Introduction
Contents
About FreeNATS
FreeNATS is a free network testing system written in PHP and requiring Apache and MySQL. The system is Copyright © 2008-9 PurplePixie Systems (http://www.purplepixie.org) and is released under the GNU General Public Licence (version 3).
In addition to the software being available for download the system is available as a pre-configured rPath Linux Virtual Appliance for VMWare environments.
FreeNATS currently supports the following server-side test methods:
- ICMP (Ping)
- Web Request (Time or Size)
- SMTP, IMAP and POP3 (Time to Open)
- MySQL (Time, Rows or Data)
- TCP and UDP Connection (Open Port)
- DNS Query (simple query or direct server lookup)
- SMB (Windows share) Connection Time
As well as node-side monitoring (for Posix/Unix/Linux and Win32).
The system can be configured to evaluate test results against user defined values to determine the result (you can set the time after which a web test is deemed to be a warning or a failure) and have events (optionally including alerts being closed when a service is restored) notified to you by email in a variety of formats (including email to SMS compatible).
FreeNATS is still a developmental system and only alpha and beta releases are available. User feedback is very important and any comments/bugs/suggestions can be raised via www.purplepixie.org/freenats
System Requirements
The system is available both as a source installation (PHP) and pre-installed and configured on an rPath LAMP based virtual appliance.
Source Requirements
Posix Environment (Linux, UNIX, BSD etc) PHP 4 (reduced functionality) or 5 (full functionality) with Sockets, MySQL, GD, XML, PHP-CLI and IMAP (for IMAP tests) MySQL 3, 4 or 5 Low level/raw socket permissions (for ping test)
Virtual Appliance Requirements
Any VMWare product on any host hardware or operating system.
Help and Support
Online documentation is available and support is available through the FreeNATS forum. You can also submit bug reports and feedback directly here.
