As a sysadmin, you probably spend a good chunk of your time troubleshooting and resolving issues. To help with these tasks or prevent issues, you need to be aware of what's happening in your systems and how they behave. That's where monitoring tools come in handy. You can't manage a system without understanding it first.
[ Cheat sheet: Get a list of Linux utilities and commands for managing servers and networks. ]
Linux provides many alternatives and options to monitor and troubleshoot your systems. From comprehensive tools, such as nmap and nmon, to basic shell scripts, to specialized tools for monitoring container workloads, Enable Sysadmin's top 10 monitoring articles of 2022 provide a taste of everything you need to understand your systems and keep them up and running.
Top 10 systems monitoring articles of 2022
Learn more about what's happening on your systems by reading the following guides and Enable Sysadmin's other monitoring articles.
Get started with the Nmap Scripting Engine
Take Nmap to the next level by running scripts with your scans with Damon Garn's article 5 scripts for getting started with the Nmap Scripting Engine.
Understand 'top' header output
In What the first five lines of Linux's top command tell you, Damon Garn explains the content and importance of top command header output.
Troubleshoot Linux with nmon
nmon is one of my favorite Linux monitoring tools. In Troubleshoot and monitor Linux system performance with nmon, I introduce you to this flexible tool and how you can use it to troubleshoot and monitor your system's performance.
Monitor network switches
In Monitor your network switches with this open source tool by Timo Scheibe, you learn how to use the open source tool Checkmk and the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to ensure the health of your network switches.
Troubleshoot packet filtering
In Damon Garn's third appearance on this list, 3 tools for troubleshooting packet filtering, he introduces three important tools—nmap, tcpdump, and wireshark—and explains how they helped him troubleshoot and resolve a real-life network issue.
Analyze Kubernetes cluster security
In her article How to get started with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes, Shveta Sachdeva demonstrates how to install and use this powerful tool to monitor and analyze security for your Kubernetes or OpenShift clusters.
Preserve system logs after a reboot
In the short and to-the-point article How to configure your system to preserve system logs after a reboot, Evans Amoany walks you through setting up persistent journal logs on your Linux system for future troubleshooting.
Estimate cloud resource requirements
In his debut Enable Sysadmin article, Olu Oteniya's 8 steps for estimating a cloud application's resource requirements provides a comprehensive tutorial on using OpenShift and other monitoring tools to estimate application resource utilization.
Configure Grafana dashboards with automation
Jose Vicente Nunez's excellent article How to customize Grafana dashboards using Ansible demonstrates how to customize your Grafana dashboards according to your Ansible inventory for flexible, data-driven visualization.
Monitor OpenShift nodes
To complete this year's list, Morgan Peterman's article 3 ways to monitor time on OpenShift nodes explores three ways to ensure time is synchronized on your OpenShift nodes to avoid issues.
[ Network getting out of control? Check out Network automation for everyone, a complimentary book from Red Hat. ]
Wrap up
Monitoring is an essential sysadmin practice, which is why these are among Enable Sysadmin's most popular articles. Do you have systems monitoring tips, tools, or best practices to share? Consider writing about them for Enable Sysadmin. Join our community and continue the tradition of knowledge sharing that makes the Linux ecosystem great.
