Introduction to GroundWork Monitor CE 8.2.3

GroundWork Monitor Community Edition | Version 8.2.3 | Released 04/11/2022

How does CE and EE compare?

The Community Edition (CE) is a free, light version of GroundWork Monitor. It runs on Linux using Docker containers under Docker Compose, just like the Enterprise Edition (EE) does, but without the enterprise features enabled. You can view feature comparisons between the editions below.

When was CE released?

The first GroundWork Monitor Community Edition (CE) 8.2.1 was released November 30, 2021, see our press release.

Do I need a CE License?

You don't need a license to use the Community Edition. It's free, and you can install it on as many servers, virtual machines, or cloud instances as you want or need. It's not limited in size by license. In fact, there's no license check at all in CE. The only thing we ask you to do is to agree to the usage agreement and in the user interface of the product itself. 

What about CE Support?

Please contact GroundWork Sales for information regarding support options. A support contract is separate from the usage agreement and disclaimers. GroundWork documentation is accessible publicly.

Can I use GroundWork Messenger to get notifications with CE?

No, GroundWork Messenger is an Enterprise feature, and isn't available in the Community Edition. You can use the notifications you get with Nagios if you need to, or rig up another way to get notified when state changes are detected. 

Is CE Open Source?

Partly. We haven't opened all the repositories to the public as there's still work to be done to make them ready. This release makes all the code we can public on GitHub, however. 

How do I install CE?

The Community Edition does not have an installer file and instead is pulled from Docker Hub as the installation method. All CE containers are public to pull and the download is just the docker-compose.yml file. See the Installation (CE) section below. 

Can I provide feedback for CE to GroundWork?

Yes please. You can sign up for an account and make your suggestions for new plugins, libraries, features, anything, really, and we'll read them and include them if we can. CE technical support requires a CE Support Subscription, contact GroundWork Sales.

Release Notes (CE)

These release notes describe the new features and improvements, fixed Issues, and known Issues and limitations for GroundWork Monitor CE 8.2.3. 

This 8.2.3 release includes mainly improvements and bug fixes which we have also made to the Enterprise Edition. Most of the back-end system is present and identical, in fact, though many "Enterprise" front end features are disabled or simply not present. That doesn't mean it's not a great monitoring suite though. You can monitor Elasticsearch queries you run in your Elastic cluster, use the GroundWork Distributed Monitoring Agent (GDMA) to automatically discover and provision monitoring on your host resources like disk space and deployed software, track your Microsoft 365™ licenses, and so much more. It's the most functional, useful free release we have ever made. 

There's a lot more we want to do with the Community Edition, but for now we want you to just use it and let us know what you think! Sign up for an account and make your suggestions for new plugins, libraries, features, anything, really, and we'll read them and include them if we can. 

System Requirements (CE)

This section organized in tabs, outlines the system requirements for GroundWork Monitor Community Edition version 8.2.3.

• Hardware
• Software
• Operating System
• Browser

Hardware

Resources assigned to the operating system running GroundWork Monitor should be dedicated resources reserved for that operating system, and if possible, dedicated hardware is recommended. Avoid HyperV deployments, as we have seen extremely bad performance in some cases when using HyperV that is not evident when using dedicated hardware or other virtual machine platforms. 

Bare Minimum	Recommended Minimum
Bare minimum environment specification for correct operation: 4 cores CPU 16GB of RAM 200GB Disk Space It is recommended to have at least 200GB disk space assigned to the partition that contains the /var/lib/docker path, the location for the docker volumes used by GroundWork Monitor. /tmp partition with at least 20GB /tmp partition mounted RW	The recommended minimums for production use:  4 cores CPU 32GB of RAM 1TB Disk Space It is recommended to have at least 200GB disk space assigned to the partition that contains the /var/lib/docker path, the location for the docker volumes used by GroundWork Monitor. /tmp partition with at least 40GB /tmp partition mounted RW

Software

GroundWork runs on Linux with Docker CE and Docker Compose installed. You will need to install Docker CE on your Linux distro yourself. Instructions for several distros are included as part of the instructions for GroundWork Monitor.

