This guide shows how to set up M/Monit. If you are interested in Monit instead, checkout How to install and configure monit in Rocky Linux 8.

Monit is a small popular Open Source utility for managing and monitoring Unix systems. M/Monit builds on Monit’s capabilities and provides monitoring and management of all your Monit enabled hosts via a modern, clean and well designed user interface which also works on mobile devices.

M/Monit can monitor and manage distributed computer systems, conduct automatic maintenance and repair and execute meaningful causal actions in error situations.

Features

• Quick & Easy SetupEasy install and setup – turn key. Up and running in seconds
• UptimeYour computer systems will have a higher uptime as M/Monit can handle error conditions automatically, often without the need for human intervention.
• DesignM/Monit has a clean, simple and responsive User Interface which scales well, if you manage 2 hosts or 1000+ hosts.
• ChartsCreate beautiful charts for multiple hosts and compare key indicators from various machines and services

In this guide we will learn how to install and set up M/Monit in Linux to be used as a central place to monitor servers and services.

Step 1: Download the latest version

Mmonit distributes the installation package as a tar.gz for the various os architectures. Get the latest package for your linux distribution architecture from the download site here.

I am using an x64 linux, these are the commands to switch to the /opt directory and download the file. You might have to run these command as root to avoid permission denied.

cd /opt
curl -LO https://mmonit.com/dist/mmonit-3.7.11-linux-x64.tar.gz

We can then extract and remove the tar file

tar -xzvf mmonit-3.7.11-linux-x64.tar.gz
rm -rf mmonit-3.7.11-linux-x64.tar.gz

Step 2: Create a systemd to manage the service

After extracting, the executable file is located at this path /opt/mmonit-3.7.11/bin/mmonit. To ensure that the service runs beyond our login session, let us use the systemd service manager to manage the service.

Create the systemd service file. I am using vim to open the service file:

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/mmonit.service

Then add this content:

[Unit]
Description=M/Monit server

[Service]
Type=simple

WorkingDirectory=/opt/mmonit-3.7.11
PIDFile=/var/run/mmonit.pid
ExecStart=/opt/mmonit-3.7.11/bin/mmonit -i -p /var/run

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Finally, reload systemd daemons for the service to be recognized:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Step 3: Starting and enabling the service

Now start service using this command:

sudo systemctl start mmonit

Confirm that the service is running as expected using this command:

$ sudo systemctl status mmonit
● mmonit.service - M/Monit server
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/mmonit.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Tue 2022-03-29 05:12:22 UTC; 10s ago
 Main PID: 221347 (mmonit)
    Tasks: 5 (limit: 23465)
   Memory: 1.6M
   CGroup: /system.slice/mmonit.service
           └─221347 /opt/mmonit-3.7.11/bin/mmonit -i -p /var/run

Mar 29 05:12:22 monitoring systemd[1]: Started M/Monit server.
Mar 29 05:12:22 monitoring mmonit[221347]: mmonit 3.7.11 started

The Active: active (running) indicates that the service is up and running.

Enable the service on boot:

sudo systemctl enable mmonit

Step 4: Open port 8080 in firewall

Mmonit runs as a http service exposed on port 8080. If you have firewalld installed and enabled, use these commands to enable the port:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=8080/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Step 5: Accessing the service

We can now access the service. Open your browser and head to http://[server_ip]:8080. You should be welcomed by M/Monit login page.

Login with Username admin and password swordfish. You will be redirected to the dashboard, it doesn’t contain anything but we are going to add servers and services to monitor in the next section.

Step 6: Configuring Nginx to proxy request

We can configure a domain to easily access out mmonit server. Ensure that the domain’s dns entry has been added to point to the mmonit server ip address.

Then install Nginx

# In Rocky Linux / RHEL based linux
sudo dnf install -y nginx

# In debian based linux
sudo apt install -y nginx

Add nginx config file

sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/mmonit.conf

Then add this content

server {
    listen 80;
    server_tokens off;
    server_name monit.citizix.com;

    if ($host !~* ^(monit.citizix.com)$) {
        return 444;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_redirect     off;
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8190;
    }
}

Start and enable nginx

sudo systemctl start nginx
sudo systemctl enable nginx

Now visit the page at http://monit.citizix.com to access the service