There are numerous ways to access monitors:

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1 Remote Monitors REMOTE MONITORS... 1 Overview... 1 Accessing Monitors... 1 Creating Monitors... 2 Monitor Wizard Options Editing the Monitor Configuration Status Location Alerting Configuration History Data Collector Deleting Remote Monitors Overriding Monitor Settings Document Revision History Overview LabTech Monitors are used to monitor the condition of any device and then perform an action (e.g., raise alert, open a ticket, send , execute a script, etc.) when a threshold is reached. There are two classes of Monitors in LabTech: Internal and Remote. Internal Monitors are operated from the LabTech server through SQL statements and database queries. For more information on Internal Monitors, please refer to the Internal Monitors documentation. Accessing Monitors Remote Monitors are the System and Network Monitors that run external from the LabTech server on an agent-enabled computer. There are numerous ways to access monitors: Control Center -Navigation Tree: Click on Monitors from the menu bar. This will display all monitors (network, system, locations and internal) that are being used throughout your LabTech system. Control Center: Navigation Menus. Click on Agent Monitoring from the menu. This will display all monitors by type of monitor). By Client: From the Control Center, expand Clients. Right-click on a client, then select Monitors. This will display the network and system monitors for the client. By Location: From the Control Center, expand Clients. Expand a client, then rightclick on a location, then select Monitors. This will display the network and system monitors for this client location. By Computer: From the Control Center, expand Clients. Expand a client, then right-click on a computers, then select Monitors > View Monitors or simply expand the computer and select Monitors. This will display the network and system monitors for this client s computer. 7B RemoteMonitors 1

2 Remote Monitors Creating Monitors By Group: From the Control Center, expand Groups. Expand a group, then rightclick on a computer within that group, and then select Monitors. This will display the network and system monitors for this computer. By Group: From the Control Center, expand Groups. Double-click on a group, then select the Internal Monitors tab or Remote Monitors tab. This will display the network, system and internal monitors for this group. Computer Management screen: From the Control Center, expand Clients. Expand a client, and then double-click a computer. Select the Monitors tab. This will display the network and system monitors for this client s computer. TIP: Double-click on the monitor to make changes to the configuration of the monitor or to set up the Data Collector and view the monitor history. To create a new remote monitor, the most common method would be to use the Monitor Wizard. It can be used to create any type of monitor (network, system, internal). Using the Monitor Wizard, allows you to easily and quickly create monitors for a specific computer, client, location, or group. To create a remote monitor: 1. From the Control Center, expand Clients. Figure 1: Navigation Tree 2. Expand the desired client, and then expand the desired location. 7B RemoteMonitors 2

3 3. Right-click on the computer you want to create the monitor for and select Monitors > Add New Monitor. Figure 2: Monitor Wizard Prompt 4. You will be prompted to use the wizard to create the new monitor. Click Yes to use the wizard. If you click No, it will open a Monitor screen for you to configure manually. This is not recommended to use if you do not have a basic understanding of SQL syntax. NOTE: If you choose to not use the Monitor Wizard and want to build the monitor manually, use the Editing Monitor Configuration section for an explanation of each tab that makes up the monitor configuration. Figure 3: Monitor Wizard Monitor Selection 5. Select the type of monitor you wish to create and click Next. Depending on the type of monitor selected, the Monitor Wizard will require additional information. The next couple of screens will be related to the type of monitor selected. 7B RemoteMonitors 3

4 Remote Monitors NOTE: Refer to Table 1: Monitor Wizard Options for a list of options available using the Monitor Wizard. Figure 4: Sample Monitor Ping 6. Enter the necessary criteria for the monitor you chose and click Next. 7B RemoteMonitors 4

5 Figure 5: Where to Run Monitor 7. Select the Client, Location and Computer from the drop-downs and click Next. The monitor can be set up for all clients by selecting All Clients from the Client drop-down. Additionally, if you set the Location or Computer to Not Specified, it will run for all computers for that client and/or location. NOTE: Monitors can be set up on groups, clients, locations or single computers. However, some monitors, such as remote monitors require a single computer as indicated in the above screen capture. 7B RemoteMonitors 5

