System monitoring.

Telephone

In the previous article, a list of 80 tools for monitoring Linux systems was compiled. It also made sense to make a selection of tools for the Windows system. The following is a list that serves as a starting point only, there is no ranking.

1.Task Manager

The well-known Windows Task Manager is a utility for displaying a list of running processes and the resources they consume. But do you know how to use its full potential? As a rule, it is used to monitor the state of the processor and memory, but you can go much further. This application is pre-installed on all Microsoft operating systems.

2. Resource Monitor

A great tool to estimate CPU, RAM, network and disk usage in Windows. It allows you to quickly obtain all the necessary information about the status of critical servers.

3.Performance Monitor

The main tool for managing performance counters in Windows. Performance Monitor, known to us as System Monitor in earlier versions of Windows. The utility has several display modes, displays performance counters in real time, and saves data to log files for later study.

4.Reliability Monitor

Reliability Monitor - System stability monitor, allows you to monitor any changes in computer performance, you can find the stability monitor in Windows 7, in Windows 8: Control Panel > System and Security > Action Center. Using Reliability Monitor, you can keep a record of changes and failures on your computer, the data will be displayed in a convenient graphical form, which will allow you to track which application and when caused an error or froze, track the appearance of the Windows blue screen of death, the reason for its appearance (the next Windows update or program installation).

5.Microsoft SysInternals

SysInternals is a complete set of programs for administering and monitoring computers running Windows OS. You can download them for yourself for free on the Microsoft website. Sysinternals utilities help manage, troubleshoot, and diagnose Windows applications and operating systems.

System Center is a complete set of tools for managing IT infrastructure, with which you can manage, deploy, monitor, configure Microsoft software (Windows, IIS, SQLServer, Exchange, and so on). Unfortunately, MSC is not free. SCOM is used for proactive monitoring of key IT infrastructure objects.

Monitoring Windows servers using the Nagios family

7. Nagios

Nagios has been the most popular infrastructure monitoring tool for several years (for Linux and Windows). If you are considering Nagios for Windows, then install and configure the agent on the Windows server. NSClient++ monitors the system in real time and provides outputs from a remote monitoring server and more.

8. Cacti

Typically used in conjunction with Nagios, it provides the user with a convenient web interface to the RRDTool utility, designed to work with Round Robin Databases, which are used to store information about changes in one or more quantities over a certain period of time. Statistics on network devices are presented in the form of a tree, the structure of which is specified by the user; you can plot channel usage, HDD partition usage, display resource latency, etc.

9. Shinken

A flexible, scalable, open source monitoring system based on the Nagios core written in Python. It is 5 times faster than Nagios. Shinken is compatible with Nagios, you can use its plugins and configurations without making adjustments or additional configuration.

10. Icinga

Another popular open monitoring system that checks hosts and services and reports their status to the administrator. As a fork of Nagios, Icinga is compatible with it and they have a lot in common.

11. OpsView

OpsView was originally free. Now, unfortunately, users of this monitoring system have to shell out money.

Op5 is another open source monitoring system. Plotting, storing and collecting data.

Alternatives to Nagios

13. Zabbix

Open source software for monitoring and tracking the status of various computer network services, servers and network equipment, used to obtain data on processor load, network usage, disk space and the like.

14. Munin

A good monitoring system that collects data from several servers simultaneously and displays everything in the form of graphs, with which you can track all past events on the server.

15.Zenoss

Written in Python using the Zope application server, data is stored in MySQL. With Zenoss you can
monitor network services, system resources, device performance, the Zenoss kernel analyzes the environment. This makes it possible to quickly understand a large number of specific devices.

16. Observium

A monitoring and surveillance system for network devices and servers, although the list of supported devices is huge and is not limited to network devices; the device must support SNMP.

17. Centreon

A comprehensive monitoring system allows you to monitor the entire infrastructure and applications containing system information. Free alternative to Nagios.

18. Ganglia

Ganglia is a scalable distributed monitoring system used in high-performance computing systems such as clusters and grids. Monitors statistics and computation history in real time for each of the monitored nodes.

19. Pandora FMS

Monitoring system, good productivity and scalability, one monitoring server can monitor the work of several thousand hosts.

20. NetXMS

Open source software for monitoring computer systems and networks.

