Web front-end for Nagios 2.x : RESPONSE FROM FRUITY DEVELOPER

[Taylor Dondich]

Okay, I think some clarification is in order.  First off, let me
introduce myself.  I'm the developer of Fruity, the Nagios
configuration utility.  I wrote Fruity when I was working in Las
Vegas, implementing Nagios in a gaming enterprise.  When Fruity was in
it's earliest stages, Groundwork contacted me in regards to working
with them.  I joined their team.  At the time, they were also
developing Monarch, a Nagios configuration tool.  They brought me
aboard for my Nagios experience and in my experience in developing web
applications.  They continue to work on Monarch.  During my time here,
I continue to work on Fruity.  Let me plainly state the facts:

Monarch And Fruity are developed in tandem.  They do NOT share any
code.  Monarch is written in Perl, Fruity is written in PHP.  The
Monarch author does not work on Fruity, nor do I work on Monarch. 
Yes, Groundwork is paying both of us to continue to develop each of
these tools.  Monarch is used in Groundwork Monitor, monitoring
solution that Groundwork provides.  Fruity continues to be a mostly
community driven project that anyone can download and use immediately.
 They have different ways of approaching the same problem.  Some
people like Monarch, some people like Fruity.

Fruity is in NO way in danger of collapsing because I work at
Groundwork.  Both tools are not planned to merge yet in the immediate
future.

Fruity is VERY much alive and has one of the most active communities
for a Nagios configuration tool.  It's enhanced templating system is
extremely powerful and there are patches provided by the community
which extend it's functionality.

Monarch is a powerful tool which appears to be used more by larger
enterprises.  It has some non-nagios specific features that I'm not
too familiar with.

I'm hoping this clarifies some of the questions that come up.  People
may seem puzzled in why Groundwork would pay me to work on Fruity
(which is not my only project here).  They are dedicated to improving
the open source field and driving innovation.  I think the fact that
they provide development of both tools is a sign of their respect for
these tools (they could have easilly tried to shut down Fruity after I
joined the team).

