Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

Op5

Advanced Reporting Schedule functionality with automatic weekly and monthly e-mail distribution in PDF format Availability reports Host, host-groups, services, service groups etc Notification reports Top alerts reports System event reports SLA reports And more Advanced scheduling of time periods Exception Enables users to define exceptions in a given time period, for example birth days, public holidays, vacations or other important events Exclude Enables for users to exclude time from a given time period, for example time that a person does not work, and that way building advanced time periods in a simple way. Scheduled downtime for suppressing host and service notifications during periods of planned outages. Agent based monitoring Native agent for any platform Immune to connection problems op5 agents Agent-less monitoring Monitoring of remote services (FTP, SSH, HTTP, other) WMI for Agent-less Windows monitoring Support of SNMP v1,2,3 Support of IPMI SNMP traps ERP & CRM monitoring Available plugins and setups for detailed monitoring of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systemsand customer relations management (CRM) systems. Movex IFS

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

IBS SAP More Trend analysis for long-term planning and prediction * There might be exeptions depending on how its been implemented, let us take a look at your Nagios installation to verify full compatibility. Distributed monitoring Support for complex distributed setups Redundancy Load balancing Support for meshed setups Centralized configuration Centralized access to all data Up-to many thousands of hosts Unlimited number of proxies Command forwarding logic for peered setups Use of child servers to: Provide detailed information on the status of the remote location. Can be deployed on either Linux or Windows environments. Increases over all monitoring capacity. We have customers that monitor 10.000nds of IP addresses in distributed and redundant setups. We can help with information on how to scale the solution according to the needed size. Easy administration Web based administration Network scan for quick set up Built in Wiki for easy documentation of host settings, system owner, hardware, guarantee information etc Load balancing and redundancy Support for clustering Check port status to keep track of unused switch ports Scheduling Schedule Recurring Downtime Schedule Alert Summary Reports Scan for Windows services Easy integration with other systems Available integration APIs Helpdesk systems ITIL Service Desks ie. ARS Remedy, Easit, Nilex, LANDesk Servicedesk

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

CMDBs and Asset management tools Network discovery tools Device managers Fast installation and set-up VMware image and full software available for testing Complete installation in a couple of hours Setup of thousands of hosts in a couple of days Proven to Monitor tens of thousands of hosts in one consolidated tactical view. Integrate op5 Monitor with Help Desk systems op5 Monitor can easily be integrated with help-desk systems When a problem is detected by op5 Monitor, the system creates an automatic ticket trap in a predefined format and sending it to the helpdesk system. A new helpdesk ticket is automatically created that includes information from op5 Monitor. Examples of ticket handling system integrations: ARS Remedy Easit Nilex Eventum Request Tracker (RT) And more Monitor Extensions We have customers that monitor 10.000nds of IP addresses in distributed and redundant setups. We can help with information on how to scale the solution according to the needed size. Monitoring of Virtual Infrastructure Monitor all layers of virtual infrastructure from one tactical overview Monitoring of virtual servers VMware ESX, ESXi, Vsphere and vCenter Server Xen KVM Map relationships and dependencies Monitoring of Outsourced Services Monitor your outsourced services in the same view as the rest of your services Measure your SLAs We want to make it easy and risk free to test op5 Monitor. So we have a 30 day refund policy when buying any of the IP-plans for op5 Monitor Basic.

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

Network Visualization (Geography & Topology) Tactical overview of the network status Host groups views Service groups views NagVis is integrated (Powerful tool for visualisation) GEOMap with Google map integration Network Maps Network drill downs to display local traffic details for individual network segments. Interactive multilayered map functionality for displaying system status in multiple levels Open Source IT Monitoring you can trust Built on Nagios bundled with hundreds of Open Source plugins op5 developed enterprise features and plugins op5 Community with projects, user lists, wiki and more. Access to our source code Open to code audit Build your own plugins Access to more the approx. +200 quality assured, supported and documented plugins, see our list of supported plugins. Available bug tracking and road map. Problem identification and handling Faster troubleshooting, easy to find where the problem is located Notifications and escalation sent via Email, SMS or Pager Ability to acknowledge problems via the web interface and sms. Network scan for quick set up Integrated add-ons for HP, DELL, SUN and other generally available SNMP agents. Templates for commonly used infrastructure, applications or traffic flows. op5 Monitor provides: Turn-key solution that is easy and fast to implement A modern and flexible PHP based user interface (GUI) Widgets that can be personalized and have independent settings Web-based configuration tool for easier and faster configuration. Search and filtering of information with pagination Template/skin support Multi language support (gettext) Outstanding data visualization tools to make the network data easy to understand Paginated host/service group pages Graph and comment pop-up