6 Remote Monitors Figure 6: Frequency to Run 8. Select the frequency in which this monitor should run. If you choose Custom, enter the number of seconds in between checks. Click Next. NOTE: Running monitors more frequently than every 5 minutes will significantly slow down your network. 7B RemoteMonitors 6

7 Figure 7: Select Alert Template 9. Select the Alert Style from the drop-down. Alert styles determine the frequency in which you will be notified when the monitor fails. Continuous: The alert action will occur every time the monitor checks and fails. Once: The alert action will occur one time until the monitor checks and returns a success message. Second through Tenth: The alert action will occur on the selected fail count until the monitor checks and returns a success message. For example, if second is chosen, the monitor must have two consecutive failures before performing the alert action. NOTE: When a monitor returns a success message, the alert is reset and will perform the alert action again upon failure. 10. Select the appropriate alert template from the Alert Template drop-down and click Next. If you need additional information on alert templates, please refer to the Alert Templates documentation. 7B RemoteMonitors 7

8 Remote Monitors Figure 8: Alert Message 11. Accept the default message or make any desired changes and click Next. For additional information on customizing alert messages, refer to the Customizing Alert Messages Quick Reference Guide. NOTE: Use the [F2] key to insert custom replacement fields. Replacements can be used anywhere an environmental variable would be expanded. Refer to the Advanced Scripting documentation for the available replacements. 7B RemoteMonitors 8

9 Figure 9: Finish Monitor 12. Enter a descriptive name for the monitor. Review the choices and select Back to make changes or Finish to create the monitor. The newly created monitor can be viewed by expanding the agent computer on the navigation tree and selecting Monitors or by selecting the monitor type (e.g., Ping Monitors) from Agent Monitoring from the Navigation Menus. The monitor will not show up on the Monitors tab until the monitor has run for the first time. 7B RemoteMonitors 9

10 Remote Monitors Figure 10: Computer Monitors Figure 11: Monitors Newly Created Monitor NOTE: If a monitor fails to check in for 20,000 seconds (approximately 5.5 hours) after it was scheduled to check in, LabTech will uninstall the monitor and reinstall it. 7B RemoteMonitors 10

11 Monitor Wizard Options Network Table 1: Monitor Wizard Options Network monitors are used to check if connections are active depending on the type of protocol used to send and receive information. Ping TCP POP, SMTP, HTTP and others UDP Radius, DNS, and others SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol Sends a ping packet to the specified host and returns the response time as the result. Can be used to check localhost or remote hosts. Requires the hostname or IP address to be entered in the Server Address field. Sends a TCP packet, including the data to send (e.g., quit\n), to the specified host and returns the result. Can be used to check localhost or remote hosts. Requires the hostname or IP address to be entered in the Server Address field and the Port number. Sends a UDP packet, including the data to send (e.g., quit\n), to the specified host and returns the result. Can be used to check localhost or remote hosts. Requires the hostname or IP address to be entered in the Server Address field and the Port number. Sends an SMTP query to the specified server address. Can be used to check localhost or remote hosts. Requires the hostname or IP address to be entered in the Server Address field, the SNMP Community String and the Object ID (OID). Website Latency The website latency monitor will check how long a website takes to respond to a request from the LabTech server. Parameters: Website Address: Enter the full address of the website. How to Compare: Select either greater than or less than from the drop-down. Text to Compare with: Enter the amount of time, in milliseconds, for the website to respond. Pressing [F2] in the text to compare box will bring up a list of escape characters that you can used for special characters. Event Logs Windows event logs can be monitored by any combination of: the event log, the event type, the event source, the event ID or the event message. The asterisk (*) wildcard can be used in the log file, event source, event ID, and event message fields so that all information will be gathered from that field respectively. By selecting the Monitor Locally on the Agent checkbox, you can run the monitor on the agent machine to decrease the response time. However, this will increase the load on the server. Parameters: LogFile: Select the type of log to monitor from the drop-down (e.g., Application, Security, Setup, System or Windows Update) or leave * for all logs. EventType: Select the type of event to monitor from the drop-down (e.g., error, warning, information, security audit success, security audit failure or any). Event Source: Enter the exact source of the log entry (e.g., Desktop Window Manager, 7B RemoteMonitors 11

