Hey guys, I am a totally new user to The Dude, so excuse my ignorance. I've been reading through a lot of material and I've found myself kind of frustrated with a lack of a beginners tutorial. So I'm hoping this will be home to one once I figure everything out.

For starters what I've found out:

There is only 1 install file. It is both the client and the server. In order to install the server on a machine as a service, you must install The dude and run it once. Click on "Local Server" and select run as a service from the drop down box.

And what I'm trying to figure out:

Does SNMP have to be installed on a remote windows 2003 server in order to poll data such as cpu and HDD free space? If so, does the dude also need to be installed? If they both do, what is the relationship?

Is there data you can poll from a machine Only running The Dude, and vise versa... only having snmp installed?

I'll leave it at that for now. But I'll eventually make this a tutorial for people(maybe as dumb as me) who want to know from start to finish, how to monitor a number of windows servers on a LAN/WAN from a single machine via dude servers, agents, snmp, or whatever is needed to monitor CPU, HDD free space, Memory usage, and network activity to name a few.

If all these answers can be had from a single document, please let me know. And sorry if I'm coming off as dumb. I just want a single place for a lot of info.

Does SNMP have to be installed on a remote windows 2003 server in order to poll data such as cpu and HDD free space? If so, does the dude also need to be installed? If they both do, what is the relationship?

Dude talks to the snmp agents installed on Windows, Unix, routers, etc.
On Windows, the snmp agent is "SNMP Service"
On Unix/Linux and most black boxes, the snmp agent is "snmpd"
On almost all Unix/Linux systems, the snmpd software is actually Net-SNMP. IBM Unix (AIX) uses a different (in a bad way), but compatible version of snmp.

Install and enable SNMP on Windows
http://www.poorperformance.com/wiki/ind ... on_Windows

On most Unix/Linux servers, you'll find that SNMP is already installed, you just have to configure and start it.
This is a starting point to the /etc/snmpd.conf file:
http://forums.cacti.net/about4471.html&highlight=
Cacti is a web based data recording program. Most problems with SNMP on different platforms has been discovered and resolved by the users of this program. So the Cacti forums are a good place to look for solutions to non-mikrotik problems.

"Community String" is like a password. Dude, Windows and most everything defaults to a password/community string of "public".
A lot of people change their community string to something other than public after they've got SNMP working.

The program is complex enough that it will take a while to fully understand enough features to really get all the functionality out of it. The other thing is not everyone wants to monitor things the same way. I recommend reading the probe thread since that will give you a good idea what is possible. Obviously getting it up and running and setting up SNMP will have you well on your way to a nice functioning setup but you will want things that are different from others. Also just search or ask in the forum if your having trouble with something. I have seen almost every question answered.

Hey guys, I'm at this again and I'm wondering about a few things. I've installed SNMP on my windows 2008 server and I've got the dude running on my workstation. I'm trying to do this without installing the dude on the servers, is that possible? Does the dude read direct SNMP values?

I'm also trying to figure out where the Local map is stored. If I create a bunch of devices, is that on the client (currently my workstation) or the server (also currently my workstation)? If I was to make a standalone The Dude server, I would install the exact same client/server base as if I was going to monitor that server right? there is no difference from what I can tell.

Also, I'm searching and searching and I cannot find a list of generally used MIBs or OIDs (still unsure of the difference) to plug into The Dude for monitoring. Doing an SNMP walk is about useless as there are a million different options and none of them are labeled "hdd freespace," etc.

Lastly, once everything is being monitored, how can I easily see all the items for each device w/o double clicking on that device and selecting "services"?

You monitor all other devices from the dude with SNMP. You do not have to install the dude anywhere else. You should put it on a computer that is getting backed up and make sure you keep an occasional separate backup as well. All other computers and devices you want to monitor need SNMP setup.

Everything is stored on the server and can be modified by any client even when they are on the same box. The server is more like a service and most people run it as a service. When you install the dude it can run as both or as either a client or a server. You make the distinction by clicking on "Local Server" and selecting how you want the server to run. When used as a "client" "local server" should be greyed... Except when running the client on the server at the same time.

OIDs are easy to find once you get the hang of it. Mostly read the probe thread or the wiki to find other probes/OIDs.

HTH,
Lebowski

See the dates where these posts were done. Dude has changed meanwhile. Read the manual first.