November 19, 2020

In "How to Set Up a Raspberry Pi Network Monitor" tech author Ben Stockton goes into great detail about the setup process allowing you to turn a Raspberry Pi into a network asset monitoring system using NEMS Linux.

Read the article at howchoo.com.

Developer's Note: It should be noted Cacti was rejected from the official NEMS Linux distribution due to the intensity of its read/write operations and the impact that has on the lifetime of a MicroSD card. NEMS Linux is an appliance: Unsupported third-party applications should not be installed, despite the author's suggestion to the contrary. Cacti (and other unsupported applications) should be installed on a separate unit, not on a NEMS Server.

October 23, 2020

Allen McGhan got his hands on a Recon Sentinel appliance, which features a PINE64 Rock64 1GB SBC at its heart, along with a 2-line I2C display. Allen featured NEMS Linux 1.5 and demonstrated how he makes it so the display shows whether or not the Internet is up on the device.

Allen says, "I wanted this to just be able to monitor all of my systems at the house: Monitor my christmas lights that I have smart controllers on, monitor my servers, dns, routers... all those sorts of things. So I added all of those in NEMS."

Developer's Note: Allen could have used the nems-info online command to see if the device was online. A fun enhancement for his project would be to use nems-info state to poll the NEMS Server state. Then parse the JSON output and create a side-scrolling state display.

September 22, 2020

The infamous TechRepublic listed NEMS Linux as one of their "Five handy home office projects to try."

"[A Raspberry Pi] can be modified into a handy network-monitoring tool that will allow you to keep an eye on devices and data connecting to your home network."

Read the article at techrepublic.com.

September 15, 2019

Joey decided to give NEMS a try as a solution to low-cost network monitoring at home.

"The distro supplied was incredibly easy to install, as simple as installing Raspian OS to the SD card. Equally simple was it’s initial setup. After that things get a little more complicated, as someone who’s never used NAGIOS monitoring before the UI was confusing at first but several configuration videos later and we’ve got full monitoring of key devices in the network."

Read the article at lucky-frog.co.uk or download it as a PDF.

Developer's Note: It should be noted that NEMS includes NEMS Migrator, an on/off-site backup utility which ensures fast recovery in event of SD Card failure. In addition, the NEMS Checkin service will email you if your device fails. NEMS is also available on many more platforms than the RPi, including ones that support more reliable storage (eg., eMMC) and even virtual appliances, Amazon EC2, and more. It should also be clarified that NEMS Linux includes Nagios Core in its entirety. However, configuration has been enhanced by moving all the configuration away from config files and allowing the system to be administered from a GUI.

June 12, 2019

The MiniPC Show talked about NEMS Linux on Episode 92, giving high praise for both the distro, and its creator.

"[Robbie] puts passion in everything he does, and there's few people out there creating Linux-centric topics that I believe that when they say something, they actually believe it, and they actually have experience with it. So for him to be involved [with NEMS] suddenly gives this thing, to me, tons more credibility, and tons more longevity: I believe you can install this thing on your devices, and 6 or 8 months, 2 years, 4 years from now, you'll still be able to get updates for it because he will keep it up to date."

Listen to the podcast at podnutz.com or listen to just the clip about NEMS.

June 7, 2019

Anna Hegedus wrote a very kind introductory article about NEMS Linux on a Raspberry Pi 3.

"Multiple solutions exist to look after a large infrastructure—Nagios, Icinga2, Zabbix, and countless similar projects, all exist for that purpose. While a lot of these can be complicated and have a large time cost for setup, there are ways of gaining a truly comprehensive infrastructure monitoring system. NEMS Linux is one of those, and then some. Best of all, it is free."

Read the article at gadgetrat.com or download it as a PDF.

January 24, 2019

Paulino Padial began a short series of blogs about NEMS Linux with one titled "Adventures on NEMS Linux" highlighting some of their early experience with NEMS usage.

"The UI is quite nice and all the apps are nice preconfigured so they work well with no configuration required."

Read the article at medium.com/@paulino.padial or download it as a PDF.

November 1, 2018

In my second article published in ODROID Magazine about NEMS Linux, we'll jump right into our first excercise: Configuring NEMS Linux to monitor a local Linux server’s uptime.

"Through this article, I will demonstrate how some of the features of NEMS Configurator (NConf) are interconnected, and will prepare you for adding IP-based hosts to your NEMS server."