Taylor Dondich


On 5/9/06, Marcel van Leeuwen <m.v.leeuwen at student.tue.nl> wrote:
> lars.bruun-hansen at nordea.com wrote:
> > Marcel,
> >
> > Remember my requirement:  Nagios 2.x (Nagios 1.x irrelevant)
> >
> > Monarch seems to me to be GroundWorks' previous configuration front-end
> > while the new up-and-coming configuration front-end specific for Nagios
> > 2.x is called Fruity, also by GroundWorks.
> > Is this wrong?
> >
> Yes this is wrong. I believe Monarch indeed was available for version
> 1.0 (although I have never used it for that) it now has features that
> make it possible to convert existing configurations.
>
> > In any case I believe more in configuration tools that have started
> > their life on Nagois 2.x as I'm really afraid that the older tools have
> > too much baggage. Maybe I'm wrong on that one ?
> >
> > Some examples that I've come across that seems to do what I want
> >
> > * Fruity, by GroundWorks,  latest version: 1.0 RC1
> > * NagiosQL 2005, by Martin Willisegger,   latest version 1.0 RC2
> >
> Well, I can say that I have tested both and have now migrated to Monarch
> because of the (future) scale of my Nagios implementation. Fruity is the
> light-weight brother/sister of Monarch, but works very well it provides
> an almost 1-on-1 mapping of the Nagios configuration files. I believe
> that the initial Fruity developer is now part of the Monarch team (am
> not sure about this).
>
> I think NagiosQL is ok but I stubled across some bugs (e.g. '\'
> handling in configurations) and I found the interface not very
> comprehensible.
>
> The above tools both work fine, and give you an option to easily
> configure your files. However, Monarch does more it adds features that
> are not supported by the Nagios configuration files that make it easy to
> maintain large groups of hosts and services, like service and host
> profiles, dependency templates, contact templates, etc..
>
>
> Bases on my experience with the above I would most certainly recommend
> Monarch if you plan on having a large Nagios configuration. If not I
> think you should go for Fruity since it does give you enough to easily
> create you configuration in a very comprehensible interface.
> > Others?
> >
> Yes I have tried one more but can't remember which one it was..:)
>
> Remember, that all the above are just my personal experiences...
>
> Regards,
> Marcel
> >
> > Lars
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: nagios-users-admin at lists.sourceforge.net
> > [mailto:nagios-users-admin at lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of Mels
> > Kooijman
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 10:53
> > To: nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> > Subject: RE: [Nagios-users] Re: Web front-end for Nagios 2.x
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > We are using Monarch for the m$ administrators and are very positive
> > about it.
> > Only 1 thing gives some trouble.
> > When we add a system, first add a new file for it.
> > After commit Nagios reports a configuration error, the course is that
> > Monarch the new .cfg file not saved in the running nagios.cfg
> >
> > Kind regards
> > Mels
> >
> >
> >
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: nagios-users-admin at lists.sourceforge.net
> >>[mailto:nagios-users-admin at lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of Marcel
> >>van Leeuwen
> >>Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 9:23 AM
> >>To: nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> >>Subject: [Nagios-users] Re: Web front-end for Nagios 2.x
> >>
> >>
> >>Hi,
> >>
> >>I have latelely been looking into Monarch. This seems a very robust
> >>interface. For as for as I know it does support all configuration
> >>features and even more in the form of host and service profiles.
> >>
> >>http://sourceforge.net/projects/monarch
> >>or
> >>http://www.groundworkopensource.com
> >>
> >>Kind regards,
> >>Marcel van Leeuwen
> >>
> >>
> >>lars.bruun-hansen at nordea.com wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Hi there,
> >>>
> >>>I'm looking for a GUI-frontend for Nagios 2.x.
> >>>
> >>>Anyone can tell me what options I have if my requirements are:
> >>>
> >>>* Nagios 2.x support, Nagios 1.x irrelevant
> >>>* Must support *all* configuration features of Nagios 2.x
> >>>* Must support template based configuration
> >>>* Restart from within the GUI
> >>>* Good support, stable, being actively maintained
> >>>
> >>>I can of course see a list of potential candidates on
> >>
> >>NagiosExchange
> >>
> >>>but it seems to me that many of them are really Nagios 1.x
> >>
> >>specific.
> >>
> >>>I'm trying to save some time here by asking you lot instead of
> >>>installing and trying out each individually.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>thx.
> >>>
> >>>Lars
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>-------------------------------------------------------
> >>>Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services,
> >>>security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to
> >>>make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application
> >>
> >>Server v.1.0.1
> >>
> >>>based on Apache Geronimo
> >>>http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=k&kid0709&bid&3057&dat1642
> >>>_______________________________________________
> >>>Nagios-users mailing list
> >>>Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> >>>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
> >>>::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and
> >>
> >>OS when reporting any issue.
> >>
> >>>::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent
> >>
> >>to /dev/null
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------
> >>Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services,
> >>security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to
> >>make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1
> >
> >
> >>based on Apache Geronimo
> >>http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&
> >
> > dat=121642
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nagios-users mailing list
> > Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
> > ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when
> > reporting any issue.
> > ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services,
> > security?
> > Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job
> > easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache
> > Geronimo
> > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=k&kid0709&bid&3057&dat1642
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nagios-users mailing list
> > Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
> > ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when
> > reporting any issue.
> > ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security?
> > Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier
> > Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo
> > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=k&kid0709&bid&3057&dat1642
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nagios-users mailing list
> > Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
> > ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue.
> > ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
> >
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security?
> Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier
> Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo
> http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642
> _______________________________________________
> Nagios-users mailing list
> Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
> ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue.
> ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
>


-------------------------------------------------------
Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security?
Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier
Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo
http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid0709&bid&3057&dat1642
_______________________________________________
Nagios-users mailing list
Nagios-users at lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue. 
::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null