The dude Is a powerful application designed to scan networks and monitor the operation of connected devices (laptops, computers, routers). The software has a good potential in terms of functionality, which we hasten to tell you about in today's new review.
Let's start by tradition by answering the question, who needs the program? - First of all, system administrators (it is clear why), merchants and businessmen, Internet providers, as well as those users who want to "be in the know" of what is happening in the network processes (environment) of their device (for example, if they organize a mini office at home).
The Dude for Windows
In the process of monitoring, the scanner determines the types and types of detected devices, "draws" a map of the found networks (of any complexity), with which it will be easier for you to interact visually in the future. Plus, you can make and work with your own maps.I like the utility of its autonomy and auto mode scanning in the specified subnets, as well as the fact that if there are problems, the software issues a warning. If we talk about the rest of the software's capabilities, these include:
- network layout + recognition of device types ∕ brands;
- support for custom icons and backgrounds;
- work with SNMP, ICMP, DNS and TCP;
- channel monitoring, etc.
Help: operates on Windows 7/8/10, Linux.
Now a few words about the Mikrotik The Dude interface. It is quite laconic, there is a Russian language. The main window contains the main keys, commands (there are quite a lot of them) and tabs - only 6. In fact, having the utility at hand, you can easily track any network changes, "ping" the connection and at the same time test it for reliability. A lot of useful analytical information and specialized charts are presented here. Installing the client on a computer is standard, so we won't talk about it too much.
With this utility, you will undoubtedly improve the performance of the network environment, you will be able to control and manage devices. Recently, the developers with renewed vigor have taken up the improvement of their "brainchild", and therefore please us with updated versions. We hope you will rate the program as positively as thousands of users around the world have done.
You can download The Dude for free on our web portal using a direct link (from the official website) - the latest version is available.
Details Created on 05/14/2013 11:13 PM Updated on 04/15/2014 04:23 Hits: 46991Free monitoring system The Dude from Mikrotik.
I want to start a series of articles about a monitoring system from Mikrotik named The Dude. Translated from English CHUVAK. I do not know on what principle the developers called the monitoring system, but apparently they wanted to bring a little humor so that it would not be so boring.
I want to immediately warn copy-pasters and plagiarists, when copying and posting these materials, a link to the author and the site is required. For the lazy, author Vitaly (obsessionsys) - tranz-it.net. Â
Let's start to analyze in more detail. Since I am a remote employee of the company, and I maintain remote servers and systems, and I do not have direct physical contact with the equipment, I needed a monitoring system.
I chose according to many criteria:
1. Free, ie. OPEN SOURCE
2. Ability to deploy on different systems ie. CROSPLATFORMITY
3. Ease of initial setup
4. Not bulky, like monsters Nagios, Cacti, Zabbix
5. Intuitive interface
6. Without financial investments (make on what is out of iron)
7. Minimum time spent
8. Extensible functionality
9. Scalability
10. Undemanding to resources
11. Monitoring based standard tools all OS families (SNMP, TCP, etc.) without using agents
12. Device typing based on auto-polling
13. There was a Syslog-Server on board
14. MAIN -> MAPS NETWORKS with the ability to manually build maps.
15. MAIN -> STARTING PROGRAMS ON A REMOTE MACHINE WITH TRANSMISSION OF CONTEXT PARAMETERS
16. BUILT-IN LANGUAGE FOR WRITING SURVEY FUNCTIONS
17. NOTIFICATIONS BY E-MAIL AND SMS and others.
18. Use standard programs on a working PC dTo connect to servers
Well, I don't seem to have missed anything. Thus, monitoring systems such as NAGIOS, CACTI, ZABBIX were dropped immediately for many reasons, I don’t even want to list. For a very long time I went through a bunch of software, and even came across paid and even terribly paid ones, but this did not suit me, somehow I did not want to pay, because we have to get off with a little blood.
And when I started using Mikrotik equipment, and installed Mikrotik RB800 + 816 instead of Draytek at home, I came across a wonderful thing, this free system monitoring The Dude. I was very surprised that the company provides this development for free (1st point is satisfied). Many will pour mud on and say that The Dude is bullshit and so on, there is no comrade in taste and color. But still I will continue.