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

Integrated Wiki for easy documentation

Centreon
Real time system monitoring Outage detection Availability detection Fine-grained thresholds definitions for alerts Active (pull) queries Passive (push) queries SNMP trap receipts Hosts group metrics compositing Services group metrics compositing Aggregate reporting SLA metrics aggregation (Meta service) Downtimes scheduling Issue acknowledgments mechanisms Comments recording Search filters for log interrogations Configurable frequencies for KPI collection Flexible configuration Nagios 3 compatibility Configuration template management Hosts and services template interaction Application template library management N-level template inheritance Automatic SNMP traps collection and management Customised macro Network topology management Atomic KPI configuration User access controls Access group definitions Interface access restrictions Hosts group resource view restrictions Service groups resource view restrictions Service category resource view restrictions LDAP Authentication User action logs

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

Flexibility Integration of customised or user-written extensions: Centreon Syslog; Centreon WeatherMap; Centreon Map; Centreon Business Activities Monitoring; Centreon Business Intelligence; Centreon Auto Deployment Tool; Centreon Disco; Centreon NTOP; Centreon CLAPI. Load balancing/High availability Load analysis breakdowns as per: strategy (security); geography (WAN); network topology. Fail-over satellite server configuration Pre-production satellite server configuration High availability configuration using: replicated MySQL databases; web interfaces; monitoring engines; graphs/reports. Dashboards Daily statistics of status durations Daily statistics on alerts frequencies Single server online reporting Hosts online reporting Service group online reporting Configurable update frequencies CSV report export Interactive timeline for report monitoring System Management Optional command line operation of Centreon for: adding hosts; restarting Nagios; generating configurations. Configuration loading from CSV or Nagios files. Hierarchical notification system Business dependencies

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

Network dependencies Ticketing tools interfaces (Request Traquer, etc) Notification via mail, SMS or other systems Hierarchical escalation configuration

Zabbix Features
Monitor Everything Everything inside your network can be monitored: Performance Servers, Web Applications, Databases, Networking Equipment and more. Enterprise Ready Zabbix is designed to support from small to large environments with the requirements in a business of high criticality. Proactive Monitoring Improve the quality of their services and reduce operating costs by avoiding downtime. Capacity Planning Plan the growth of your business and be able to predict the future and apply the financial resources more accurately. True Open Source No Enterprise version, the best of Zabbix is offered for free.

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

Nagios XI
Powerful Web Interface: A powerful GUI provides for customization of layout, design, and preferences on a per-user basis, giving your team the flexibility they want. Dynamic content updates with AJAX technology provide real-time information on the latest status of monitored infrastructure elements. Performance and Capacity Planning Graphs: Automated, integrated trending and capacity planning graphs allow organizations to plan for infrastructure upgrades before outdated systems catch them by surprise. Graphs are automatically created when you configure XI to monitor a new infrastructure element. RRD-based graphing technology provides efficient data storage over time. Dashboards: Powerful dashboards provide at-a-glance access to powerful monitoring information and third-party data. Dashlets provide users with the ability to customize their dashboards with the data they find most useful. Views: Provide users with quick access to the information they find most useful. On-screen rotation of views ensures your team always gets the critical information it needs with a quick glance at the monitor. Web Configuration GUI: An integrated web-based configuration interface lets admins hand out control of managing monitoring configuration, system settings, and more to other users and team members easily. Configuration Wizards: Configuration wizards guide users through the process of monitoring new devices, services, and applications all without having to understand complex monitoring ideas or modify low-level configuration files. Ability to build and deploy custom wizards allows organizations to tailor XI to meet internal and external user requirements. Advanced Configuration Manager: An advanced web configuration interface to Nagios Core allows administrators complete control over the monitoring engine configuration. Import capabilities provide for migration from legacy Nagios Core configuration files. Advanced User Management: Simplifies your management of the XI system by allowing you to mange user accounts easily. Provision new user accounts with a few clicks and users automatically receive an email with their login credentials.