21.OpenNMS

OpenNMS monitoring platform. Unlike Nagios, it supports SNMP, WMI and JMX.

22. HypericHQ

A component of the VMware vRealize Operations suite, it is used to monitor OS, middleware and applications in physical, virtual and cloud environments. Displays availability, performance, usage, events, logs, and changes at every level of the virtualization stack (from the vSphere hypervisor to guest OSes).

23. Bosun

Open source monitoring and alert system from StackExchange. Bosun has a well-thought-out data design, as well as a powerful language for processing it.

24. Sensu

Sensu is an open source alert system similar to Nagios. There is a simple dashboard, you can see a list of clients, checks and triggered alerts. The framework provides the mechanisms needed to collect and accumulate server operation statistics. Each server runs a Sensu agent (client) that uses a set of scripts to check the functionality of services, their status and collect any other information.

25. CollectM

CollectM collects statistics about system resource usage every 10 seconds. It can collect statistics for several hosts and send it to the server, the information is displayed using graphs.

28. Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) Tool

34. Total Network Monitor

This is a program for constantly monitoring the operation of a local network of individual computers, network and system services. Total Network Monitor generates a report and notifies you about errors that have occurred. You can check any aspect of the operation of a service, server or file system: FTP, POP/SMTP, HTTP, IMAP, Registry, Event Log, Service State and others.

35. PRTG

38.Idera

Supports multiple operating systems and virtualization technologies. There are many free tools that you can use to monitor your system.

39. PowerAdmin

PowerAdmin is a commercial monitoring solution.

40. ELM Enterprise Manager

ELM Enterprise Manager - complete monitoring from “what happened” to “what is happening” in real time. Monitoring tools in ELM include - Event Collector, Performance Monitor, Service Monitor, Process Monitor, File Monitor, PING Monitor.

41.EventsEntry

42. Veeam ONE

A powerful solution for monitoring, reporting, and scheduling resources across VMware, Hyper-V, and Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure, monitors the health of your IT infrastructure and diagnoses problems before they impact your user experience.

43. CA Unified Infrastructure Management (formerly CA Nimsoft Monitor, Unicenter)

Monitors the performance and availability of Windows server resources.

44. HP Operations Manager

This infrastructure monitoring software performs proactive root cause analysis, reducing recovery time and reducing operations management costs. The solution is ideal for automated monitoring.

45.Dell OpenManage

OpenManage (now Dell Enterprise Systems Management) is an all-in-one monitoring product.

46. Halcyon Windows Server Manager

Management and monitoring of networks, applications and infrastructure.

Below is a list of (most popular) network monitoring tools

54.Ntop

55.NeDi

Nedi is an open source network monitoring tool.

54. The Dude

The Dude monitoring system, although free, according to experts, is in no way inferior to commercial products; it monitors individual servers, networks and network services.

55.BandwidthD

Open source program.

56. NagVis

An extension for Nagios that allows you to create infrastructure maps and display their status. NagVis supports a large number of different widgets and icon sets.

57. Proc Net Monitor

A free monitoring application that allows you to track all active processes and, if necessary, quickly stop them to reduce the load on the processor.

58. PingPlotter

Used to diagnose IP networks, it allows you to determine where losses and delays of network packets occur.

Small but useful tools

The list wouldn't be complete without mentioning a few hardware monitoring options.

60. Glint Computer Activity Monitor

61.RealTemp

A utility for monitoring temperatures of Intel processors, it does not require installation; it tracks the current, minimum and maximum temperature values for each core and the start of throttling.

62. SpeedFan

A utility that allows you to control the temperature and fan speeds in the system, monitors the performance of sensors on the motherboard, video card and hard drives.

63.OpenHardwareMonitor

Telephone

1.Task Manager

2. Resource Monitor

A great tool to estimate CPU, RAM, network and disk usage in Windows. It allows you to quickly obtain all the necessary information about the status of critical servers.

3.Performance Monitor

4.Reliability Monitor

5.Microsoft SysInternals

Monitoring Windows servers using the Nagios family

7. Nagios

8. Cacti

9. Shinken

10. Icinga

Another popular open monitoring system that checks hosts and services and reports their status to the administrator. As a fork of Nagios, Icinga is compatible with it and they have a lot in common.

