NetXMS: Open-source network monitoring and management

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Brandon Lee

Brandon Lee has been in the IT industry 15+ years and focuses on networking and virtualization. He contributes to the community through various blog posts and technical documentation primarily at Virtualizationhowto.com.

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NetXMS is a multitenant, multiplatform solution designed for businesses of all sizes. Developed by Raden Solutions, it provides many capabilities for monitoring the health and performance of your IT infrastructure. It enables monitoring networks, devices, power equipment, sensors, etc.

In addition, you can monitor network switches and routers, track application performance, and provide availability monitoring and notifications for alerting. NetXMS provides a threshold system for collected data, log file content monitoring, and automatic event correlation. It also includes template-based data collection configuration, which helps simplify the management of large networks with many devices and sensors.

NetXMS provides integration with existing systems and customer specifications. With its open-source roots, it has been widely adopted and boasts a large community of users.

The monitoring solution can handle large networks, servicing over 10,000 monitored objects with a single monitoring server. With built-in configuration possibilities and a scripting engine, you can use NetXMS to adapt to your unique requirements and provide flexible event processing and automation.

NetXMS features

Note some of the core features included in NetXMS:

Network monitoring: NetXMS automatically builds network topology and maps, collecting information via various protocols and providing easy access to important data such as routing tables, MAC tables, and VLAN information. It supports all SNMP versions and offers configurable routing change detection.

User Interface: NetXMS allows you to choose between a desktop or a web-based version or to use both simultaneously. It offers graphical network maps, user-configurable dashboards, and integration with Grafana for data visualization.

Launching the NetXMS web or desktop client

Server and workstation monitoring: You can use NetXMS agents available for all popular platforms and operating systems to monitor a wide range of metrics, from network and I/O performance to application-level metrics. It also includes file transfer capabilities and user support features.

Server and workstation monitoring and load usage in NetXMS

Distributed monitoring: This allows for logical grouping or distributing the data collection load, ensuring automatic load balancing and failover. It also enables continuous data collection, even when the central management server is unavailable.

Built-in scripting engine: The built-in scripting engine makes advanced automation and management possible. This allows for data transformation, complex thresholds, complex event processing rules, SNMP trap transformation, etc.

NetXMS scripting engine

Integration and security: NetXMS offers integration options with full Java and REST APIs and additional security mechanisms, such as encrypted communications, two-factor authentication, and fine-grained access control configuration.

NetXMS architecture

The NetXMS architecture is designed to be scalable and flexible, allowing it to manage large and complex networks comprising tens of thousands of devices. Its architecture is made up of several key components:

NetXMS architecture and logical overview

1. NetXMS server: The server component performs data collection, event processing, alerting, and reporting. It communicates with devices on your network, collecting data for monitoring and analysis.
2. NetXMS agents: The agents are installed on each network device. They collect metrics and transmit them to the NetXMS server. They are available for all popular platforms and operating systems and can operate in proxy mode for other agents and SNMP devices, if necessary.
3. Management console: This provides the user interface for NetXMS. It can be a desktop or web-based application, or both can be used simultaneously. In addition, the console provides graphical network maps, user-configurable dashboards, and a range of other tools for managing and monitoring your network.
4. Proxy agents: For distributed deployments, local proxy agents handle local traffic and store it when there is no connection to the central server. This feature is useful for massive distributed networks that may have connectivity issues or low bandwidth.
5. Data collection: NetXMS supports multiple protocols for data collection, including SNMP, MQTT, OPC UA, SSH, NXCP, DLMS, and Ethernet/IP.
6. Integration APIs: The system also includes APIs for Java and REST, enabling integration with other systems and applications.
7. Built-in scripting engine: The scripting engine allows for advanced automation and management. Each script runs inside a VM, providing additional security.

Integration across platforms and databases

NetXMS provides support for various operating systems and database engines. If your server runs on Windows, AIX, or Linux or utilizes database engines such as Oracle, DB2, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, or TimescaleDB, NetXMS can monitor the environment. It also has a wide range of supported protocols, including SNMP, MQTT, OPC UA, SSH, NXCP, DLMS, and Ethernet/IP.

Real-world use of NetXMS features

South African agricultural co-operative Sentraal-Suid Co-operative Ltd. (SSK) has been leveraging NetXMS for over six years to monitor its network infrastructure, comprising hundreds of devices, from servers and routers to industrial refrigerators storing veterinary medicine.

The monitoring capabilities of NetXMS have reportedly saved SSK millions of rand in potential losses stemming from medical storage glitches, which could have resulted in significant livestock care issues. In addition, SSK leverages the data visualization and customizability of NetXMS to ensure network service.

Below is a look at SSK's Network Overview dashboard, which provides a view of the organization's overlay network.

Network overview dashboard in NetXMS

Installing NetXMS

The installation process with NetXMS involves installing a supported database server, preparing the database, installing the NetXMS server, and then installing the web UI. As mentioned above, NetXMS supports many open-source database technologies and paid solutions, such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle, if companies already use these database services. The installation is easy and can be accomplished in a couple of minutes by following the installation wizard.

After you finish the installation, you can start discovering devices on your network using Network Discovery.

Configuring network discovery in NetXMS

NetXMS can scan and import devices found on your network segments, which you can use to begin rolling out agents and inventorying your network, or using the built-in scripting engine. Below, NetXMS has scanned a lab subnet and imported several devices.

Scanned and discovered devices using NetXMS discovery

NetXMS user interface

NetXMS offers a user-friendly Windows, UNIX, and Android management console. It features graphical network maps, system logs, user-configurable dashboards, customizable reports, and both desktop and browser clients with a single interface. The high level of customization makes it an excellent tool for network monitoring and management.

For example, you can easily create network dashboards that detail traffic statistics gathered from devices in your network.

Network internet traffic dashboard in NetXMS

You can use NetXMS to gain visibility into system logs across your infrastructure. Below is an example of logs gathered from a client endpoint.

Viewing system logs for monitored devices in NetXMS

Security measures in NetXMS: Ensuring safe network monitoring

Aside from other technical features that can provide what organizations need, NetXMS supports many technologies to help meet security and compliance requirements. It supports authentication with passwords, X.509 certificates, smart cards, RADIUS, or LDAP servers and provides two-factor authentication with TOTP or one-time codes sent via SMS or instant message. All communications are encrypted, and fine-grained access control configuration is in place.

Configuring TOTP in NetXMS

Wrapping up

We have only scratched the surface of what NetXMS can do in the overview of features. However, NetXMS is a fully featured open-source solution that provides flexibility for configuring monitoring. In addition, it's a scalable platform that can adapt to unique network requirements. As a result, companies whose network health directly impacts customer satisfaction will benefit from the features and capabilities offered by NetXMS, regardless of their size, distribution, and diversity of infrastructure. To try it, you can download NetXMS for the various supported operating systems.