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

User-Specific Notification Preferences: Users can manage how they'd like to receive notifications, what they'd like to receive notifications for, and what type of information the notification messages should contain. Non-Stop Operations: Protects against monitoring system failures due to misconfigurations and user error. The new Nonstop Operations Manager lets you rest easier knowing your monitoring system doesn't stop, even when you do. Extendable Architecture: Built on proven Open Source components, Nagios XI's capabilities can easily be extended to meet your organization's needs. Hundreds of communitydeveloped addons and monitoring scripts are available to extend XI's core functionality. Modular design allows for easy customization. Database Backend: Integrated database backend and APIs allow for powerful behind-thescenes access to monitoring and configuration data. Integrated authentication layers protect sensitive data against unauthorized access and empower organizations to develop their own front-ends for monitoring data.

Nagios Core
Comprehensive Monitoring: Provides monitoring of all mission-critical infrastructure components - including applications, services, operating systems, network protocols, system metrics, and network infrastructure. Visibility: Provides central view of your entire IT operations network and business processes. Awareness: Alerts are delivered to IT staff via email and SMS. Multi-user notification escalation capabilities ensure alerts reach the attention of the right people. Problem Remediation: Event handlers allow you to automatically restart failed applications, services, servers, and devices when problems are detected. Trending and Capacity Planning: Allows organizations to plan for infrastructure upgrades before outdated systems catch them by surprise. Reports: Ensure SLAs are being met, provides historical records of outages, notifications, and alert response for later analysis. Extendable Architecture: Provides easy integration with in-house and third-party applications. Hundreds of community-developed addons extend core functionality. Cloud monitoring

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

Nagios provides complete monitoring of cloud computing, web, and storage services. Nagios is capable of monitoring a variety of servers and operating systems - both physical and virtual. Benefits Implementing effective cloud monitoring with Nagios offers the following benefits: Increased server, services, and application availability Fast detection of network outages Fast detection of cloud computing environment problems Virtualization monitoring This article describes how to monitor a VMWare ESXi or vSphere host with Nagios, using the OP5 Check ESX Plugin written in PERL. The plugin can monitor either a single ESXi/vSphere server or a VirtualCenter/vCenter Server and individual virtual machines. Well see here how to monitor an ESXi 4 host. The following tutorial has been made on a CentOS server, you may have to adapt some paths with other distributions.

Installation The prerequisite for the plugin to work is to install the VMWare Perl SDK available on the manufacturer website. Download the file on your server, for example in the root directory, untar it and run the installer that way : # cd /root # tar xvzf VMware-vSphere-Perl-SDK-4.1.0-254719.i386.tar.gz # cd vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib/ # ./vmware-install.pl Follow the instructions given by the script. Depending on your setup, some PERL dependencies must be installed prior for the SDK to work correctly. When its done, we can get the plugin here, and copy it to /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/. Make it executable : # cd /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/ # chmod a+x check_esx Configuration Now, we can start the real configuration for Nagios. Well need a username and password to access the ESXi host, lets define those Nagios variables in a safe place in /etc/nagios/resource.cfg, so that this information will be hidden from the CGIs :

