Comparison of Nagios books *15th June 2007.

Dear reader,

you probably came here in order to find the right literature to read up on Nagios based monitoring solutions.
There currently exist a handful of books and many online articles describing how to use Nagios.
A selection of online articles is mentioned at the bottom of this page.
The currently available Nagios dedicated books in English language are:

The Nagios Book (nagiosbook.org)
Nagios: System and Network Monitoring (No Starch Press)
ISBN: 1593270704
Pro Nagios 2.0 (Apress)
ISBN: 1590596099
Building a Monitoring Infrastructure with Nagios (PTR)
ISBN: 0132236931
Network Monitoring with Nagios (OReilly - Shortcut [PDF] )
ISBN: 0596528191
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/networknagios/

1) "The Nagios Book" is free and readable online at http://nagiosbook.org. It was last updated
in January 2006. At present state it looks to me like an incomplete online help function of the
software installed. So in it's present state it is not really comparable with the other books below.

However, it does serve well for occasionally looking something up online and hopefully in the close

future more volunteers will step forward increasing the quantity of the provided information.

2) About "Nagios: System and Network Monitoring" (No Starch Press):
The book (in a typical No Starch Press style) gives a clear, concise rundown about Nagios in general.
As such it is a well written and sound introduction to the Nagios topic.

After having read No Starch Press's Nagios book you will know exactly how Nagios works inside.
The thorough explanations, flow charts and many tips and tricks leave no doubt that after you
finished the book you know your way around any Nagios installation.

What is remarkable is, that even though the Nagios topic is fairly young, the authors manage
to describe more than 70+ plugins. !!

One of the features of this book was for me basically a new level of "Usability" - or should I
say "reading quality" ? The text contains virtually "links" to related or refered to sections in
other chapters. That allows the reader to quickly jump back and forth to follow up on something.
A BIG time-saver and from my point of view much appreciated.

Beginners or junior system administrators will find No Starch Press's book an excellent choice.
It doesnt come with all the latest bells and whistles but it certainly covers more than 80% of what
the average joe sysadmin needs to know and additionally is filled with thorough explanations and
nice flow charts.

3) About Apress's book:

With 366 pages this is the most compact Nagios monitoring solutions guide on the marcet. Period !
You can easily take the book with you anywhere you go.

In addition, Apress's "Pro Nagios 2.0" does cover many topics including the latest bells and whistles.

Topics that are ONLY covered in Apress's book include failover, redundancy, on demand macros,
daisy chaining, adaptive monitoring, the event broker, the embedded perl interpreter, the NSClient++
etc. If you need those features than Apress's book version should be your book of choice.

Note, that it will often extend topics by refering to further external literature. It is also strongly

text based and therefore clearly targeted for advanced users which dont want to read the 11th version

of how to use the bash commands etc..

Something that I would consider a strong point of this book is the detailed focus on security related

issues. General security considerations are summarized in an extra chapter while specific security

considerations are described when exploring a concrete plugin or setup scenario.

Therefore, I would consider Apress's book focused towards software architects, system integrators,
senior system administrators, programmers and developers and I believe it serves this marcet very well.

4) "Building a Monitoring Infrastructure with Nagios" from PTR is focusing on describing Nagios from a bird view.
The book is teaching important principles and technics. It allows non technical staff to grasp the key points
without the headaches of going into the nitty gritty details. Its a compact and a light weight book
which allows you to get a quick overview of Nagios especially when you are not in the office.

5) Network Monitoring with Nagios (OReilly Shortcut)
If you MUST get Nagios running within today, and its literally already 5 to twelve (have no time left)
then this is the text for it !! Just copy and paste the examples and you are good to go.
While this will save your day, make sure to order any of the books reviewed below for the follow up on it. ;-)

The Question: So, which is the book for me ? -

The answer: It depends on what you want to do with it ;-)

Occasional usage: If you just would like to look up Nagios related points you might come away by

using mailing lists, forums, nagiosbook.org or man pages.

However, if you need a strong foundation for your daily work with Nagios than you really should get a

book that delivers ALL the information thats available right at your fingertips. I feel that f.e.the
two books from No Starch Press and Apress are complementing each other very nicely.

Software architects, developers and programmers: If you belong to these group you should really get

both books. Apart from the fact that they both write about the same product (Nagios), their approach

is so different that you will benefit from this in a very positive way. Getting No Starch Press's book

will explain you all the "internals" in a clear concise matter while Apress will extend on this in even

more advanced areas (described above) which will lead your software to better quality.

"But what if I want to buy only one book ?" I hear you say.

In the case that you want to buy only one book choose your user category below.

Mangers and non-technical staff: If you just need a quick introduction to grasp what Nagios can do you might
want to choose between the Oreilly Shortcut, PTR's "Building a Monitoring Infrastructure with Nagios"
or even the documentation that is available online.

Professional user: If you are in need of making the most of how to setup, configure and use Nagios

you should get No Starch Press's book version. The many charts and tips make this a one stop solution.

Enterprise users: If you are thinking about using Nagios in an enterprise environment, have a strong

interest in security or thinking about heavily extending Nagios with your own plugins then get

Apress's book version.

I hope I could help you make the right decision.

Enjoy reading ;-)