## Overview

In this section, we look at the programs that are required for Opsview Monitor. The first part of this document covers required software and versions for any installation of Opsview Monitor, while the second part covers requirements for running the automatic installation script.

## Database Software

Opsview Monitor uses MariaDB for both RHEL7 and CentOS 7 distributions, and MySQL is used for all other distributions. Opsview Monitor only supports MySQL v5.5, v5.7, and v8.0, and MariaDB v5.5, v10.3, v10.5 using either MySQL Community or MySQL Enterprise. Amazon RDS (when using a MySQL compatible version based on this list) is also supported.

**Note:** MySQL v5.6 is not supported.

**Note:** If you use a remote database server, Opsview Monitor will only support the database server if it is based on one of our supported platforms and runs a supported MySQL version.

### Ubuntu 16.04

In Ubuntu 16.04 MySQL has strict mode enabled by default which can cause issues with your Opsview Monitor installation. In order to resolve this, you need to disable MySQL strict mode; this can be done by running the following commands as a root user:

Start by editing the file: /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf and add the following line

Save the changes and restart mysql:

You can now continue your Opsview Monitor installation.

## OS configuration

### Time

All Opsview servers should have clocks correctly synchronised with a common time source (using `ntpd`, `chrony` or similar).

All Opsview servers should have an appropriate time zone set for the region it is in, and all nodes within an Opsview Collector Cluster should have the same time zone set.

This will avoid problems with out of sync schedules, such as a service check’s next scheduled check time not running when expected.

### `cron` Daemon

Opsview relies on the availability of cron to undertake several jobs for the _opsview_ user. In the example below, we use the command here (for the Ubuntu platform) to determine the status of cron.

#### Checking cron is running

Use the following command to see if cron is running on the system, if it is it will return the _Process Identifier_ (PID). In the example below, we can see that cron is running and has PID 857.

If cron is not running on your system you can start it using the command below

## Automated Installation

Some packages are required to be able to run the automated install script; these are listed below and must be installed before running the script.

Once called, the automated installation process will ensure that your system has the most up-to-date packages for your given platform.

### Java

Opsview Monitor Reporting Module requires Java version 8 To install this specific version, run the following commands as the root user:

#### RHEL/CentOS

and then select JDK 1.8.

### sudo

Opsview Monitor relies on the availability of sudo to allow users to execute programs with the security privileges of another user.

#### cURL

The _Curl URL Request Library_ (cURL) is free and open software that compiles and runs across many operating systems. It's a command line tool and library that allows the transfer of data with a _Uniform Resource Locator_ (URL) syntax and library; see [curl.haxx.se](🔗).

### lsb-release

Opsview Monitor relies on the availability of lsb-release to determine the Operating System and version when running the automatic install script.

## Installing Packages

Packages can easily be installed on any of our supported Operating Systems using a package manager.

For Debian and Ubuntu apt-get can be used to install any of the above packages, for example:

For Red Hat, Oracle Linux and CentOS, yum can be used to install any of the above packages, for example: