Monitor Your Network Using A Raspberry Pi

Christian Cawley scans his network for intruders and unsafe hardware using little more than a Raspberry Pi and Nagios.

- Christian Cawley

Network security is vital to the integrity of your data and hardware. Using a router with a firewall and computer security tools is wise, but to get a better idea of what’s happening on your network, you’ll need a monitoring tool.

It might seem like the stuff of low-budget cyber thrillers, but a network monitoring tool can be effortlessly set up and put to work pinging the hardware on your network and scanning for intruders. This essentially means that you can learn right away when your devices on your network go offline (perhaps IoT or smart-home applications), and discover unauthorised connections to your router or other networked hardware. All you need is a Raspberry Pi and the Nagios software.

Two versions of Nagios are available. There’s the Nagios XI series of premium products, which might be more suited to corporate use. These feature a trial period and technical support. Nagios also comes as an open-source suite, with four options: Nagios Core, Nagios Core Plugins, Nagios Core Frontends (community-generated UIs) and Nagios Core Addons to extend functionality. Once installed on a single device, Nagios brings continuous monitoring to your network, regardless of its size and dynamic.

Continuous monitoring is a staggeringly useful concept that all too few businesses take the time to implement. It basically enables the detection of network and server issues almost as they happen. This prompt detection enables fast diagnosis, thus minimising downtime.