Checkmk
An open-source IT infrastructure monitoring system that supports unified monitoring of hosts, services, virtual machines, containers, and network devices. It uses an architecture combining agents, special agents, and plug-ins, and offers a free Community Edition.
Timeline (last 90 days)
Checkmk is an open-source monitoring system that offers a free Community Edition.
Checkmk's core mechanism consists of three parts: the Agent, the Special Agent, and plugins.
A regular Agent runs as a daemon resident on the target host to actively collect and push data; a Special Agent is not installed on the target host, but is instead invoked periodically by the Checkmk site to run a local script that pulls data through the target system's API; the service discovery mechanism first enumerates the check items that the Agent or Special Agent can actually report, and then the user confirms which ones to bring into monitoring.
Docker container monitoring relies on the mk_docker.py plugin, which is not automatically enabled in the Community Edition; you need to manually install the Python3-Docker dependency, download the plugin to the Agent plugin directory and give it executable permissions, then generate the configuration file and redo service discovery.
The Piggyback mechanism allows certain monitoring data to be reported along with another host, with the data carrying the hostname it truly belongs to, and Checkmk uses this to attach the metrics to the corresponding host.
Checkmk supports monitoring network devices via SNMP v2c or v3, and can automatically discover devices within a subnet through network range scanning.
Checkmk's HTTP check rules support validating status codes as well as searching for specific strings in the page body.
Proxmox can be accessed via its API using a username and password (default port 8006), and data such as virtual machines, storage, and snapshot age can be obtained without installing an Agent on the host.
Checkmk's plugin marketplace exchange.checkmk.com provides plugin packages in .mkp format, and installation requires running the two steps mkp add and mkp enable under the monitoring site user.
Checkmk's notification rules support channels such as Slack and Mattermost, and alerts and recovery notifications can be sent by configuring a webhook.
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All Facts (14)
Checkmk is an open-source monitoring system that offers a free Community Edition.
50%UnverifiedCheckmk's core mechanism consists of three parts: the Agent, the Special Agent, and plugins.
50%UnverifiedA regular Agent runs as a daemon resident on the target host to actively collect and push data; a Special Agent is not installed on the target host, but is instead invoked periodically by the Checkmk site to run a local script that pulls data through the target system's API; the service discovery mechanism first enumerates the check items that the Agent or Special Agent can actually report, and then the user confirms which ones to bring into monitoring.
50%UnverifiedDocker container monitoring relies on the mk_docker.py plugin, which is not automatically enabled in the Community Edition; you need to manually install the Python3-Docker dependency, download the plugin to the Agent plugin directory and give it executable permissions, then generate the configuration file and redo service discovery.
50%UnverifiedThe Piggyback mechanism allows certain monitoring data to be reported along with another host, with the data carrying the hostname it truly belongs to, and Checkmk uses this to attach the metrics to the corresponding host.
50%UnverifiedCheckmk supports monitoring network devices via SNMP v2c or v3, and can automatically discover devices within a subnet through network range scanning.
50%UnverifiedCheckmk's HTTP check rules support validating status codes as well as searching for specific strings in the page body.
50%UnverifiedProxmox can be accessed via its API using a username and password (default port 8006), and data such as virtual machines, storage, and snapshot age can be obtained without installing an Agent on the host.
50%UnverifiedCheckmk's plugin marketplace exchange.checkmk.com provides plugin packages in .mkp format, and installation requires running the two steps mkp add and mkp enable under the monitoring site user.
50%UnverifiedCheckmk's notification rules support channels such as Slack and Mattermost, and alerts and recovery notifications can be sent by configuring a webhook.
50%UnverifiedCheckmk provides an automation secret (an automation account with the admin role), which allows operations such as batch-adding hosts and generating custom dashboards via the API.
50%UnverifiedCheckmk's Community Edition is fully featured, but many automation steps must be done manually, such as bulk importing Docker containers.
50%UnverifiedCheckmk can monitor metrics output by user-defined scripts, and can be integrated as long as the script can output metrics.
50%UnverifiedAccording to NetworkChuck's hands-on demo, Checkmk took less than five minutes from download to running.
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