11. OpsView

OpsView was originally free. Now, unfortunately, users of this monitoring system have to shell out money.

Op5 is another open source monitoring system. Plotting, storing and collecting data.

Alternatives to Nagios

13. Zabbix

14. Munin

A good monitoring system that collects data from several servers simultaneously and displays everything in the form of graphs, with which you can track all past events on the server.

15.Zenoss

16. Observium

A monitoring and surveillance system for network devices and servers, although the list of supported devices is huge and is not limited to network devices; the device must support SNMP.

17. Centreon

A comprehensive monitoring system allows you to monitor the entire infrastructure and applications containing system information. Free alternative to Nagios.

18. Ganglia

19. Pandora FMS

Monitoring system, good productivity and scalability, one monitoring server can monitor the work of several thousand hosts.

20. NetXMS

Open source software for monitoring computer systems and networks.

21.OpenNMS

OpenNMS monitoring platform. Unlike Nagios, it supports SNMP, WMI and JMX.

22. HypericHQ

23. Bosun

Open source monitoring and alert system from StackExchange. Bosun has a well-thought-out data design, as well as a powerful language for processing it.

24. Sensu

25. CollectM

CollectM collects statistics about system resource usage every 10 seconds. It can collect statistics for several hosts and send it to the server, the information is displayed using graphs.

28. Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) Tool

34. Total Network Monitor

35. PRTG

38.Idera

Supports multiple operating systems and virtualization technologies. There are many free tools that you can use to monitor your system.

39. PowerAdmin

PowerAdmin is a commercial monitoring solution.

40. ELM Enterprise Manager

41.EventsEntry

42. Veeam ONE

43. CA Unified Infrastructure Management (formerly CA Nimsoft Monitor, Unicenter)

Monitors the performance and availability of Windows server resources.

44. HP Operations Manager

This infrastructure monitoring software performs proactive root cause analysis, reducing recovery time and reducing operations management costs. The solution is ideal for automated monitoring.

45.Dell OpenManage

OpenManage (now Dell Enterprise Systems Management) is an all-in-one monitoring product.

46. Halcyon Windows Server Manager

Management and monitoring of networks, applications and infrastructure.

Below is a list of (most popular) network monitoring tools

54.Ntop

55.NeDi

Nedi is an open source network monitoring tool.

54. The Dude

The Dude monitoring system, although free, according to experts, is in no way inferior to commercial products; it monitors individual servers, networks and network services.

55.BandwidthD

Open source program.

56. NagVis

An extension for Nagios that allows you to create infrastructure maps and display their status. NagVis supports a large number of different widgets and icon sets.

57. Proc Net Monitor

A free monitoring application that allows you to track all active processes and, if necessary, quickly stop them to reduce the load on the processor.

58. PingPlotter

Used to diagnose IP networks, it allows you to determine where losses and delays of network packets occur.

Small but useful tools

The list wouldn't be complete without mentioning a few hardware monitoring options.

60. Glint Computer Activity Monitor

61.RealTemp

A utility for monitoring temperatures of Intel processors, it does not require installation; it tracks the current, minimum and maximum temperature values for each core and the start of throttling.

62. SpeedFan

A utility that allows you to control the temperature and fan speeds in the system, monitors the performance of sensors on the motherboard, video card and hard drives.

63.OpenHardwareMonitor

Our programs for system administrators will help you keep abreast of everything that happens in the computer park and enterprise network, respond in a timely manner to equipment failures and software problems, and minimize costs and downtime. This page provides tools for monitoring the network, servers and hosts, for PC inventory, accounting for installed programs and licenses, creating reports on computer hardware, for traffic accounting, for studying the LAN topology and creating graphical diagrams.

The system administrator may also find useful utilities for searching files on local networks and auditing user access to file resources on servers. All these tools will help the system administrator improve the performance of network devices and servers and ensure the proper level of security in the enterprise network.

10-Strike software is included in the unified register of Russian computer programs of the Ministry of Communications and can participate in government procurement.

Programs for administrators, network utilities

A program for inventory and accounting of installed software and hardware on an enterprise PC. "Computer Inventory" allows system administrators to keep track of computers, view configurations of remote computers and lists of installed software, and track configuration changes (hardware and software). The program contains a powerful report generator. For example, you can create reports on the presence of certain software on computers and its quantity. At planning upgrades can be created report containing computers with insufficient disk or RAM memory. Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8.1/2012/10/2016 are supported.