• Docker CE: Version 18, or higher
• Docker Compose: Version 1.27.4, or higher

Operating System

GroundWork Monitor 8.2.3 has been tested with the following versions of Linux:

• Amazon Linux 2
• CentOS 7.5
• CentOS 8
• Red Hat 7.5
• Red Hat 8 (includes 8.8, 8.9)
• SLES 15
• Ubuntu 20.04 (recommended)

Browser

This version of GroundWork Monitor has been tested with the latest versions of Firefox and Google Chrome. Chrome is recommended. Internet Explorer is not supported.

Installation (CE)

As with the GroundWork Monitor Enterprise Edition (EE), GroundWork Monitor Community Edition (CE) utilizes Docker containers and a Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment methodology. This means less waiting for feature development, security patches and bug fixes. You will get faster updates with little effort on your part to maintain your on-premise monitoring system. The Community Edition does not have an installer file and instead is pulled from Docker Hub as the installation method.

Download

GroundWork Monitor Community Edition  |  Platform: Linux  |  Version: 8.2.3  |  Release D04/08/2022

EULA GroundWork Monitor CE and Install .yml

Review the GroundWork CE END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT below, and click I AGREE at the bottom of the page to download the .yml file you will need to install CE. 

GroundWork Monitor Community Edition Software License Agreement

Prerequisites

As mentioned in the System Requirements above, you need a Linux system that meets the requirements, and has Docker engine and docker-compose installed and working. These instructions assume you are using Ubuntu Linux, but similar steps are needed for other distros, so this should be a good guide. 

You will also need a (free) account on Docker Hub.

Docker and Docker Compose

1. Log in as a user with sudo and get to a root shell (sudo su -), or use a user with rights to execute commands using sudo.

2. Disable the firewall. These steps will disable the default firewall configuration and leave your GroundWork server in a potentially vulnerable state, so be sure to set up compatible secure rules after installing or upgrading GroundWork Monitor.  

   • If you are using the ufw default firewall configuration tool for Ubuntu, enter:

     sudo ufw disable

     CODE

   • If you are using the iptables utility, enter:

     sudo iptables -F

     CODE

   • If you are using the firewall tool firewalld, enter:

     sudo systemctl disable firewalld
     sudo systemctl stop firewalld

     CODE

3. Create the user gwos to be used to run the application. The adduser utility will walk you through options, including setting a password and other optional fields:

   sudo adduser gwos

   CODE

4. Install Docker CE using Docker's RPM repository and installation instructions. Here's an example (for Ubuntu Linux):

   

   If Docker has been previously installed using Snap, or a similar package manager, it must be removed prior to following the steps below.

   • Go to Install Docker Engine on Ubuntu.

   • Scroll down to the section Install using the repository.

   • Then, perform the steps in the section SET UP THE REPOSITORY.

   • Next, perform steps 1 and 3 in the INSTALL DOCKER ENGINE, then return to this page.

5. Install Docker Compose:

   • Download docker-compose using curl:  

     sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.27.4/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

     CODE

   • Set the docker-compose binary to be executable:

     sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

     CODE

   • Create a symbolic link:

     sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/docker-compose /usr/bin/docker-compose

     CODE

6. Verify Docker is running:

   • Enable Docker auto-start:

     sudo systemctl enable docker

     CODE

   • Check the status of Docker:

     sudo systemctl status docker --no-pager

     CODE

   • If Docker is not running, enter the following:

     sudo systemctl start docker

     CODE

7. Add gwos user to the docker group, which was created by the installation of Docker:

   sudo usermod -a -G docker gwos

   CODE

8. As gwos user verify access to Docker commands:

   

   All commands, including installation commands, are performed as the gwos user, do not attempt installation as the root user.

   • Switch user to user gwos:

     su - gwos

     CODE

   • Verify the docker command returns usage output:

     docker

     CODE

   • Verify the docker-compose command returns usage output:

     docker-compose

     CODE

9. Adjust your Log Settings so the logs won't fill your disk space. GroundWork recommends keeping some container logs on disk for support and troubleshooting purposes. The default settings for Docker retain too much data to be useful, so we recommend making the following changes on production systems. Add or edit the docker daemon logging control file.

