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Web Based Network Monitoring System

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 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 and durable consistently. Unfortunately failures are
inevitable. The best solution to minimize the cost of
1.1 Problem Statement
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] These

handle day-to-day information, news, multimedia as applications provide network engineers and

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. Many of the

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. 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. The current monitoring systems completely to be displayed via the web interface. The entire system
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
2.1 Server Monotoring
tools. It is an all-round application for network
monitoring. The system is designed to monitor network
Monitoring of the server covers gathering of a few
information, server resources information and do basic
performance areas as well as security information.
configurations on network devices. The developed
Basically the server CPU information, memory
network monitoring system is web based. This allows
information, network interface details, server user login
network engineers and network administrators to
information are gathered and recorded. Gathering of this
remotely monitor the network infrastructure. Therefore
information is done by using Linux system calls, log
with today’s technological improvements the system can
files and java library classes. The implementation of
be monitored by virtually any web enabled mobile
each performance and security benchmark is described
device. This feature empowers the network engineers to
in the following sections.
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
 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 the server side programming.
server operation system call CENTOS. In Linux One of the most important objectives we
environment using /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.
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

are Server Monitoring, Network 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.

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.

Checking the availability of hosts/devices 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

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 thank Mr. Anuradha Jayakody for his help and guidance
close to their system wherever they are in this world. 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 such as Routers in individuals who lend us a helping hand. Finally we
emergencies. would like to thank all the personals in SLIIT for the
Normally a Network Monitoring System will 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 [1] Stanford University, “Network Monitoring Tools”
solution of ours will strengthen the bond between Stanford University. [Online]. Available:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/nmtf/nmtf-tools.html.
computers and human. [Accessed: Oct. 20, 2012].
Also this system works well in Windows environment
and Linux environments which has the Java Runtime [2] Network Visibility Solutions, “Network Monitoring
Issues” Network Visibility Solutions. [Online].Available:
Environment and relevant packages are installed. And http://blog.anuesystems.com/tag/network-monitoring-
the Administrator has to use only SNMP supported issues/. [Accessed: Oct. 20, 2012].
network device. All versions of SNMP are subject to
[3] Web NMS, “SNMP GET” Web NMS. [Online].
brute force and dictionary attacks. SNMP works over Available:
TCP and other protocols; it is most commonly used over http://www.webnms.com/snmp/help/snmpapi/snmpv1/s
nmp_operations/snmp_get.html. [Accessed: Oct. 20,
UDP that is connectionless and vulnerable to IP 2012].
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

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