- program for administration and visual monitoring of servers and computers on the network, which allows you to observe the current state of devices in graphical form at any time. LANState monitors devices and signals various events. LANState contains many functions useful for system administrators: sending messages, shutting down remote computers, scanning hosts and ports, obtaining various information from remote computers (registry access, event log, etc.). Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8.1/2012/10/2016 are supported.

- program for monitoring servers and other network devices, monitors the performance of hosts/servers and notifies the administrator of problems. Find out in time about a failure that has occurred (connection loss, server disk space running out, service stop, etc.) and fix the problem with minimal loss of time. The software signals problems using sound, on-screen messages, by e-mail, and can launch external programs, scripts and services, as well as reboot computers and services. Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8.1/2012/10/2016 are supported.

- a program for searching files and documents on local network computers(via NetBios and FTP protocols). Enter a phrase or file masks and find the information you need. When viewing search results, found files can be immediately opened, saved to disk, or generated a report. The search uses multi-threaded technology, which significantly speeds up the work. You can set filters by file size and modification date. Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8.1/2012/10/2016 are supported.

- program for monitoring user access to a shared folder and files, allows you to find out in time about the connections of LAN users to the computer. The program beeps, displays alerts on the screen, and keeps a detailed log of connections, which records information about who and when connected to the computer’s network folders, what files were opened, etc. Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8.1/2012/10/2016 are supported.

3.0 FREE!

- scanner of local networks, IP addresses and hosts. This free program allows you to scan your local network and detect active hosts, computers and servers, as well as find open TCP ports. Supports scanning of IP address ranges and many protocols for discovering network devices (ICMP ping, port search, NetBios, SNMP, UPnP, ...). If you have administrator rights, you can read a lot of useful information from Windows computers. Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8.1/2012/10/2016 are supported.

Sets of network programs for system administrators

Software suites for system administrators allow you to save money when purchasing several of our products or all at once. Get three products for the price of two and so on. For example, when purchasing Full set of administrator programs in option " for the organization"(without restrictions on the number of jobs), consisting of seven of our programs for system administrators, you can save up to 85,000 rubles or 30%!

Other utilities

- CD cataloger (CD, DVD). With its help, you will quickly find the files you need on the CDs and DVDs of your collection. SearchMyDiscs helps you organize your CD and DVD collections, allowing you to find the disc you need in a few seconds. If you are tired of searching for the right disk for a long time every time, this tool is for you! Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8.1/2012/10/2016 are supported.

- program for analyzing Raw log files of the Apache web server. Creates various reports and histograms on statistics of user access to the website, and counts direct file orders. The analyzer has many settings and filters that will allow you to get accurate information about your site, downloaded files, and who is coming to you and from where. Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8.1/2012/10/2016 are supported.

Payment and delivery

When ordering software by legal entities, payment by bank transfer is accepted. Invoices are issued electronically and an agreement is concluded. Electronic delivery: the distribution kit is downloaded from our website, registration keys are sent after payment by e-mail. After payment, the original contract and documents for accounting are sent to the buyer by mail.

Issue an invoice (indicate the required names of programs and types of licenses, your details and the name of the director for the agreement)

All our products and licenses are also presented in the Softkey and AllSoft online stores (follow the “buy” links from our website).

Our clients: small and medium-sized businesses, government and budget institutions, hospitals, schools, colleges and institutes, banks, oil industry, telecoms.

A hack employee is a disaster for any enterprise or company. Therefore, the question constantly arises of how to monitor an employee’s work computer and ensure that there are no unauthorized actions.

Let us immediately note that the employee must be informed (in writing, with a signature) that covert surveillance of the computer on the local network is being conducted. Perhaps only this fact will help to avoid violations and put the employee on the path of a “hard worker.” If not, then here is a solution for complete control over computers on your local network.

Local network monitoring program

So, the software is called “Mipko Employe Monitor” - a version specifically for corporate networks.

After installation and launch, and you can run it from the desktop or by pressing “ctrl+alt+shift+k”, you need to configure the user interface - what exactly needs to be monitored and controlled on the local network.