Read the article at magazine.odroid.com or download it as a PDF.

October 1, 2018

It was suggested by the ODROID community that I write an article for ODROID Magazine, which is the official magazine of Hardkernel's ODROID single-board computers. I pursued this, and to my astonishment, they published it in their October 2018 issue, and even requested that I become a regular author! Here is the first article about NEMS Linux: Introducing NEMS Linux: Part 1 – The Nagios Enterprise Monitoring Server for ODROID Devices.

In this article, I talk about how NEMS Linux came about (the inside skinny), walk the users through what makes NEMS Linux great, and provide step-by-step instructions on getting up and running with a brand new NEMS Linux server.

"I’ve already touched on the obvious interface and UX improvements that NEMS Linux brings to the Nagios experience. Those are perhaps the key points as to what makes NEMS stand out, but it’s important to understand that NEMS Linux is far more than just Debian with Nagios installed. Let’s look at a small selection of additional features."

This is great reading for all those new to NEMS Linux, as it provides an excellent introductory course.

Read the article at magazine.odroid.com or download it as a PDF.

September 7, 2018

Albert Vu published a very detailed introduction on the German blog, AZ-Delivery.

"Ist die Installation und Einrichtung mit NEMS so elegant gelöst, dass ich diese Lösung vorstellen wollte." (The installation and setup with NEMS is so elegantly solved that I wanted to introduce this solution.)

Read the article at az-delivery.de or download the translation as a PDF.

August 22, 2018

The MagPi Magazine is the official Raspberry Pi magazine. On August 23rd I noted a significant spike in our number of active servers, and then the next day the spike continued almost straight up on my deployment check-in graphs. I figured someone must have linked to us, so I did a quick Google search and was pleasantly surprised to see The MagPi was linking to NEMS Linux!

"While the Pi was developed with educational abilities in mind, many of its features make it very well suited for these high-level applications. With the hardware, you need software though, and NEMS Linux is one solution for this."

Read the post on raspberrypi.org or download it as a PDF.

August 8, 2018

Category5 Technology TV featured NEMS 1.4.1 on Episode 568.

In the episode, Robbie takes you through obtaining NEMS Linux, installing it on a Raspberry Pi 3, first boot, initialization, configuration of the Nagios server, creation of a host, and what happens when a host goes down. This is an excellent introduction to NEMS Linux, staying away from more complicated features and simply focusing on the initial out-of-the-box experience.

April 4, 2018

Nagios Enterprises selected Robbie Ferguson (the creator of NEMS Linux) for their community feature.

"We loved hearing about his creative Nagios projects, as well as his use of Nagios to help monitor the equipment needed to run the show."

In the article, Robbie details how NEMS Linux came to be, how he uses it personally, and the future plans for the NEMS project.

Read the post on nagios.com or download it as a PDF.

December 30, 2017

The IT Nerd posted a blog post recommending NEMS Linux.

"If you’re responsible for a network, or you have a strange network issue, I’d suggest grabbing a Raspberry Pi and a copy of NEMS. From my experience, you’ll understand what is going on when it comes to what’s on your network, which will allow you to better manage and troubleshoot it."

Check out the post on itnerd.blog or download it as a PDF.

October 16, 2017

ADMIN Magazine published an article by Rick Haltermon about NEMS 1.2 for Issue # 41 (December/January). The front cover of the magazine also highlights the NEMS feature.

In the article, NEMS is introduced as "a fully configured open source Nagios distribution made for easy deployment on affordable hardware." The author takes the reader through the initial setup of NEMS Linux.

The author wraps up by complimenting the support I provide for NEMS Linux, saying "I have contacted the developer of NEMS a few times over the last 18 months, and the replies have always been quick and accurate."

ADMIN Magazine # 41 is available online and in print.

June 3, 2017

Lucas J. Hall wrote a nice blog post reviewing NEMS Linux.

Lucas writes, "NEMS bundles a lot of great features that use the Nagos Core, and it can be a simple box preforming check_pings or it can be as robust as nagios NRPE can get- that's up to you." He also boasts that he had NEMS up and running within and hour, performing check on his network on no more than $65 worth of hardware. NEMS truly shows itself to be an affordable Nagios solution.

Check out the post on lucasjhall.com or download it as a PDF.