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

$USER11$=username $USER12$=password In this tutorial, well be monitoring these resources : CPU, memory usage, net usage, runtime status and IO/read/write. But some more are available, see the references here. Below are the new commands related to ESXi to add in the /etc/nagios/objects/command.cfg file (these are the ESXi related commands only, NOT the full command.cfg, you may append this at the end of the file) : # check vmware esxi machine # check cpu define command{ command_name check_esx_cpu command_line $USER1$/check_esx -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -u $USER11$ -p $USER12$ -l cpu -s usage -w $ARG1$ -c $ARG2$ } # check memory usage define command{ command_name check_esx_mem command_line $USER1$/check_esx -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -u $USER11$ -p $USER12$ -l mem -s usage -w $ARG1$ -c $ARG2$ } # check net usage define command{ command_name check_esx_net command_line $USER1$/check_esx -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -u $USER11$ -p $USER12$ -l net -s usage -w $ARG1$ -c $ARG2$ } # check runtime status define command{ command_name check_esx_runtime command_line $USER1$/check_esx -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -u $USER11$ -p $USER12$ -l runtime -s status } # check io read define command{ command_name check_esx_ioread command_line $USER1$/check_esx -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -u $USER11$ -p $USER12$ -l io -s read -w $ARG1$ -c $ARG2$ } # check io write

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

define command{ command_name check_esx_iowrite command_line $USER1$/check_esx -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -u $USER11$ -p $USER12$ -l io -s write -w $ARG1$ -c $ARG2$ } And an example of the configuration for a Nagios host called esxi01 in /etc/nagios/hosts/esxi01.cfg : # Host esx01 define host{ use host_name alias address }

linux-server esxi01 VMWare ESXi 01 192.168.1.100

# Define a service to "ping" the local machine define service{ use generic-service host_name esxi01 service_description PING check_command check_ping!100.0,20%!500.0,60% } # VMWare # check cpu define service{ use host_name service_description check_command } # check memory usage define service{ use host_name service_description check_command } # check net define service{ use host_name service_description

generic-service esxi01 ESXi CPU Load check_esx_cpu!80!90

generic-service esxi01 ESXi Memory usage check_esx_mem!80!90

generic-service esxi01 ESXi Network usage

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

check_command } # check runtime status define service{ use host_name service_description check_command } # check io read define service{ use host_name service_description check_command } # check io write define service{ use host_name service_description check_command } check_esx_net!102400!204800

generic-service esxi01 ESXi Runtime status check_esx_runtime

generic-service esxi01 ESXi IO read check_esx_ioread!40!90

generic-service esxi01 ESXi IO write check_esx_iowrite!40!90

KVM There is a tool being developed by Redhat that relies on the libvirt interface for monitoring virtual machines based on kvm or any other hypervisor supported by the libvirt interface. This means that it obviously will only work for kvm guests being managed by tools based on libvirt such as virt-manager, virtsh etc. and will not work for your kvm guests being managed by command line. Nagios support for virtualisation About nagios-virt Nagios-virt is a configuration tool for adding monitoring of your virtualised domains to Nagios. You can use this tool to either set up a new Nagios installation for your Xen or QEMU/KVM guests, or to integrate with your existing Nagios installation. Nagios-virt is built on top of libvirt so it works with several different virtualisation systems.

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

Download nagios-virt-0.2.0.tar.gz (about 56K) The license is the GNU General Public License, version 2 or above.

Installing Nagios configuration using nagios-virt The main program is called /usr/sbin/nagios-virt (or just nagios-virt). To get help online, do: nagios-virt --help It may be helpful to print nagios-virt's configuration, to check that it matches where you think Nagios configuration files, etc. should be installed. $ nagios-virt config PACKAGE_NAME nagios-virt PACKAGE_VERSION version NAGIOS_CONFIGDIR /etc/nagios NV_DATADIR /usr/share/nagios-virt-version Assuming Xen, you can get nagios-virt to build and test its configuration files for you by doing: nagios-virt install This will generate two files: /etc/nagios/virt-library.cfg This is a standard library of (virtualised) services to monitor. Do not edit this file as it will be overwritten each time nagios-virt runs. /etc/nagios/virt-hosts.cfg This lists services found on guests on the system. You may edit this file, but beware that next time you run nagios-virt install, this file will be backed up as virt-hosts.cfg.nvold and a new file created in its place. Nagios-virt doesn't alter any other configuration files. Read and follow the instructions that nagios-virt prints out after installation. With QEMU/KVM nagios-virt -c qemu:///system install Compiling nagios-virt Prerequisites Nagios

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

libvirt 0.1.9 Compiling ./configure make sudo make install

Cloud Computing And Monitoring With Nagios

Capabilities Nagios provides complete monitoring of cloud computing, web, and storage services. Nagios is capable of monitoring a variety of servers and operating systems - both physical and virtual. Benefits Implementing effective cloud monitoring with Nagios offers the following benefits: Increased server, services, and application availability Fast detection of network outages Fast detection of cloud computing environment problems Amazon EC2 Nagios provides monitoring of Amazon EC2.

