If you see the message “/etc/monit/monitrc:289: Include failed - Success ‘/etc/monit/conf.d/*'” that is a bug, and you can safely ignore it. Start Monit, and then use its command-line status checker: Uncomment these lines in /etc/monit/monitrc: The coolest feature is you can monitor any service, and you will see why in the configuration examples. It works best as a single-host monitor, but it can also monitor remote services, which is useful when local services depend on them, such as database or file servers. Monit is a good choice when you’re managing just a few machines, and don’t want to hassle with the complexity of something like Nagios or Chef. You may use Monit to monitor files, directories and filesystems for changes, such as timestamps changes, checksum changes or size changes. Monit can start a process if it does not run, restart a process if it does not respond and stop a process if it uses too much resources. Monit conducts automatic maintenance and repair and can execute meaningful causal actions in error situations. To quote man monit: monit is a utility for managing and monitoring processes, files, directories and filesystems on a Unix system. Monit is my favorite, because provides the perfect blend of simplicity and functionality. Monit monitors and manages any service, and Supervisor is a nice tool for managing persistent scripts and commands without having to write init scripts for them. apachetop is a simple real-time Apache monitor. They’re all small and fairly simple to use. We’re going to look at my three favorite service monitors: Apachetop, Monit, and Supervisor. The Linux world abounds in monitoring apps of all kinds.