Web Based Network Monitoring System

Web Based Network Monitoring System S.A.E.L. Perera, W.R.A. Fonseka, I. Samaradiwakara, N.D.M. Withanage, H.K.U. Wijekantha Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology,

Abstract Web Based Network Monitoring System empowers network engineers and administrators to monitor their network statistics remotely. The web based implementation of the developed system enables users to remotely monitor the networks as well as using any web enabled device. Our main goal was to develop a system which can be accessed by anywhere in the world. The system monitors network devices, servers, nodes, connectivity, traffic, applications, logs and many more events as well as basic configurations of devices.

The monitoring system focuses on

monitoring the host server and the host network. The system is a collaboration of two applications; A back end injector application which monitors network statistics and records occurrences, a web interface to display monitoring output and provide login and configuration facilities for users. The web based network monitoring system provides added benefits and functionalities such as basic configuration remotely, which the current industry applications do not provide. The system provides a combination of services in a single package where the industry applications provide as separate packages. Keywords: Network, Monitoring, Remote, SNMP, Network Management, Web, SysLog, Server

data network should be available, reliable, maintainable

1. Introduction 1.1 Problem Statement

and durable consistently.

Unfortunately failures are

inevitable. The best solution to minimize the cost of failures is to always learn, understand and detect risks

Today’s world is entirely dependent on information.

and failures as early as possible. For this monitoring of

For the ease of sharing and communication of

networks has become one of the vital practices for

information, data networks play a vital role by providing

network managers.

many services. Therefore the whole world is connected

There are many open source (eg: Nagios) and

and empowered using various kinds of networks based

commercial products (eg: OPmanager, Orion) which

on different technologies and scales. These networks

provide network monitoring facilities.[1]

handle day-to-day information, news, multimedia as

applications

well as sensitive data such as banking details, financial

administrators with many features and tools to identify

and critical details to companies and firms of the

and examine network infrastructure.

government and private sector. Therefore data networks

monitoring tools available in the industry provide

should be dependable for their users even at situations

specific monitoring tasks which are limited for one

where there is a heavy load on the network. The ideal

feature.

provide

network

engineers

These and

Many of the

Most monitoring tools provide interfaces to

display

network

status,

or

server

status.

If

even when they are abroad. The configuration facility

configurations of devices require alterations a separate

also vastly improves the flexibility of the system. This

tool or suit is required for configurations and device

reduces the need for another tool to do configurations on

management purposes.[2]

Majority of the network

network devices. The monitoring system is based on

monitoring tools are standalone system which does not

open source technologies as well as cross platform

enable network engineers and administrators to remotely

operability.

monitor or examine network events and statistics.

The developed system is a combination of two

Commercial monitoring tools are very expensive and the

applications. One is a web interface for the users to

cost adds up during the network designing and

view and monitor network and server and also the

implementation. However there is a selection of open

terminal for viewing configurations of network devices.

source network monitoring tools.

They also provide

The other part is a backend injector application, which

similar functionality and features as the commercial

gathers information and raw data and processes in order

tools.

to be displayed via the web interface. The entire system

The current monitoring systems completely

monitor the data network as a whole.

However

is hosted on a Linux based server with web services.

monitoring of physical server details and resources are

The system provides secure login facilities for local and

limited or not provided.

remote (mobile) users. The system also report network events as notifications.

1.2 Product Scope

2. Methodology The developed network and server monitoring system addresses the problems of the current monitoring tools.

2.1 Server Monotoring

It is an all-round application for network

monitoring. The system is designed to monitor network information, server resources information and do basic configurations on network devices.

The developed

network monitoring system is web based. This allows network engineers and network administrators to remotely monitor the network infrastructure. Therefore with today’s technological improvements the system can be monitored by virtually any web enabled mobile device. This feature empowers the network engineers to monitor their systems even on-the-go. Inevitably in a failure of network connectivity or a device the network engineers and administrators can assist the situation while working offsite, while traveling, while at home or

Monitoring of the server covers gathering of a few performance areas as well as security information. Basically

the

server

CPU

information,

memory

information, network interface details, server user login information are gathered and recorded. Gathering of this information is done by using Linux system calls, log files and java library classes. The implementation of each performance and security benchmark is described in the following sections.

SMS to administrators. Used a trial service provide by

2.2 Network Monitoring

textlocal sms gate way API.

One of the main parts of this project is to

2.4 Sys Log

monitor network activity and host status. When a physical network is formed, administrators want to

One of the goals we achieved is fetching router’s

acquire information like host availability, bandwidth,

Sys Log messages. A UDP listen server is waiting for

etc. From this part of our project we focused on those

the messages from the router. When a message is

criteria. The procedure is explained in the figure.

received, it is analysed and sent to the database. This

Basically what we did here is

information can be viewed later from the web interface.



Checking the availability of the hosts

In the notification process, this information is used to



Gather certain information about those hosts

generate

automated

messages

to

the

network

Basic theory we used to check the availability is

administrator. The method of sending the notification is

using ICMP messages (PING) to check the availability

varying with the level of the message. If it’s a critical

of host. But there are few ways to do this in Java

message, then a SMS will be sent to the Administrator.

language.

Else, an e-mail will be sent to the network administrator.