Plugins

Here is a list of the actively maintained Plugins:

check_apt, check_breeze, check_by_ssh, check_clamd, check_cluster, check_dhcp, check_dig, check_disk, check_disk_smb, check_dns, check_dummy, check_file_age, check_flexlm, check_fping, check_ftp, check_game, check_hpjd, check_http, check_icmp, check_ide_smart, check_ifoperstatus, check_ifstatus, check_imap, check_ircd, check_jabber, check_ldap, check_load, check_log, check_mailq, check_mrtg, check_mrtgtraf, check_mssql, check_mysql, check_mysql_query, check_nagios, check_netdns, check_nntp, check_nntps, check_nt, check_ntp_peer, check_ntp_time, check_nwstat, check_oracle, check_overcr, check_pgsql, check_ping, check_pop, check_procs, check_radius, check_real, check_rpc, check_sensors, check_simap, check_smtp, check_snmp, check_spop, check_ssh, check_ssmtp, check_swap, check_tcp, check_time, check_udp, check_ups, check_users, check_wave

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

And these plugins are currently distributed in the contrib directory: check_adptraid, check_apache, check_apc_ups, check_appletalk, check_arping, check_asterisk, check_axis, check_backup, check_bgpstate, check_breeze, check_cluster, check_cluster2, check_compaq_insight, check_cpqarray, check_digitemp, check_dlswcircuit, check_dns_random, check_email_loop, check_fan_cpq_present, check_fan_fsc_present, check_flexlm, check_frontpage, check_hltherm, check_hprsc, check_http-with-client-certificate, check_hw, check_ica_master_browser, check_ica_metaframe_pub_apps, check_ica_program_neigbourhood, check_inodes, check_inodes-freebsd, check_ipxping, check_javaproc, check_joy, check_linux_raid, check_lmmon, check_log2, check_lotus, check_maxchannels, check_maxwanstate, check_mem, check_ms_spooler, check_mssql, check_nagios, check_nagios_db, check_nagios_db_pg, check_netapp, check_nmap, check_oracle_instance, check_oracle_tbs, check_ora_table_space, check_pcpmetric, check_pfstate, check_qmailq, check_rbl, check_remote_nagios_status, check_rrd_data, check_sap, check_smart, check_smb, check_snmp_disk_monitor, check_snmp_printer, check_snmp_process_monitor, check_snmp_procs, check_sockets, check_temp_cpq, check_temp_fsc, check_timeout, check_traceroute, check_traceroute-pure_perl, check_uptime, check_vcs, check_wave, check_wins There is about 1000 contributed add-ons and about 3000 plugins listed in folowing groups: Plugin Development Tools (7 listings) Plugin Packages (13 listings)* Remote Check Tunneling (10 listings)Anti-Virus (22 listings)Backup and Recovery (73 listings)Business Management and Logic (11 listings)Cloud (7 listings)Clustering and High-Availability (49 listings)CMS and Blog Software (13 listings)Databases (154 listings)E-Commerce, Billing and Financial (12 listings)Email and Groupware (85 listings)Games (7 listings)Grid Computing (3 listings)Hardware (596 listings)Helpdesk and Ticketing (11 listings)Instant Messaging (1 listings)Internet Domains and WHOIS (8 listings)Inventory Management (0 listings)Java Applications and Servers (56 listings)License Management (15 listings)Log Files (24 listings)Network and Systems Management (61 listings)Network Connections, Stats and Bandwidth (102 listings)Network Protocols (345 listings)Notifications (3 listings)Operating Systems (657 listings)Others (77 listings)Printing (5 listings)Remote Access (14 listings)Reporting (2 listings)Security (59 listings)Software (20 listings)System Metrics (255 listings)Telephony (34 listings)Uncategorized (0 listings)Videoconferencing (2 listings)Web 2.0 Services (0 listings)Web Servers (52 listings)Websites, Forms and Transactions (45 listings)

