**********
Quickstart
**********

This section will show you the basic configuration you need for your
monitoring system.

Advice for Beginners
====================

Congratulations on choosing Centreon Engine! Centreon Engine is quite
powerful and flexible, but it can take a lot of work to get it
configured just the way you'd like. Once you become familiar with how it
works and what it can do for you, you'll never want to be without it.
Here are some important things to keep in mind for first-time Centreon
Engine users:

  * Centreon Engine relies on configuration files that might are difficult
    to write and maintain by hand. You might want to use a frontend to
    configure Centreon Engine like `Centreon <http://www.centreon.com/>`_.
    Centreon can help you get your IT network monitored in very few time and
    provide much more feature to Centreon Engine.
  * Relax - it's going to take some time. Don't expect to be able to get
    things working exactly the way you want them right off the bat. It's not
    that easy. Setting up Centreon Engine can involve a bit of work, partly
    because of the options that Centreon Engine offers, partly because you
    need to know what to monitor on your network (and how best to do it).
  * The :ref:`quickstart installation guide <exploit_quickstart>`
    is designed to get most new users up and running with a basic Centreon
    Engine setup fairly quickly. Within 20 minutes you can have Centreon
    Engine installed and monitoring your local system. Once that's complete,
    you can move on to learning how to configure Centreon Engine to do more.
  * Centreon Engine can be tricky to configure when you've got a good
    grasp of what's going on, and nearly impossible if you don't. Make sure
    you read the documentation (particularly the sections on
    :ref:`Configuring Centreon Engine <object_configuration_overview>`).
    Save the advanced topics for when you've got a good understanding of the
    basics.
  * If you've read the documentation, reviewed the sample config files,
    and are still having problems, send an email message describing your
    problems to the Centreon Engine mailing list. If you've done some
    background reading and you provide a good problem description, odds are
    that someone will give you some pointers on getting things working
    properly.

.. _exploit_quickstart:

Post-Installation Modifications
===============================

Once you get Centreon Engine installed and running properly, you'll no
doubt want to start monitoring more than just your local machine. Check
out the following docs for how to go about monitoring other things:

  * :ref:`Monitoring Windows machines <monitoring_windows>`
  * :ref:`Monitoring Linux/Unix machines <monitoring_linux_unix>`
  * :ref:`Monitoring routers/switches <monitoring_routers_switches>`
  * :ref:`Monitoring network printers <monitoring_printers>`
  * :ref:`Monitoring publicly available services (HTTP, FTP, SSH, etc.) <monitoring_publicly_available_services>`

What You'll End Up With
=======================

  * Centreon Engine will be installed underneath ``/usr/sbin/``.
  * Centreon Engine will be configured to monitor a few aspects of your
    local system (CPU load, disk usage, etc.).

Customize Configuration
=======================

Sample configuration files have now been installed in the
``/etc/centreon-engine/`` directory. These sample files should work fine
for getting started with Centreon Engine. You'll need to make just one
change before you proceed ...

Edit the ``/etc/centreon-engine/objects/contacts.cfg`` config file with
your favorite editor and change the email address associated with the
centengineadmin contact definition to the address you'd like to use for
receiving alerts::

  $ vi /etc/centreon-engine/objects/contacts.cfg

Other Modifications
===================

Configuring email notifications is out of the scope of this
documentation. While Centreon Engine is currently configured to send you
email notifications, your system may not yet have a mail program
properly installed or configured. Refer to your system documentation,
search the web for specific instructions on configuring your system to
send email messages to external addresses.
