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frustrating
Maybe its just me, but Pandora is way to freakin confusing to use. To me, if it requires just a manual just for basic setup, its a poor UI.
Just simple things like adding multiple servers to just be pinged is a pain and isnt obvious as it should be.
Seems like it could be such a great monitoring solution, but more seems like a lot time has to be invested in it.
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13 Replies
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All I want to do is setup a couple dozen servers to be monitored for ping response. I think i have one finally setup successfully, but it takes way to many clicks to do that and im still getting all kinds of errors for services I dont even want to be checked. The names being used to describe what things do, etc, is completely different than what I would call correct or bvious.
The fact that an experienced IT and Network person such as myself is getting lost says something. Im pretty sure all of this is pretty much because the system was designed to be so flexible, but I think also made things a bit less stream lined and less a less intuitive UI.
I wish I had more productive things to add, but I do not since Ive pretty much given up on using the system as I dont have hours to waste trying to research how to use just the basics of a system. Obviously if it was something advanced I was trying to do, that would be a completely different story.
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Too many clicks?
Manage Agents -> The agent you want -> modules -> create new network server module -> host alive -> done
I would love to hear your suggestions to design the new GUI, since we are thinking about changing it and users’ opinion are always important.
I have to say I have tested some others monitoring systems, Zabbix, Nagios and Zenoos basically and they are a pain to get configured specially Zabbix and Nagios.
Pandora is such a powerful tool and hence a lil difficult to get used to work with.
I have used some really powerful tools along my career (not only monitoring stuff) and all of them are complicated, somehow, flexible and powerful tools are always complicated when you’re starting to play around with them.I’m sorry to hear you’re kinda giving up, if there’s anything i can help with, just let me know
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Just start by asking exactly what do you want to do and it’s possible we can help to do exactly what you want, but we need something to start, like for example.
What I need to do to check a system using SNMP (interface status, traffic) ?.
That kind of questions are “easy” to solve, but general ones about “the difficulty” of the system are not so easy
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MAC – you shouldn’t give up.
I had some issues at first with this too, but Manu was more than helpful in helping me get things up and running smoothly (I’ve got about 14 servers being actively monitored now). All of my issues were more user error than anything, and although they were a brief setback, they were a GREAT learning experience for me.
This tool is so powerful, and can do pretty much anything you need it to. It really lives up to it’s name.
Take a bit more time, read a bit more, and explore more with it. Everything takes some time to do well, and everything takes time to get used to. That’s just part of the learning curve…Good luck…
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Hi everybody.
For me it was very easy to get the VM image up and running. After that, I had some trouble to get it installed in my environment, but now everything is really great. I do consider Pandora FMS fantastic. Nowadays is really hard to think in my work days without this tool.
I don’t have much time now to improve the use of pandora (including update to the last version…:-( ) but I will be glad to help you nil with the draft of the super-fast-starting-guide.
I will send you an e-mail.
Regards.
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Being about a 3 day user of Pandora FMS, it seems like a powerful tool, but still lacking easy debug tools IMO. I am a long running cacti user, which for me is a simple drop in install and up and running in <2 hours monitoring over 10 switches for bandwidth. We are trying to move to Pandora FMS for some more functionality and built in features, but there are a few things I find missing. First thing I noticed is the simple lack of SNMP debug output, with Cacti if I had a problem I can go into the host page and click the verbose output for complete SNMPwalk output, which helps me know if I am getting any errors pulling it into the program, right now after checking OID's with a MIB browser I cannot see why it would get me "Cannot read from SNMP source" and probably user error but I cant find a place to research more info about what is causing the issue. Also, one major thing Cacti has had over the other programs we have attempted to use (i.e. zabbix) is the fact I can add a host, like a cisco switch and without reading the RFC on SNMP, it automatically pulls up all the ports on the switch and allows me to check each port I want and create a monitor/graph for what ever I want (i.e.- check port 3 and 4 and monitor bandwidth, etc.)
Also, unless I can't find it the WMI setup information is 3 lines and directs me to another website to download software, for me doesn't tell me if I just need to install it or if I need to do other things to hook it into Pandora FMS.
All of that aside, it seems like a powerful tool, but an entire week+ of leaving my other work to pile up to get this working is taking it's toll on me and this project initiative, if one more versed in the Pandora FMS system could do a simple step by step setup including a sample setup of one of each of the modules, (i.e.- setup of a SNMP monitor, agent based, etc) it would help a lot, I find the wiki currently gets sidetracked often and I had to personally jump around in the wiki to find the parts I needed (Why is the Server install before the Console? Console is needed before Server, plus why have a short manual Console setup in the front of the server page, Console setup should be a pre req before continuing to Server setup).
Again, not trying to tear into you guys, you make a great tool, just suggestions for making it easier to deploy for network admins already under a ungodly amount of work with budget cuts (both staff and software).
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Iggi, thank you a lot for sharing your thoughts.
We are working already in some documents explaining how to monitor stuff, example:
“How to monitor a windows machine” things like that.We really want to tool to be easy to deploy and easy to use, we are doing our best, trust me 🙂
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I know, I wasn’t trying to be cruel, just had a bad night of resolving dependencies on a CentOS 5.3 box to get it started and having a bit of a hard time finding what I needed in the documentation. The documentation is great (minus the limited WMI information) it just needs to be restructured, or that is my thoughts.
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We do have a tentacle tutorial here:
http://openideas.info/wiki/index.php?title=Pandora_2.0:Documentation_en:Install_Server#Configuring_Tentacle_to_receive_data_packagesWhat I’m planning is to reestructure this:
http://openideas.info/wiki/index.php?title=Pandora_2.0:Documentation_en:QIGSetting up:
Console
Server (including the link I posted here about tentacle)
Agents