The system can be installed on both Linux and Windows, but this system works best under its own OS - RouterOS.
The monitoring system itself for different platforms can be downloaded from the official website MIKROTIK.COM. You can also try out the demo mode on the official website, using the link above, the IP address is indicated after downloading and installing The Dude (it is both a client and a server, i.e. everything goes in one bottle, but only for Windows and Linux ), you can connect and view the test grid using the admin login and without a password.
I will describe a bit of a sad experience of installation under Linux and Windows, just briefly, what jambs and bugs I found, but maybe it was just me, please do not kick too much. Installation on an OS Windows Server or Windows XP with an unlocked number of TCP sessions, failed, with an increase in the number of monitoring devices, the socket stack overflowed, and the server began to slow down terribly, it was impossible to log in via RDP, and all this continued until a reboot, after which it repeated after a while. There were no problems with Linux as such. Windows and Linux sockets are similar, but in Linux it works a little differently, and there were no overflows, although with large and frequent requests over the TCP / IP protocol, the sockets were overloaded, but this happened very rarely, and again a banal system reboot helped. On the downside, monitoring in Linux can work through Wine, and is not automatically written to startup, but with a little manipulation it can be done, but you cannot escape wine.
Therefore, I still chose the native RouterOS system to install the monitoring system, and installed it on virtual machine VirtualBox. Then, through the graphical utility Winbox, I connected to RouterOS. I registered an IP address (IP -> Addresses - [+]), a gateway (IP -> Routes -> [+]), and DNS (for polling on local DNS servers)
From the offsite, download the .npk file of the monitoring system, in Winbox open the Files menu item and drop it using drag-and-drop (by moving the mouse) and then reboot the system (System -> Reboot -> Yes)
Everything, after rebooting the system, the monitoring system is installed on RouterOS.
For a Windows server, everything is trivial, when you install, be sure to select the Server Files checkbox, and everything else is up to your taste.
Now on the working PC (if it is Windows) install the same The Dude file, just uncheck the Server Files item, if the OS is Linux, install it using Wine and run the client. For clarity, I installed the test version of The Dude on a virtual Windows machine, which will be both a server and a client.
After that, in the Server field, enter the IP address of our virtual machine or the server where The Dude is installed, the mode is secure, the port is 2211, the username is admin, the password field is left blank, and click the "Connect" button. I have localhost registered, because I have the server installed on the same machine. After the connection, the automatic polling window will immediately appear. local network based on IP address operating system on which The Dude is installed. For the first test, you can click poll, and you will see how the system will poll all the IP addresses of your local network, while adding all found devices to the map. (Clause 12 - satisfied)
I didn’t do it, and I clicked “Cancel”. I myself will control the process of adding devices to the map, and even more so The Dude system itself is not configured.
First you need to configure the system itself. In fact, all the settings of the monitoring system are very intuitive and understandable, but I will analyze in more detail, and give several recommendations that I have identified as a result of using this system. Accordingly, we go to the settings:
And we will see the following:
Section: General
In the General tab, you can immediately see what's what, although there are many problems with sending email, but they can be solved. Thus, on the main tab, DNS servers are configured to search for devices by the monitoring system and configure sending to email.
Category: SNMP
In the picture above, SNMP polling is configured, i.e. SNMP profiles by which data will be collected from devices. The profile includes community, port and version. MY TIP: Use different SNMP profiles for different networks, and different agents if you have a distributed network. For purposes more aesthetic than practical. Be sure to indicate comments to all points where it is possible to do this, since it will be much easier for you to navigate later.
At this point, the default snmp profile is public version 1, which will be applied automatically to all networks and devices. You can choose your own or create your own and set it as the default. The Dude supports all three versions of the snmp protocol. (Clause 11 - mostly satisfied)
Section: Poll
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO STAY ON THIS TAB
The most interesting tab in my opinion. And very dangerous. I WILL TELL IMMEDIATELY: THE LESS THERE IS THE "SENSING INTERVAL" PARAMETER, AND THE "SENSING TIMEOUT" and "NUMBER OF PROBES ..." more load on the monitoring system and the more system resources are required from iron. MY ADVICE: Set the "Probing interval" parameter more (it all depends on the number of devices) at the first stage for about 5-10 minutes, and accordingly, the more devices you will monitor, this parameter should be proportionally increased slightly. The "Probing timeout" parameter should be set less, but not equal to zero, I set myself about 2-3 seconds. I set the parameter "Number of probes in the" Not working "state to about 2. Why two, the more probes you will have in monitoring the device itself (i.e., for example, monitoring CPU, DNS, TELNET, SSH, HTTP, etc. ) the more the load on the monitoring system increases, so I try to rationally use the resources of the hardware on which the monitoring system is installed. Proverb - Savings should be economical.