1. At the top left is a section where you select a user from your network whose log is currently being monitored: when expanded, a list of recorded actions will be displayed (depending on the settings).

2. Now directly about the functionality of “Tools” - “Settings”. For each user, the tracking parameters can be configured individually.

Monitoring allows you to track the following actions:

- keystrokes;
- screenshots;
- activity on social networks;
- messaging on Skype;
- websites visited;
- saving the clipboard;
- program activity;
- pictures from a webcam;
- call recording;
- operations with files.

Quite extensive functionality. The main thing that an employer is usually interested in when monitoring users on a local network is screenshots and websites visited.

In order not to face claims of interference with personal information (for example, if you set up viewing of visited web pages and saw personal correspondence on social networks), set a block on all social networks and chats, as well as a ban on installing third-party software - only what is required for the job.

Remote monitoring of a computer on a local network

As a rule, the employer is interested in only two aspects - a screenshot of the local network user’s computer and his viewing of web pages (as mentioned above, employees are familiar with this information).

3. Screenshot settings include the following components:

- selection of time interval, indicated either in minutes or seconds;
- take a photo when opening a window;
- take a photo with a mouse click;
- do not take a photo when you are not active;
- snapshot mode (full screen, window);
- and the quality of the image.

4. In the “visited websites” section, it’s even simpler: select the “interception type” and whether to save a screenshot.

5. Now about where all this will be saved or sent. In the settings section “Sending”:

- first, set the “Log type” and the pop-up list;
- set in what format the report “HTML” or archive “ZIP” will be saved;
- select the sorting type and time interval for sending the report;
- the most basic thing is where the report will be sent: to email/ftp/folder on your computer.
- then enter your username and password and click “Apply”.

That's it, now the employees are, as they say, “Under the hood” - you can monitor the users of the local network.

This article will, to some extent, be devoted to security. I recently had an idea, how to check which applications are using the Internet connection, where traffic can flow, through which addresses the connection goes, and much more. There are users who also ask this question.

Let's say you have an access point to which only you are connected, but you notice that the connection speed is somehow low, call your provider, they note that everything is fine or something like that. What if someone is connected to your network? You can try using the methods in this article to find out which programs that require an Internet connection he uses. In general, you can use these methods as you please.

Well, let's analyze?

netstat command for analyzing network activity

This method is without using any programs, we just need the command line. Windows has a special utility called netstat that analyzes networks, let's use it.

It is advisable to run the command line as an administrator. In Windows 10, you can right-click the Start menu and select the appropriate item.

At the command line, enter the netstat command and see a lot of interesting information:

We see connections, including their ports, addresses, active and pending connections. This is certainly cool, but it’s not enough for us. We would like to find out which program is using the network, for this we can use the –b parameter together with the netstat command, then the command will look like this:

netstat –b

Now the utility that uses the Internet will be visible in square brackets.

This is not the only parameter in this command; to display the full list, enter the command netstat –h .

But, as practice shows, many command line utilities do not provide the information that we would like to see, and it is not that convenient. As an alternative, we will use third party software - TCPView.

Monitoring Network Activity with TCPView

You can download the program from here. You don't even need to install it, you just unpack it and run the utility. It is also free, but does not support the Russian language, but this is not really needed, from this article you will understand how to use it.

So, the TCPView utility monitors networks and shows in the form of a list all programs, ports, addresses and connections connected to the network.

In principle, everything is very clear here, but I will explain some points of the program:

Column Process, of course, shows the name of the program or process.

Column PID indicates the ID of a process connected to the network.

Column Protocol indicates the process log.

Column Local address– local address of the process of this computer.
Column Local port– local port.

Column Remote address indicates the address to which the program is connected.

Column State– indicates the connection status.

Where indicated Sent Packets And RCVD Packets indicates the number of packets sent and received, same with the columns Bytes.

You can also use the program to right-click on a process and terminate it, or see where it is located.

Address names as shown in the image below can be converted to a local address by pressing hotkeys Ctrl+R.

Other parameters will also change – protocols and domains.

If you see lines of different colors, for example, green, then this means a new connection is starting, if red appears, then the connection is completed.

That's all the basic settings of the program, there are also small parameters, such as setting the font and saving the connection list.

If you liked this program, then be sure to use it. Experienced users will definitely find what purposes to use it for.