How To Install Pandora FMS Monitoring Tool in Ubuntu Linux

Pandora Flexible Monitoring System (FMS) is a total ascendable
and complete system that can audit, check, control, and oversee any
Operating system or server over the internet network. Pandora FMS
is a very strong tool for monitoring and troubleshooting in
Linux. It can check and diagnose the networking system or even
the hardware systems too. Pandora FMS has it’s own server and
database that can provide more efficient and quick response to
their clients. ^[1]

Pandora FMS on
Ubuntu

---

In Linux, Pandora FMS is free to use and very flexible to
maintain. As the Pandora FMS is written in Perl, PHP, C++, and
JavaScript, so it can be easily integrated with any system. Pandora
supports almost every sector of communication and management.
Pandora FMS has the ability to replace all the other monitoring
tools that are costly and require high maintenance.

Let’s see which
environment are compatible with Pandora FMS. As I said earlier,
Pandora FMS can be integrated with almost all configurations and
systems. In this post, we are going to see how to install and
configure Pandora FMS in Ubuntu Linux. Here are some key features
that can be done with Pandora FMS.

• Simple Network Management Protocol
• Windows Management Instrumentation
• Transmission Control Protocol
• User Datagram Protocol
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol
• Internet Control Message Protocol

Install Pandora FMS on Ubuntu
Linux

---

Pandora FMS service can be installed in your Linux system with a
few installation steps. It doesn’t require a huge strong hardware
system. Only 20 GB of disk space and minimum 4GB of RAM is enough
to install and run the Pandora FMS on your Ubuntu Linux. Here, I am
providing the GitHub address of Pandora FMS; you can
clone or download the whole string from the download button
below.^[2]

Step 1: Installing Apache Server
and PHP For Pandora FMS

---

As the Pandora FMS is written in Perl  Network Mapping
functional language, PHP, and with the combination of other
languages, so very first all, we need to update all the
repositories in our Ubuntu Server system. Then we will be
installing the Apache server on the Ubuntu machine. To complete the
procedure, just follow the terminal commands given below.

$ sudo apt update 
$ sudo apt-get update 
$ sudo apt install apache2

After the installation is done, now, as we know, the Apache
server is built and run over PHP scripting language, so we need to
install or update the version of PHP. For updating the PHP, the
basic terminal commands are given here below.

$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
$ sudo apt update

Also, you can install the Perl and PHP 7.2 FastCGI Process
Manager.

$ sudo apt-get installsnmp snmpd libtime-format-perl libxml-simple-perl libxml-twig-perl libdbi-perl libnetaddr-ip-perl libhtml-parser-perl xprobe2 nmap libmail-sendmail-perl traceroute libio-socket-inet6-perl libhtml-tree-perl libsnmp-perl snmp-mibs-downloader libio-socket-multicast-perl libsnmp-perl libjson-perl php libapache2-mod-php apache2 mariadb-server mariadb-client php-gd php-mysql php-pear php-snmp php-db php-gettext graphviz php-curl php-xmlrpc php-ldap dbconfig-common

Now you can check whether your Apache server is working properly
or not. Here are some basic commands for the Apache server on
Ubuntu.

$ sudo systemctl stop apache2.service
$ sudo systemctl start apache2.service
$ sudo systemctl enable apache2.service

I’m sure your Apache server is working, now if needed, you may
configure PHP settings from the Apache initialization file with
Nano editor.

$ sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini

Installing PHP and Apache server will allow you to host the
Pandora FMS data and get access to the control panel. Besides
these, you can also update and install the Perl libraries to get
better performance. Perl will be integrated with the Simple Network
Management Protocol.

$ sudo apt install snmp snmpd libnet-telnet-perl libgeo-ip-perl geoip-database-extra libtime-format-perl libxml-simple-perl libxml-twig-perl libdbi-perl libnetaddr-ip-perl libhtml-parser-perl xprobe2 nmap libmail-sendmail-perl traceroute libio-socket-inet6-perl libhtml-tree-perl libsnmp-perl snmp-mibs-downloader libio-socket-multicast-perl libsnmp-perl libjson-perl

Step 2: Installing and Configuring
MariaDB

---

MariaDB^[3]
is the most used relational database management server^[4] that is compatible with
MySQL. Here, to use the Pandora FMS, we will be installing the
MariaDB server SQL works and hosting the database.

$ sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

Now you can check whether your MariaDB server is working or not.
You can start, stop, enable, and check the status of your MariaDB
from the Ubuntu terminal shell.

$ sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service
$ sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
$ sudo systemctl status mariadb.service
$ sudo systemctl is-enabled mariadb.service

Now we are almost done with the database part. Here we have to
install the database engine; in this case, we are using MySQL.

$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

Now you can check the information schema, performance, and phase
of your database.

$ sudo systemctl status mariadb.service

Previously while we had installed the PostgreSQL, we have seen that we had to
change the default password of the database engine. So, we have to
change the default password of MySQL as well. ^[5]

$ sudo mysqladmin password
$ sudo mysql -u root

Step 3: Installing the Pandora
FMS

---

To install the Pandora FMS in Ubuntu, you need to get some other
prerequisites files to be installed. Here I am going through all
the methods of how to get them. You can copy and paste the
following command lines in your terminal. Very first, I will get
the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). The WMI will take us
to the web-based control panel^[6].

