Secure Shell (SSH) is ubiquitous. It is the de facto protocol to run commands remotely, making it critical that SSH remains available, stable, and secure. If you can’t reach a host via SSH, or if a host’s fingerprint changes, you want to be alerted immediately.

That’s why we recently introduced a new integration to monitor SSH connections directly with Datadog.

Monitor SSH stability, performance, and security

Thanks to this new integration, you can monitor the key SSH statuses and metrics listed below. You will receive alerts if anything goes wrong with any of your SSH connections—even if the endpoint is not under your control, for instance, when exchanging with third-party services. This integration will check:

• Whether the SSH daemon is available for connections, so you can be immediately notified if there is an issue; SSH connection errors are “bad smells”.
• SFTP response times, so you can keep an eye on potential connection troubles or slowdowns.
• The target’s key fingerprint, to be alerted if it changes unexpectedly, as would happen if a connection were rerouted as part of a man-in-the-middle attack, for example.

If you are already a Datadog customer, you can set up the SSH integration here. If you would like to begin to monitor SSH in your own environment and aren’t a current customer, sign up for a 14-day free trial of Datadog. You will be able to set up the SSH integration in minutes.