Linux is a popular operating system used on servers, especially for web hosting, databases, virtualization, and many network services. It’s known for stability and flexibility, but Linux servers are often managed differently than Windows ones: instead of Windows-specific tools, you typically rely on standard Linux utilities and common management protocols to check performance, storage, and running services. For monitoring, the key idea is the same—track availability and health—but the way you collect data may use different methods.
Monitoring Linux with IPNetwork Monitor. You don’t need separate monitoring software just because the server runs Linux. The main difference is which protocols and tools are used to retrieve data. On Windows, WMI is often used as a universal source of system information; on Linux, similar data is commonly collected via an SNMP agent, SSH, and standard utilities (for example vmstat, stat, /proc data, and disk/process tools). IPNetwork Monitor supports Linux monitoring using SNMP Custom monitors and Script/SSH monitors, including predefined performance monitors that collect data via SSH (CPU load metrics, memory usage, disk free/used space, and process characteristics on SSH-enabled hosts). For hardware sensor data, Linux tools like smartctl and lm-sensors can expose readings that are then collected consistently (often through SNMP). IPNetwork Monitor also provides a native Remote Network Agent for Linux, which is useful for monitoring remote subnets that don’t have Windows machines available.