Using the above method we can check the availability. And if the host is available we can gather

2.5 Web Interface

information about it using SNMP messages. Basically we used SNMP GET requests. Using SNMP GET we

Data Which is collected by the core software and the

can fetch the values of certain OIDs (Object Identifiers).

syslog is stored in the database. The database is read by

Each entity in the network and the system has its own

a web application which is written using PHP. Main

OID.[3]

objective here is to display the important information which is collected by the software in an attractive

2.3 Notifications

manner. Technologies like JavaScript, CSS, Ajax, JQuerry are used in the client side and PHP is used as

The network monitoring system is developed for the server operation system call CENTOS. In

Linux

the server side programming. One

of

the

most

important

objectives

we

/var/log/secure.log check user

accomplished in this was that we could be able to run

connections attempts and insert in to the database.

basic configuration commands using the web interface.

Through the database entries filter detect logins. If non

The administrator can run simple commands like show

administrative user successfully accesses the root

and debug, then observe the output of those commands

logging it will inform to the administrator immediately.

in the same web interface. And the most important thing

Using java mail API develop a program to send email

is this process can be done from anywhere in the world.

environment using

via SMTP. Using a predefined account send Emails and

limited

access.

The

procedure

we

used

was

implementing a method to send emails to a certain email address. Then that email was converted to a SMS and

3. Results and Discussion

sent to the configured recipient. When we take the Device (Router) Syslog in to

The project’s testing part was done in the Data

account, the main purpose was to capture the messages

Communication Lab in the SLIIT Malabe premises. We

which were sent by the router and store it in the

used a CentOS running Laptop as the server and 5 PCs

Database. This data is used later in the notification

with SNMP service enabled to test the system.

analysis process.

We developed the main parts in our project which

The only problem occurred here is that the routers

Monitoring,

should be pre-configured to send its messages to the

Notification, Device Sys Log and Remote Web

server which contains the NMS. This process needs

Interface. The main purpose of the Server monitoring is

administrative configuration in the routers and devices.

are

Server

Monitoring,

Network

monitor the server and collect information of running

We developed a web interface to view and monitor

services. We used a CentOS v5 Linux based OS for the

all the details which is collected by the NMS. This web

server.

interface can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

When taking Network Monitoring part, the main

One of the most important things in this was getting the

purpose was to check the availability of hosts/devices

Router’s running configuration and configures the router

and gather information about those hosts/devices.

by TELNET.

was

We implemented a way to execute the commands

successfully implemented using the ICMP ping method.

sequentially. In this the all commands should be

The program checked the availability of the given

provided prior to establishing the connection. In each

network range and record it into the database. This

connection establishment user credentials will be

information can be later read by the web interface.

provided. For now we can provide only 2 lines of

Checking

the

availability

of

hosts/devices

The second task of the Network monitoring part was

commands.

to get information of the available hosts/devices. For this task fist in each and every device SNMP service should

4. Conclusion

be running. The server act as the SNMP manager and all the hosts/devices are the SNMP agents. Then the SNMP

The Project Scope can be split into three main parts.

manager send GET request to each and every

Server Monitoring, Network Monitoring, and Web

host/device available and collect information.

interface. Notification system is commonly used in both

There were few problems we faced when we were

Server

and

Network

Monitoring

part.

Network

implementing the notification part. Problem was to find

monitoring part can be divided further into Host

a Free SMS gateway to send SMS notifications. Finally

Monitoring and Device Monitoring. In here, devices

we found a free email to SMS converter which gives

mean mainly routers.

The software helps network administrators to be close to their system wherever they are in this world.

thank Mr. Anuradha Jayakody for his help and guidance throughout this project.

Administrators can monitor their network from the world wide web. This advantage comes in handy for

The Web Based Network Monitoring System is always a

many situations. And most importantly, not just

monumental effort and making it a success was an

monitoring, the administrators can configure their

ultimate result of all the contributions from those

network connected devices

individuals who lend us a helping hand. Finally we

such as Routers in

emergencies. Normally a Network Monitoring System will

would like to thank all the personals in SLIIT for the assistance throughout the duration of our project.

provide limited places to monitor the system. But from our software that limitation has been broken. The

6. References

administrator can monitor their network from the workplace, home or even when they are in vacation. The solution of ours will strengthen the bond between computers and human.

[1] Stanford University, “Network Monitoring Tools” Stanford University. [Online]. Available: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/nmtf/nmtf-tools.html. [Accessed: Oct. 20, 2012].

Also this system works well in Windows environment and Linux environments which has the Java Runtime Environment and relevant packages are installed. And the Administrator has to use only SNMP supported network device. All versions of SNMP are subject to brute force and dictionary attacks. SNMP works over TCP and other protocols; it is most commonly used over UDP that is connectionless and vulnerable to IP spoofing attacks. SNMP’s powerful configuration (write) capabilities are not being fully utilized by many vendors.

5. Acknowledgment First of all we would like to thank to Mr. K. P. Dhammika De Silva for his precious idea to develop this Web based Network Monitoring Software, and the project coordinator Mr. Amila Senarathne for his guidance throughout the project. And we would like to

[2] Network Visibility Solutions, “Network Monitoring Issues” Network Visibility Solutions. [Online].Available: http://blog.anuesystems.com/tag/network-monitoringissues/. [Accessed: Oct. 20, 2012]. [3] Web NMS, “SNMP GET” Web NMS. [Online]. Available: http://www.webnms.com/snmp/help/snmpapi/snmpv1/s nmp_operations/snmp_get.html. [Accessed: Oct. 20, 2012].