Checkmk
to checkmk.com

1. Download the appropriate packages

If you have a subscription, in the Checkmk customer portal you will find a suitable RPM or DEB package for your distribution for every available Checkmk version. For a free test or smaller installations of Checkmk you can use our free editions. These editions do not require a subscription. From any of the free editions you can at any time upgrade to one of the CEE Checkmk Enterprise Editions.

When selecting a package, consider the following points:

  • Choose one of the editions. If you’re unsure about which edition is appropriate for your requirements, you can get an overview of the different features and functionality of the various editions here.

  • Choose the Checkmk version, the distribution and finally the version of the selected distribution.

  • We recommend the latest stable Checkmk version. If you need an older version anyway, you can find these in the download archive.

  • The name and version of your distribution must be strictly identical.

Once you have downloaded the software package to your machine, you need to copy the package file to the target Linux system on which Checkmk needs to be installed. You can do that, for example with the program WinSCP or — if you are able to use SSH connections — with the scp command line tool.

To be able to copy files to your future Checkmk server using scp the package openssh-server needs to be installed. If that is not already the case, you can install it using the following command:

root@linux# apt install openssh-server

Once this has been done you can, for example copy the CRE Checkmk Raw Edition package for Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa using the below command:

root@linux# scp check-mk-raw-2.1.0p1_0.focal_amd64.deb root@mymonitoring.mydomain.org:

2. Signed-package installation

All packages are signed using GnuPG. Through the use of this signature, on the one hand it can be verified whether the package really is from Checkmk, and on the other hand it can be verified that the package is complete.

Depending on which optional packages were installed during the setup of your distribution, you will need to install dpkg-sig including all of its dependencies for successful verification. To do so, simply enter the following command:

root@linux# apt install dpkg-sig

So that these signed packages can be installed in the usual way, as a one time only action you will need to import our public key so that the signature will be trusted. First, load the key directly from our website:

root@linux# wget https://download.checkmk.com/checkmk/Check_MK-pubkey.gpg

Then import the key to the list of trusted signatures. Under Debian and Ubuntu the following command is required:

root@linux# gpg --import Check_MK-pubkey.gpg

Once the key has been added, you can verify the Checkmk package using the following command:

root@linux# dpkg-sig --verify check-mk-raw-2.1.0p1_0.focal_amd64.deb

In some installations the signature check can fail with the following error:

BADSIG _gpgbuilder

If this is the case, the most probable cause is that the installed version of dpkg-sig does not know how to handle the compression format of the package. In this situation revert to gpg to verify the signature:

root@linux# gpg --verify check-mk-enterprise-2.1.0p1_0.focal_amd64.deb
gpg: Signature made Thu Sep 15 10:23:00 2022 UTC
gpg:                using RSA key B1E7106575B723F00611C612434DAC48C4503261
gpg: Good signature from "Check_MK Software Release Signing Key (2018) <feedback@check-mk.org>" [unknown]
gpg:                 aka "Check_MK Software Daily Build Signing Key (2018) <feedback@check-mk.org>" [unknown]
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: B1E7 1065 75B7 23F0 0611  C612 434D AC48 C450 3261

The warning generated here is only concerning the Checkmk public key, not for the signature on the package itself. The reason for this is that the key is not signed by any other key the user already trusts - but this is not a problem in this case.

Afterwards you can install the Checkmk package using following command. Be sure to pass the full file path to the DEB file after apt install:

root@linux# apt install /tmp/check-mk-raw-2.1.0p1_0.focal_amd64.deb

3. Final test

After the successful installation of Checkmk, and all dependencies, you will have access to the omd command. With this command you are able to create and manage monitoring sites. You can request the installed version to verify your installation:

root@linux# omd version
OMD - Open Monitoring Distribution Version 2.1.0p1.cre
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