Well alerts, this is the section where you can customize the alert system ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ as your heart desires ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ about any actions on devices. You can add to alerts, playouts sound files, or sending SMS, or sending a letter. For example, I have to play a pig squeal when the server turns off, and even sitting in another room I already know for some reason my server turned off, probably my son pressed the reset button on the server's system unit. Or, for example, bring the sound of a funeral muffle to the IT department employees when the 1C server was cut off, so that they would know that the accountants will come soon, and the chief accountant will alternately bury them in the closet system administrator... Thus, in this monitoring system, you can flexibly configure the notification system for IT department employees, up to displaying a map on a separate monitor, for a visual display of all network nodes, which will produce some kind of sounds. (Clause 17 is satisfied)
Section: Server
In this section, you can specify the ports to which you can connect to the monitoring system, by default the normal port for connecting to The Dude monitoring server is 2210, the secure one is 2211. You can set your ports, only when connecting, you will need to specify which port to connect to. You can also specify the networks from which you can connect to the monitoring server, by default all networks are allowed to connect. You can add multiple networks by clicking the down arrow. And the monitoring system in its core will prescribe the firewall rules for accessing the monitoring system.
Wow, and there is even a web interface, it’s stunned, which can work both on port 80 and over SSL, well, isn't it a beauty, though over the SSL port, you must first generate a certificate and transfer it to the monitoring system in the Files section of the left menu. I think that there should be no problems with this section, everything is very clear.
Section: Agents
This section specifies and configures the connection of agents for distributed monitoring of remote networks. Dude servers of the same version as the main one, ours, which we are configuring now, are specified as the agent. (Clause 9 - satisfied)
Category: Syslog
(Clause 13 - satisfied)
In the syslog server, we can enable it, set the port, and add a bunch of profiles for devices that will dump logs to our server, and we can also distribute so that each server dumps its logs to its file (Section Logs in the left menu of the monitoring system where you can configure how many system logs are needed and for different devices).
Section: Map
In this section, you can configure the visual display of objects on the map (this is the Background, Appearance devices, Network view, Submap view, Static view, etc.)
Section: Chart
Here you can configure How long to keep charts and chart history, specify the initial storage size, and specify the color scheme for chart displays. As for the history, I did not touch anything and left it as it is, only changed the Font, so that it would be clear what is written on the diagram.
The rest of the sections are not that important to get you started, but you can play around with the settings, but only carefully. :)
Then press the "OK" button. We can say that the system is configured.
Let's summarize
1. Free, ie. OPEN SOURCE - free
2. Ability to deploy on various systems ie. CROSPLATFORMITY - cross-platform
3. Ease of initial setup - I think everyone will agree that it is not difficult to set up
4. Not bulky, like monsters Nagios, Cacti, Zabbix - yes, it's definitely only 3.9 megabytes
5. Intuitive interface - for me very well (IMHO)
6. Without financial investments (to do with what is out of iron) - virtual machine
7. Minimum time spent -ÂÂÂÂ To be honest, I managed to set up the system in 20 minutes
8. Extensible functionality - I will describe this later
9. Scalability - yes scalable, due to small agents on the same system the Dude
10. Low demands on resources - virtualka 1CPU, RAM 512 Mb, HDD-RouterOs 1 GB, HDD-Dude 8 Gb, virtual CPU load 34%, subject to monitoring 41 devices (hardware Intel Desktop Board DN2800MT)
11. Monitoring based on standard tools of all OS families (SNMP, TCP, etc.) without using agents - yes, agentless monitoring
12. Device typing based on auto-polling - there is
13. There was a Syslog-Server on board - it is not bad, and it works
14. MAIN -> MAPS NETWORKS with the ability to manually build maps. - yes, there are maps, and very flexible (there is a minus, you have to finely and manually configure the display of data for each device)
15. MAIN -> STARTING PROGRAMS ON A REMOTE MACHINE WITH TRANSMISSION OF CONTEXT PARAMETERS (there is, most importantly, the brains and hands are in the right place)
16. BUILT-IN LANGUAGE FOR WRITING SURVEY FUNCTIONS (very flexible - available)
17. NOTIFICATIONS BY E-MAIL AND SMS and others. (there is)
18. Using standard programs on a working PC for To connect to servers(where my soul lies, I use Linux Mint + The Dude Client + Remmina + mini scripts)
In the next article I will describe how to add devices to the card and configure monitoring.