For Ubuntu or Debian, you can download the .deb
file of the Pandora monitoring tool from the following download
button. This might help you to avoid all the shell scripting.

$ wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/pandora/files/Tools%20and%20dependencies%20%28All%20versions%29/DEB%20Debian%2C%20Ubuntu/wmi-client_0112-1_amd64.deb$ sudo dpkg -i wmi-client_0112-1_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i wmi-client_0112-1_amd64.deb

Download Pandora
FMS^[7]

Step 4: Install the Pandora FMS
Console

---

Pandora Console is the web-based user interface that allows the
agents to monitor, control, report, and maintain the settings and
tasks. From the console panel, you can also control the admin
activities and resources management. For Ubuntu, download and
install the Debian package. Later we will get the configuration
part.

$ wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/pandora/files/Pandora%20FMS%207.0NG/743/Debian_Ubuntu/pandorafms.console_7.0NG.743.deb
$ wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/pandora/files/Pandora%20FMS%207.0NG/743/Debian_Ubuntu/pandorafms.server_7.0NG.743.deb

After all the files and repositories are downloaded, you may now
proceed to the installation process. Don’t forget to restart the
Apache server and services.

$ sudo dpkg -i pandorafms.console_7.0NG.743.deb pandorafms.server_7.0NG.743.deb
$ sudo apt-get -f install

Step 5: Setting Up the
Firewall

---

For setting up any web server, it is necessary to make the
server secure and grand the firewall access from the hosting
system. After installing and configuring the Pandora console, you
have to allow your firewall^[8]
to pass the server for public use. Otherwise, your clients won’t be
able to get access to your server.

$ sudo ufw allow http
$ sudo ufw allow https
$ sudo ufw reload

Step 6: Getting Access to the Web
Control Panel

---

Pandora FMS works with the Selenium network application and
ElasticSearch library function, which gives you smooth performance
at networking and file searching optimization. The Pandora FMS is
able to function with any programming language and can be
functional form different types of servers. Here, a shortlist of
Pandora FMS server is provided; have a look. Besides these, for
long-distance server management Pandora is able to get connected
through the satellite server.

• WUX Server
• Inventory Server
• Event Server
• Export Server
• Web Server
• Forecasting Server
• Plugin Server
• SNMP Server
• Network Server

Getting back to our job, to get inside your control panel, you
need to know the web address of your server. I assume as you’ve
installed the Apache server and MariaDB, so you already know the
web address of your control panel. Now, go to your favorite web
browser and go to your dashboard. Let your server web address is
http://192.168.0.102; in that case, add a forward
slash(/) and type pandora_console, and hit the
Enter.

http://192.168.0.102/pandora_console/

For the first time use, you will be asked your username and
password of your console. Use the following username and password,
which is set as default. You can change your password anytime.

username: admin
password: pandora

Step 7: Testing The Pandora
FMS

---

We have already done with all the installation processes; here,
we are going to see how to do some extra configurations that might
be helpful for further references. To change the configuration of
Pandora server settings, all you need is to edit the
pandora_server.conf file. You can always trust the Vim
editor for confidential file editing.

$ sudo vi /etc/pandora/pandora_server.conf

You can also perform a test of your console and Pandora FMS
server.

$ sudo rm /var/www/html/pandora_console/install.php

Here are some primary commands that can be useful for the
newbies. This will allow the user to start, restart, and check the
status of your server.

$ sudo systemctl restart pandora_server.service
$ sudo systemctl status pandora_server.service

If you want your FMS server runs without any interruption, then
you should not enter any wrong or misguided command in your Ubuntu
terminal. Always enter the right command to add or configure a new
task. You can add the ExecStart command to monitor
your system always, whether something is going wrong or not. To do
that, change the following line to this.

$ sudo vi /lib/systemd/system/pandora_server.service
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pandora_server /etc/pandora/pandora_server.conf -D
ExecStart=/etc/init.d/pandora_server start

Now you can reload and restart your Pandora FMS and Console
system.

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload

To get your system started, enabled, and check the system
condition, use the following primary command lines.

$ sudo systemctl start pandora_server.service
$ sudo systemctl status pandora_server.service
$ sudo systemctl is-enabled pandora_server.service

As you are the system admin, you can ensure whether your agent
is getting your service properly or not with the help of
tentacle command.

$ sudo systemctl status tentacle_serverd.service

Ending Words

---

After all, the installation process is done; now we are at the
bottom line of this post. Up until now, we have learned how to
download and install the Pandora FMS and Pandora Console. We have
also learned how to install and update the Apache web server and
the PHP framework. Though we could learn about the Pandora meta
console too. But for now, we are done and dusted with the Pandora
Flexible Monitoring System.

Offering all the attractive and powerful tools, Pandora FMS has
really achieved the place where they are unbeatable. If you are a
user of Pandora FMS, let us know about your experience, and you can
also write any comment related to this post in the comment section.
Don’t forget to share this post with your friends and
colleagues.