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

Comparsion table

Name Cacti Icinga Nagios

IP SLA Logical Trend Auto Reports Grouping Trending Prediction Discovery Agent Yes plugin plugin Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No plugin plugin plugin

Triggers / Distributed Data Storage SNMP Syslog Plugins Alerts WebApp Monitoring Inventory Platform Method License Full No Yes Yes Yes Yes Control Yes Yes PHP RRDtool,MySQL GPL MySQL,Postgre Full SQL,Oracle Supported plugin plugin Yes Yes Control Yes plugin PHP GPL Database Supported plugin plugin Yes Supported Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Full Control Yes Full Control Yes Yes Yes plugin Yes No plugin C, PHP Java Flat file, SQL GPL JRobin,PostgreS QL GPLv3

Access Maps Control IPv6 Plugin Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

OpenNMS Yes Opsview Yes

Unknown Yes No No Yes Yes

Unknown SQL Unknown Flat file, SQL

Commercial Yes

op5 Monitor Yes Pandora FMS Zabbix Zenoss Name

Commercial Yes GPLv2; (Enterprise Full MySQL,Postgre edition Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Control Yes Yes Perl SQL,Oracle available) Yes Oracle,MySQL, PostgreSQL,IBM Full Yes Yes Yes No Yes Supported Yes Yes Yes Yes Control Yes Yes C, PHP DB2,SQLite GPL Yes Full ZODB,MySQL,R Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Supported Yes Yes Yes Yes Control Yes Yes Python RDtool GPL Yes IP SLA Logical Trend Auto Triggers / Distributed Data Storage Reports Grouping Trending Prediction Discovery Agent SNMP Syslog Plugins Alerts WebApp Monitoring Inventory Platform Method License Maps

Yes Yes

Yes Yes

Yes Yes Access Control IPv6

Conclusion
We have installed or used online demo and tested folowing network monitoring systems: op5 Nagios XI Nagios Core Centreon OPSView Open NMS Cacti Zabbix Zenoss Enterprise Icinga

Network monitoring systems overview for Service Packs

As you can see from the above comparison list the products that cover most of the wanted features are op5 and Nagios. Nagios has been proven to be the best base for many other network monitoring software. Nagios Core may be easy to install but it takes some programming skills for customization since its plugins are written in C++, ruby, php, C#, shell scripts, perl, python With some training and understanding of its logic Nagios can be configured to do almost everything. Most commercial solutions based on Nagios sells this as Enterprise solutions. Among all open source Nagios based network monitoring software the one that stands up with its predefined features is op5. It is very easy to install and has great built in features. Nagios lacks in graph presentations, so we would recommend it using it with Cacti. These two software together can do almost everything. Depending on client specific needs the Nagios gives the most customization level, but again don't remember that it is not easy to configure. Nagios Core also lacks the web configuration interface, but there are many open source interfaces for it like Nconf and similar. Centreon system has great graphs based on RRDtool and it has the most user friendly and intuitive interface. All systems offers email notifications in basic versions and sms notifications in commercial versions, but it won't be a problem to implement sms notifications in every Nagios based solution since nagios can work with Gnokii, Gammu and many other mobile phone tools. Nagios Core web interface is not configurable one, and does not have very pretty look like other solutions, but you can say that its simple and intuitive. Zabbix is complete open source enteprise ready solution with great graphs but lacks in intuition. Regarding virtualization and cloud monitoring this features are providen only in enteprise commercial versions for most solutions. The most configurable solution would be Nagios/NagiosXI. ( requires some programing knowledge ). The open source and most enterprise ready are op5, Centreon and Zabbix. As Nagios Core, op5 lacks in configurable web interface, and its configuration is done through configuration files.