   • Log in as root to your GroundWork server and edit the file /etc/docker/daemon.json. This file may or may not exist, depending on your Docker version and package. 

   • Add (or edit) the log driver section to look like the following:
     

     {
       "log-driver": "json-file",
       "log-opts": {
         "max-size": "10m",
         "max-file": "3",
         "labels": "production_status",
         "env": "os,customer"
       }
     }

     CODE
   • If the file does not exist, just create it with this content. These settings will keep a maximum of 30M of log data for each container, in 3 10M files. For reference see https://docs.docker.com/config/containers/logging/configure/.
   • If you are already running GroundWork and are adding this setting, you will have logs that will take some time to truncate.

New Install

1. To install GroundWork Monitor CE for the first time, log in to your GroundWork server and become the non-root user you want to run the application as (we use gwos). 

2. Go to the directory into which you want to install GroundWork CE. We suggest the home directory of the gwos user. 

   cd ~gwos

3. Set a few environment variables (you can copy and paste these to the command line): 

   TAG=8.2.3-CE
   GW8IMAGE=groundworkdevelopment/gw8ce:${TAG}
   GW8_INSTANCE_NAME=$(hostname -f)

   CODE

4. Pull the GroundWork setup container: 

   docker pull ${GW8IMAGE}

   CODE

5. Make a gw8 subdirectory to hold the GroundWork configuration files you need. 

   mkdir gw8

   CODE

6. Copy in the yaml file you downloaded above after agreeing to the EULA, making sure it is in the gw8 directory and owned by the gwos user, for example: 

   cp docker-compose.yml ./gw8
   chown gwos:gwos gw8/docker-compose.yml

   CODE

7. Change to the gw8 subdirectory you created: 

   cd gw8

   CODE

8. Run the gw8 setup container:

   docker run \
       -e GW8_INSTANCE_NAME=$GW8_INSTANCE_NAME \
       -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
       -v ${HOME}/.docker:/root/.docker \
       -v /tmp:/tmp/tmp \
       -v ${PWD}/docker-compose.yml:/src/docker-compose.yml \
        --name gw8 ${GW8IMAGE}

   CODE

   This will set up your volumes. Note that a groundwork-ce container will also be pulled. 

9. Next copy out the environment and override yaml files: 

   docker cp gw8:RELEASE .
   docker cp gw8:.env .
   docker cp gw8:gw8.env .
   docker cp gw8:docker-compose.override.yml .

   CODE

10. Next, optionally edit the environment file to suit your needs, you can refer to the gw8.env section of the Configuration Files document: 

    vi gw8.env

    CODE

11. Next, optionally customize the override yaml to suit your needs, you can refer to the docker-compose.override.yml section of the Configuration Files document:

    vi docker-compose.override.yml

    CODE

12. Remove the gw8 setup container: 

    docker rm gw8

    CODE

13. Pull the full set of the latest images for the chosen release: 

    docker-compose pull

    CODE

14. Start up GroundWork Monitor CE:

    docker-compose up -d

    CODE

15. At this point, you can access the web user interface of your GroundWork CE installation using the hostname of the Linux server. If you are wondering where that is exactly, try running:

    hostname -f

    This will give you the name GroundWork used in configuring your installation, for example if the above command returns "host001", you can access GroundWork CE at https://host001. The default username/password are admin/admin. See  the following links to get started Configuration, TCG Connectors, GDMA Monitoring.

Update Install

Once GroundWork Monitor CE is installed, you can update it to the latest version with the following procedure:

1. Log in to Docker Hub from the command line on your GroundWork server:
   

   docker login

   CODE

2. Find and set the tag for the release of GroundWork Monitor CE you want to upgrade to. For example, if there is a tag in Docker Hub for 8.2.3-CE, then type:
   

   TAG=8.2.3-CE

   CODE

3. Edit the gw8.env file and update the tag there: 

   vi gw8.env

   CODE

   and change:

       TAG=8.2.3-CE

   to:

       TAG=8.2.3-CE 

4. Pull the new containers:

   docker-compose pull

   CODE