a machine running Linux (or UNIX variant) and a C compiler. You will probably also want to have TCP/IP configured, as most service checks will be performed over the network.

You are not required to use the CGIs included with the core NetSaint distribution. However, if you do decide to use them, you will need to have the following software installed...

1. A web server (preferrably Apache)
2. Thomas Boutell's gd library version 1.6.3 or higher (required by the statusmap and trends CGIs)

Licensing

NetSaint is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation. This gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify NetSaint under certain conditions. Read the 'LICENSE' file in the NetSaint distribution or read the online version of the license for more details.

Netsaint is provided AS IS with NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE WARRANTY OF DESIGN, MERCHANTABILITY, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

History

- Version 0.0.7 - 2001 Sometime...
- Version 0.0.6 - 11/01/2000
- Version 0.0.5 - 04/26/2000
- Version 0.0.4 - 09/02/1999
- Version 0.0.3 - 05/21/1999
- Version 0.0.2p1 - 04/18/1999
- Version 0.0.2 - 04/10/1999
- Version 0.0.1 - 03/14/1999

Known Issues

NetSaint is still an immature program, so there are bound to be a lot of bugs in it. The current list of known issues and bugs can be found at http://www.netsaint.org/bugs.php

Acknowledgements

Several people have contributed to NetSaint by either reporting bugs, suggesting improvements, writing plugins, etc. A list of some of the many contributors to the development of NetSaint can be found at http://www.netsaint.org/contributors.php. Unfortunately, this list is quite of of date. I've been getting so many bug reports, patches, suggestions, plugins, etc. that I can't keep up...

Comments And Feedback

I developed NetSaint for my own use. Once I was reasonably happy with it, I decided to release it so that others could use it. NetSaint is free software, so I don't get any compensation for the hours I spend working on it. In order to keep more versions coming, all I ask is that you give me some feedback. I need to know what doesn't work in the current version and what you want to see in future releases. Positive feedback is appreciated, as it helps assure me that NetSaint is actually being used and is working for people. You can reach me at netsaint@netsaint.org

Downloading The Latest Version

You can check for new versions of NetSaint at the following sites:

- http://www.netsaint.org
- http://www.freshmeat.net (appindex 923738250)

Other Monitoring Utilities

In case you weren't aware, there are other network monitoring utilities available besides NetSaint. I think NetSaint is a pretty good contender, but I'm obviously biased... Have a look at the competition for yourself - here are links to a few of them:

- Angel Network Monitor
- Autostatus
- Big Brother
- The Event Monitor Project
- HiWAyS
- MARS
- Mon
- Netup (French)
- NocMonitor
- NOCOL
- NodeWatch
- Over-CR
- Penemo
- PIKT
- RITW
- Scotty
- Spong
- Sysmon