Common to all Serverwatch monitor features, is the ability to alert you or take actions specified with an external program file or script. See the alert features for further information on alert options.
Furthermore all monitors are resolved to IP numbers, in case of DNS problems. Serverwatch will then try to verify the status, using the last known IP number for the monitor, giving you the option to use the servers real names, without the downside when it comes to DNS problems!
Below is a list of survey options available from Serverwatch. These options are roughly described to give you an easy overview of the key features. For further information on these options, please refer to the Serverwatch documentation, found with the installation files.
| Disk Capacity |
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This monitor can survey local aswell as remote drives, and alert you when the available free space reaches a user-defined threshold. This allows you to proactively take measures, before your system runs out of drivespace and hereby avoid any data loss due to lack of available drive space.
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| Port Connection |
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The Port Connection is a basic TCP/IP monitoring functionality, which provides both connection availability monitoring as well as response expectation monitoring. Port Connection monitoring performs connection, data send, and data expect testing to insure both connectivity and responsiveness of the server or device.
For example, Serverwatch can connect to your SMTP server on port 25 and check to make sure the server responds with the standard response (usually 220 Ready). If the connect fails or if the response is not received within time, the survey will trigger as failed. |
| Port Connection (Specific scripts, pages) |
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By using the same technique used in the Port Connection above, the data to send and data to receive items can be set to request a specific web page or script and wait for the specified results and provide the same alerting functions upon failure.
This is quite usefull for checking if your HTML, PHP, ASP scripts etc. can be retrieved from the server, as the server can reply on a port request, but may still be down as a failure in the IIS.
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| Service Watcher |
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Serverwatch can monitor services running on windows systems to insure that their state is reported as Running status. If the state of the service is inaccessible or not in the running state, Serverwatch can try to restart the server.
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| Service Counter |
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ServerWatch can monitor the amount of running and installed services. This way you can check if a service is stopped and/or if a service is added/removed. This is quite usefull for basic overall-service check on a Windows server.
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| Performance Counters |
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This allows you to monitor performance counter values to insure specific performance issues will not adversely affect the system or if these values have reached critical states. This uses a similar interface to the PerfMon utility install with various windows operating systems and allows you add Above/Below thresholds to selected counters.
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| File Integrity |
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If you have a file that must not be changed, or wish to survey a systemfile for alerations, you can use this monitor to calculate s CRC value of the file. If the file is then altered, your monitor will trigger an event.
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| ICMP Ping |
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This is the most basic feature of the all. Serverwatch will ping a host, and if it does not get a response within the timeframe given, it will warn you according tou your monitor setup. Many use this feature to check if their network, routers etc. is up and running.
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| Eventlog |
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Use the Eventlog monitor to watch for errors or/and failures in a given Eventlog. ServerWatch can handle all types of Windows eventlogs, as long as it has access to them. When the monitor is triggered and set to send an email. The recipient will receive an email with the warning/error, including the last recorded errors from the Eventlog.
As an example, this can be quite usefull for detecting brute force attacks on your servers. If you log all unsuccessfull logins in your eventlog, you can set Serverwatch to monitor the log, and warn you if anything wrong happends. The email will the include the attackers userID so counter measures can be taken.
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| Eventlog Item |
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Use the Eventlog Item monitor to watch for a specific entry in a given Eventlog. This is usefull when you wish to trigger an event on a specific program event.
IE. If a service tends to crash, loggin and error in one of the Eventlogs, but not stop, you can search the Eventlog for this specific event, and take proper actions to get it running again.
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| Custom Script Execution |
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As usual with most software, you have some areas which are not covered. This is not a problem for Serverwatch, as you can design your own scripts and call them directly from Serverwatch. This does not require as much as building a plugin (DLL) as these scripts only need a function with a specific name and a return value to work.
Various script types can be used. Be sure the scripthandler for the given type of script is installed on the machine you wish to run Serverwatch on. The scriptlanguage is defined in within the Serverwatch Script Editor, which Serverwatch then pass to the inline script handler.
A small VBScript example can be found in the online/help documentation, showing the structure of the function.
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Further information can be found in the Serverwatch Documentation.
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