M/Monit System Monitoring

Monit is a small popular Open Source utility for managing and monitoring Unix systems. M/Monit builds on Monit's capabilities and provides monitoring and management of all your Monit enabled hosts via a modern, clean and well designed user interface which also works on mobile devices.

M/Monit website Monit website Git

Setup and configuration have been tested on following operating systems:

M/Monit

• Ubuntu- 16.04, 18.04, 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
• M/Monit- 3.6.0 -> 3.7.5

Monit

• Ubuntu- 16.04, 18.04, 20.04
• Monit- 5.16.0 -> 5.27.0

WARNING

M/Monit is a non-free software to montior and manage all Monit enabled hosts. 30 days free trial.

Configuration files

• server.xml
• monitrc

Prerequisites

Dependancies when building or upgrading Monit from source.

• zlib1g-dev
• libssl-dev
• libpam0g-dev
• ruby-full (optional)

M/Monit Installation

For additional information see reference M/Monit documentation.

To download the latest version of M/Monit visit the official website. Continue to extract the file and move it to /usr/local/mmonit/.

[email protected]:~$ wget https://mmonit.com/dist/mmonit-3.7.5-linux-x64.tar.gz
[email protected]:~$ tar -zxvf mmonit-3.7.5-linux-x64.tar.gz
[email protected]:~$ rm mmonit-3.7.5-linux-x64.tar.gz
[email protected]:~$ sudo mv mmonit-3.7.5/ /usr/local/mmonit/

Now you can visit M/Monit at http://192.168.0.1:8080 if executing the command sudo ./mmonit from /usr/local/mmonit-3.7.5/bin/ (Dont forget to check Firewall settings). However, we strongly recommend to run M/Monit with TLS support.

Enable TLS

To enable M/Monit to run with TLS comment out the port 8080 connector and uncomment the SSL/TLS connector to listen on port 8443. Proceed to update the host section and define the server IP address along with the certificate path.

[email protected]:~$ sudo nano /usr/local/mmonit/conf/server.xml

        <!--
        <Connector address="*" port="8080" processors="10" />
        -->

        <!-- Define a SSL/TLS HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8443 -->
        <Connector scheme="https" address="*" port="8443" processors="10" secure="true" />

        <!--
            Define the default virtual host which name must match the
            Engine defaultHost attribute
        -->
        <Host name="localhost" appBase="." address="192.168.0.1" certificate="conf/mmonit.pem">

Add M/Monit to systemd

To simplify the process to start and stop M/Monit add it to the systemd. First create a mmonit.service file, paste the below and save.

[email protected]:~$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/mmonit.service

[Unit]
Description = Easy, proactive monitoring of Unix systems, network and cloud services
After = network.target
Documentation= https://mmonit.com/documentation/ 

[Service]
Type=simple
KillMode=process
ExecStart = /usr/local/mmonit/bin/mmonit -i
ExecStop = /usr/local/mmonit/bin/mmonit stop
PIDFile = /usr/local/mmonit/logs/mmonit.pid
Restart = on-abnormal

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

Next reload the systemd daemon, enable our newly configured M/Monit service and then start it.

[email protected]:~$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
[email protected]:~$ sudo systemctl enable mmonit
[email protected]:~$ sudo systemctl start mmonit

Go to your browser and visit https://192.168.0.1:8443. Login using the default credentials user admin with the default password swordfish. Click the Admin tab, select Users and edit (default admin accout) or add a new user. Then grant administration privileges to overwrite the default credentials.

Monit Installation

First install the PAM development package to enable Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) support.

[email protected]:~$ sudo apt-get install libpam0g-dev

Next install the latest version of Monit as an agent for M/Monit enter the commands below.

[email protected]:~$ wget https://bitbucket.org/tildeslash/monit/downloads/monit-5.27.0.tar.gz
[email protected]:~$ tar -zxvf monit-5.27.0.tar.gz
[email protected]:~$ cd monit-5.27.0/
[email protected]:~$ sudo ./configure
[email protected]u:~$ sudo make && sudo make install

TLS/SSL settings

Create a TLS certificate for Monit to enable secure transmission to M/Monit.

[email protected]:~$ sudo openssl req -new -newkey rsa:2048 -x509 -days 730 -nodes -out /etc/monit/monit.pem -keyout /etc/monit/monit.pem
[email protected]:~$ sudo chmod 700 /etc/monit/monit.pem

Configuration

Copy the default Monit configuration file and create an backup.

[email protected]:~$ sudo cp monitrc /usr/local/etc/
[email protected]:~$ cd /usr/local/etc
[email protected]:~$ sudo cp monitrc monitrc_bak

Next edit the Monit configuration file to enable communication with M/Monit over TLS/SSL.

[email protected]:~$ sudo nano monitrc

## Set global SSL options (just most common options showed, see manual for
## full list).
#
set ssl {
     verify: enable
     selfsigned: allow
}

set mmonit https://USERNAME:[email protected]:8443/collector
#     # with timeout 30 seconds              # Default timeout is 5 seconds
#     # and register without credentials     # Don't register credentials

#
set httpd port 2812 and
    #use address localhost      # only accept connection from localhost (drop if you use M/Monit)
    allow localhost             # allow localhost to connect to the server and
    allow 192.168.0.1           # allow M/Monit
    allow USERNAME:PASSWORD     # require user 'admin' with password 'monit'
    with ssl {                  # enable SSL/TLS and set path to server certificate
        pemfile: /etc/monit/monit.pem
        version: TLSv12
        ciphers: "ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384"
    }

Firewall settings

The firewall being used is UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall). It is set by default to deny incoming traffic, allow outgoing traffic and allow port 22 (OpenSSH). Read more about UFW here.

