One trend that is on the rise in Linux administration is that administrators are required to do more with less time. Doing more with less is a concept that generates numbers for the bottom line of the business but increases the level of stress for an administrator. One way to ease that load is to set up automatic monitoring of those important servers and services that your company uses.

Nagios is a free, open-source tool that can be used to monitor network components and services. When it detects a problem, it can send alert messages by either e-mail or pager. It can also be configured so that only designated personnel can view status information for particular services or equipment. This tutorial will show you how to install Nagios 3 on an Ubuntu 8.10 server.