Joshua, Hate to give the std answer, but I suggest a review of the archives over the past 2 months--this thread was just recently re-hashed. Also, there was a presentation on "Managing IP Networks with Free Software" at NANOG 26. Check it out here: http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0210/ppt/stephen.pdf -Wayne -----Original Message----- From: Joshua Smith [mailto:joshua.ej.smith@usa.net] Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 10:56 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: free network monitoring/management tools hello to all, i would appreciate your your knowledge and experiences regarding freely available tools for network monitoring and management (all cisco now, some other stuff later). i would prefer free tools as i have no budget :) i am looking for the following (it will be running on either freebsd or redhat): AAA - i have been trying to find a tacacs+ daemon/program that doesn't require me to also learn *sql to set up the backend database (if this is the only choice, then i can learn it) config monitoring/management - rancid or rtrmon are the two that i have found. any preferences on one over the other in terms of ease of use, ability to modify/improve, efficiency, etc? network/syslog monitoring - some of the likely candidates i have found are nagios or netsaint, jffnms, nmis, opennms, or maybe snip (formerly nocol) - i need something that is fairly easy to setup and use, and it doesn't have to do a whole lot (just some basic notifications for now). decent documentation is also necessary, and a pretty map would be nice for my noc, but this isn't a prereq. my scripting/programming skills are rudimentary, so it would be ideal if it was at least partially plug-and-play (i know i know, sorry). i would appreciate any input (i am still reading through the archives for useful tidbits), and i, of course, will gladly summarize for the list. thanks in advance joshua "Walk with me through the Universe, And along the way see how all of us are Connected. Feast the eyes of your Soul, On the Love that abounds. In all places at once, seemingly endless, Like your own existence." - Stephen Hawking -