Some time ago I started my acquaintance with a rather convenient and functional network monitoring tool from the company Mikrotik - The dude... This is not an easy thing and it will take a lot of time to fully understand its capabilities. But I have already begun to form some idea. So now a little practice with The Dude.
It all starts with the installation. Rather, the first difficulties already begin with the installation. The fact is that earlier this program was a "thing in itself", uniting the client and the server. Now everything is somewhat more convenient and more complicated at the same time - we have a separate lightweight client that can be installed in a minute and reach the server part, which can be anywhere ... Router OS... At first I was delighted, it's perfect, because The Dude is just a separate plugin for Mikrotik routers. That is, we update the firmware on the router, download the server part, and it would seem that this is happiness. But no.
The Dude server is put on a rather limited the lineup pieces of iron - on architecture TILE (CCR, Cloud Core Router), ARM (CRS3xx, RB3011, RB1100AHx4), X86 (RB230, X86), MMIPS (RB750Gr3). Thus, the owners of the most common MIPSBE making suck paw. These are, for obvious reasons, points NetMetal, wAP, Sextant etc., routers hAP / mAP / etc., modifications based on RB2011 and further down the list. Pain and suffering. What to do? The solution lies in the magic acronym X86- we will install RouterOS on our hardware.
In the simplest case, for this we need Oracle VM VirtualBox and the Router OS distribution from the Mikrotik website CD Image, relevant at the time of this writing - on top of which we will put The dude server .
Note. The distribution kit on the .iso image will already have a pre-installed server part of Duda.
Now about the installation process. Of course, for a start, we put VirtualBox... With him, everything is relatively simple - further, further, and again further. Now about creating a virtual machine.
We poke on Create and follow the suggested steps.
1.
We set the name of the virtual machine and its type. The type would be Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x (32-bit)
2.
We indicate the volume random access memory which our virtual machine will have
3. Hard virtual machines. We choose new virtual hard disk.
4. We set as the hard type VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image)
5. And we choose the storage format dynamic virtual hard disk.
6. We set the name of our hard and its size.
7. As a result, we get the following virtual machine:
8. Now you need to go to its settings and configure Net... Required to create network bridge (Bridge) with a real network card.
That's all. It remains to mount the image mikrotik-X.XX.X.iso(at the time of reading the article, the version is clearly not the one presented in the link above).
Great, we launch the virtual machine and follow the steps of the installation wizard, that is, select the installation of all components and further and further. The installation is complete, unmount the .iso image and boot from the virtual hard drive. The download is complete, but our virtual Mikrotik has no connection either with the LAN, let alone the Internet. Its interface ether1 need to be configured. You can do this from the virtual console if you are friends with the terminal commands.
And if not, then again, everything is not difficult at all. We need a program Winbox(downloaded from the Mikrotik off-site). If you are in charge of at least one piece of hardware running RouterOS, this program is available on your working machine.
Launch Winbox and open the tab Neighbors... Perhaps more than one device will be displayed, but we are interested in something without an IP address and with the inscription x86 in the Board column. We select it, the user is admin and without a password.
Next, we need to set the IP. Which one? From the pool that distributes the router to which the machine with VirtualBox is connected. Let's say it's a pool 192.168.88.0/24 , the machine receives 192.168.88.90, and our x86 will be 192.168.88.100, which we will set in the section IP > Addresses: