ironops 1.0.0

DevOps CLI tool for remote server health monitoring over SSH

IronOps — DevOps CLI tool for remote server health monitoring

DevOps Project

A Python-based tool to check the health of multiple remote Linux servers over SSH — automatically collecting CPU, RAM, disk, and service metrics, then generating reports and sending alerts.

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Table of Contents

• What This Project Does
• How It Works (Architecture)
• Tools & Technologies
• Installation
• Configuration
• Usage
• Example Output
• Scheduling with Cron
• Project Structure

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What This Project Does

This tool connects to a list of remote Linux servers via SSH, runs health checks on each one, and:

• Collects: CPU usage, RAM usage, disk space, uptime, running services
• Generates a JSON, readable report for each run
• Sends email/Slack alerts when a server exceeds thresholds (e.g., disk > 90%)
• Can run automatically on a schedule using cron

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How It Works (Architecture)

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Tools & Technologies

Tool	Why we use it	Learn more
Python 3	Main language	python.org
paramiko	Python SSH library to connect to servers	paramiko.org
PyYAML	Read the servers config file (YAML format)	pyyaml.org
smtplib	Built-in Python email sender for alerts	Python standard library
cron	Linux scheduler to run the script automatically	man cron
JSON	Report format	Built-in Python

Why SSH?

SSH (Secure Shell) is the industry-standard way to remotely access Linux servers. You connect using:

• Password
• SSH Key Pair

Our project supports both methods.

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Installation

Step 1 — Install Python 3

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update && sudo apt install python3 python3-pip -y

# macOS (using Homebrew)
brew install python3

Step 2 — Clone this project

git clone https://github.com/yourname/server-health-monitor.git
cd server-health-monitor

Step 3 — Install Python dependencies

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

This installs:

• paramiko — SSH connections
• pyyaml — reading YAML config files

Step 4 — Set up your SSH access

Using SSH keys (recommended for prod):

# Generate an SSH key pair (if you don't have one already)
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "health-monitor"

# Copy your public key to each remote server
ssh-copy-id user@your-server-ip

# Test it works
ssh user@your-server-ip "echo connected successfully"

Step 5 — Configure your servers

Edit config/servers.yaml — see the Configuration section below.

Step 6 — Run this commande to track you server

python3 health_monitor.py

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Configuration

Edit config/servers.yaml to add your servers (e.g):

# List of servers to monitor
servers:
  - name: "web-server-01"
    host: "192.168.1.10"
    port: 22
    user: "ubuntu"
    auth: "key"                        # "key" 
    key_path: "~/.ssh/id_rsa"          # path to your private key

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Usage

Basic run (check all servers once)

python3 health_monitor.py

Check a single specific server

python3 health_monitor.py --server web-server-01

Show verbose output

python3 health_monitor.py --verbose

Save report to a custom location

python3 health_monitor.py --output /tmp/my-report.json

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Example Terminak Output

python3 health_monitor.py --my-mac

python3 health_monitor.py

monitor.log

Demo fake data (test)

JSON report (reports/health_20241115_143201.json):

{
  "run_id": 1,
  "timestamp": "2024-11-15T14:32:01Z",
  "summary": {
    "total": 3,
    "healthy": 2,
    "warning": 1,
    "critical": 0,
    "unreachable": 1
  },
  "servers": [
    {
      "name": "web-server-01",
      "host": "192.168.1.10",
      "status": "warning",
      "metrics": {
        "cpu_percent": 23.4,
        "ram_percent": 61.2,
        "disk_percent": 78.5,
        "uptime": "14 days, 3 hours"
      }
    }
  ]
}

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Scheduling with Cron

To run the health check automatically every 15 minutes:

# Open the cron editor
crontab -e

# Add this line (e.g: runs every 15 minutes)
*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/python3 /path/to/server-health-monitor/health_monitor.py >> /var/log/health_monitor.log 2>&1

Cron schedule format: minute hour day month weekday

*/15 * * * *   → every 15 minutes
0 * * * *      → every hour
0 8 * * *      → every day at 8am
0 8 * * 1      → every Monday at 8am

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Project Structure

IronOps/
│
├── health_monitor.py       # Main entry point (run this)
├── requirements.txt        # Python dependencies
├── README.md               # This file
│
├── config/
│   └── servers.yaml        # Your server list + settings
│
├── modules/
│   ├── ssh_client.py       # Handles SSH connections
│   ├── health_check.py     # Runs metric commands on servers to check
│   ├── reporter.py         # Formats and saves reports
│   └── alerter.py          # Sends email/Slack alerts
│
├── reports/                # Auto-generated JSON reports
│   └── health_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.json
│
└── logs/                   # Run logs
    └── monitor.log

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