UFW Settings

[email protected]:~$ sudo ufw default deny incoming
[email protected]:~$ sudo ufw default allow outgoing
[email protected]:~$ sudo ufw allow 22
[email protected]:~$ sudo ufw enable
Command may disrupt existing ssh connections. Proceed with operation (y|n)? y
Firewall is active and enabled on system startup

TIP

For non SSL/TLS allow port 8080.

[email protected]:~$ sudo ufw allow 8443 comment "Monit"

[email protected]:~$ sudo ufw allow from 192.168.0.1 to any port 2812 comment "M/Monit"

Start Monit.

[email protected]:~$ sudo /usr/local/bin/monit start

M/Monit behind NGINX Proxy

location / {
    proxy_set_header   Host             $http_host;
    proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP        $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header   REMOTE_HOST      $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For  $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header   X-FORWARDED-PROTOCOL $scheme;
    rewrite ^/(.*) /$1 break;
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
    proxy_redirect http://192.168.0.1:8080 /;
    proxy_cookie_path / /;
}

Slack notifications

Download M/Monit icons for the Slack App integration.

Start with installing Ruby to send our notifications.

[email protected]:~$ sudo apt-get install ruby-full

Proceed to go to Slack and the section for managing apps and select Build. Give your new App an name e.g. M/Monit and connect it to an workspace. Then you'll be presented multiple options select, Incoming Webhooks under the Add features and functionality section. Activate Incoming Webhooks. Click the button Add New Webhook to Workspace.

Next you will be able to select to which channel you want the notifications to be sent to (works with private channels as well). Select your preferred channel and you will get redirected back and presented with the applications webhook URL. Copy the webhook URL for later.

Head back to M/Monit and in the menu under Admin click the Alerts option (https://192.168.0.1.8443/admin/alerts/). Create a new alert with the following conditions: Any Host, Any Service, Any State, Any Event and then select Execute program as the action. In the input field besides the Execute program paste the Ruby code with correct webhook URL and specified channel.

WARNING

Make sure to add line breaks as in the code segment below

ruby -e "
    require 'net/https'
    require 'json'
    uri = URI.parse('https://hooks.slack.com/services/XXXXXXXXX/YYYYYYYYY/ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ')
    http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
    http.use_ssl = true
    request = Net::HTTP::Post.new(uri.request_uri, {'Content-Type' => 'application/json'})
    request.body = { \"channel\"  => \"#general\", \"username\" => \"mmonit\", \"text\" => \"[#{ENV['MONIT_HOST']}] #{ENV['MONIT_SERVICE']} - #{ENV['MONIT_DESCRIPTION']}\" }.to_json
    response = http.request(request)
    puts response.body
"

Next run the test to see if the integration is working correctly. You should receive test output ok and a test notification should be sent to your specific Slack channel.

If you do not use M/Monit you can also configure the individual Monit instance to add Slack notifications. Read more at Tideslash Wiki.

Upgrading

Upgrading M/Monit without overwriting configuration files and databases can be done using the built-in upgrade command.

[email protected]:~$ cd /usr/local/
[email protected]:~$ wget https://mmonit.com/dist/mmonit-3.7.0-linux-x64.tar.gz
[email protected]:~$ tar -zxvf mmonit-3.7.0-linux-x64.tar.gz
[email protected]:~$ cd /usr/local/mmonit-3.6.2/bin/
[email protected]:~$ sudo ./mmonit stop
[email protected]:~$ /usr/local/mmonit-3.7.0/upgrade/upgrade -p /usr/local/mmonit-3.6.2/
[email protected]:~$ cd /usr/local/mmonit-3.7.0/bin/
[email protected]:~$ sudo ./mmonit

Command-line

Troubleshooting

Questions, comments, or problems regarding this service? Create an issue here or contact [email protected].

OpenVAS reports Monit to be using weak ciphers accepted through TLS1.0,1.1,1.2 protocol. Add the following lines within the ssl section.

with ssl {
    pemfile:
    version: TLSv12
    ciphers: "ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384"
}

To resolve the issue where libcrypto.so.1.0.x has been removed with the auto remove/clean command is to reinstall the libssl1.0.x and libssl-dev packages.

[email protected]:~$ sudo apt-get install libssl1.0.x libssl-dev --reinstall

To resolve the issue where you receive the configuration error: libz not found. Proceed to install the zlib1g-dev package.

[email protected]:~$ sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev

In case you get the configure error: Couldn’t find your SSL header files. Proceed by installing the libssl-dev package.

[email protected]:~$ sudo apt-get install libssl-dev

If you receive configure: error: PAM enabled but headers or library not found, install the PAM development support or run configure --without-pam to build without PAM.

[email protected]:~$ libpam0g-dev
[email protected]:~$ sudo ./configure --without-pam

If you get the error SSL server certificate verification error: self signed certificate is not allowed, please use a trusted certificate or use the 'selfsigned: allow' SSL option update the monit configuration file to allow self-signed certificates.

[email protected]:~$ sudo nano /usr/local/etc/monitrc

set ssl {
    verify: enable
    selfsigned: allow
}

If receiving the error that the sever certificate has expired you can either re-generate a new self-signed certificate for your M/Monit server or simply disable the SSL verification at the client side.

Cannot connect to [192.168.0.1]:8443 -- SSL server certificate verification error: certificate has expired

[email protected]:~$ sudo nano /usr/local/etc/monitrc

set ssl {
    #verify: enable
    selfsigned: allow
}

Enterprise solutions non-sponsored

M/Monit Enterprise

The M/Monit Enterprise License is a perpetual license and allows you to install and run an unlimited number of M/Monit instances for monitoring an unlimited number of hosts in-house.

M/Monit