TrueNAS has a goal of simplifying storage maintenance and complex monitoring tasks. Every component of a TrueNAS array can be monitored from a Web User Interface. Real-time statistics are displayed that cover the last hour and you can view and monitor usage trends over time.
This works wonderfully for one TrueNAS array, but for customers that have several or many arrays, or have an existing monitoring infrastructure, more was needed. So, over the course of the past year or so, we have made significant changes to the ways in which you can monitor your TrueNAS appliance. Moving from the BSD-based SNMP service to using the more common Net-SNMP has opened up TrueNAS system metrics previously unavailable. We also added the full GUI support for SNMPv3, providing the complete underpinnings for appliances that can be monitored, graphed, and alerted to a plethora of monitoring software both closed and open source.
We looked at the various TrueNAS stats, determined the ones that matter most, slapped an OID on them and provided these metrics via SNMP. So now, not only can you monitor the OIDs that Net-SNMP unearthed (which is a ton in its own right), but now you can also monitor and track specific metrics. We didn’t stop there, either. We put the custom MIB in every distribution of TrueNAS so that customers have easy access to this new data. But, we wanted to make it even easier. We surveyed our customers for their most favored monitoring and graphing programs and created custom templates to make use of these new OIDs so that integrating TrueNAS with your monitoring system of choice is a piece of cake.
On each of the specific vendors’ websites you will now find templates for TrueNAS:
Zenoss (https://www.zenoss.com/product/zenpacks/truenas)
Zabbix (https://share.zabbix.com/storage-devices/freenas-snmp-w-zfs-stats)
Nagios (https://exchange.nagios.org/directory/Plugins/Hardware/Storage-Systems/SAN-and-NAS/Check-TrueNAS-Health-2FReplication/details)
Cacti (http://docs.cacti.net/usertemplate:host:truenas:ixsystems)
We are also looking to start work on SolarWinds as well. If you have expertise in this area and want to lend a hand or if there are other monitoring software you’d like to see us support, let us know.
In closing, if there are any specific metrics you would like to have the ability to monitor via SNMP, please let us know. We are already working on some great additions to the metrics available including, which I personally can’t wait to see, per dataset metrics. This one is big. As we move closer and closer to the next generation of TrueNAS, providing easier and more detailed ways to get telemetry from your appliances is very important to us. We hope that the steps we have taken so far help to make your life easier.
TrueNAS Team