12 Remote Monitors MySQL, Microsoft-Windows-WMI, etc.) or leave * for all sources. Event ID: Enter the Windows Event ID code to monitor. Event Message: Enter a keyword or phrase that appears in the log to monitor (e.g., DNS server was unable to complete directory service ). System Information 13. System information monitors gather software and hardware information from the LabTech database. This information can be used to create alerts based on your alert templates. Select the monitor from the list below. Before adding a system information monitor, go to the Monitors > Internal Monitors tab to see if the monitor already exists. In most cases, it will already be created for you. Performance Counters Performance monitors create a hardware or software benchmark to test against. Parameters: Performance Counter Type: Select the type of performance monitor. Performance Object: Select an object to monitor from the drop-down. The performance counters on the local machine populate this drop-down. Performance Counter: Select the value to monitor. These values are generated based on the type of performance object that is selected. Instance: Some performance counters have multiple instances, select a specific instance of the performance counter to monitor or leave blank to monitor them all. 14. How to Compare: This value will vary depending on the monitor chosen. Text to Compare with: This value will vary depending on the monitor chosen. Pressing [F2] in the text to compare box will bring up a list of escape characters that you can used for special characters. Services and Process 15. Creates a monitor to watch a service or a process. The list of services and processes are populated from the agents. By default, the Alert When Not Running checkbox will be selected to generate an alert when the process or service is not running. Some processes or services might be threatening; therefore, they should generate alerts if they start running. Deselect this checkbox to turn this feature off Parameters: 18. Type: Select processes or services. 19. Process Name: Select the process to monitor. 20. Service Name: Select the service to monitor. 7B RemoteMonitors 12

13 Files or Directories Files and directories can be monitored to see if they exist. Files can be monitored for their size and directories can be monitored for the number of files. Parameters: Path: Enter the full path for the directory or file. Is Directory: Select this check box if the path leads to a directory. Check if Directory Exists: Select this check box for the monitor to generate an alert if the directory exists in the selected path. Check Number of Files: Select this check box for the monitor to generate an alert based on the file count. o o File Count Greater: Generates an alert if the file count is greater than the value entered in this field. File Count Less: Generates an alert if the file count is less than the value entered in this field. Check if file exists: Select this check box for the monitor to generate an alert if the file exists in the selected path. Check file size: Select this check box for the monitor to generate an alert based on the file size of the file in the selected path. File size greater than: Generates an alert if the file size is greater than the value entered in this field. File size less than: Generates an alert if the file size is less than the value entered in this field. WMI Query Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) queries can be run and monitored through LabTech. You must have a working knowledge of SQL and WMI before attempting to create this monitor. If the query returns only one row then the first value of the row will be the tested result. A query that returns multiple rows, the count will be the tested result. Parameters: Windows Management Query: Enter a WMI query or select one from the target. Run Query on My Workstation: Run a test of the query on the machine you are currently using. How to Compare: This value will vary depending on the monitor chosen. Text to Compare with: This value will vary depending on the monitor chosen. Pressing [F2] in the text to compare box will bring up a list of escape characters that you can use for special characters. 7B RemoteMonitors 13

14 Remote Monitors Results of an Executable This monitor will run executables on agent computers and return the results as an alert message. Arguments can be passed to these executables. The file will be run and the results will be used in the checks. If the Executable does not have a complete path it is assumed to be in the LTSVC Directory and if the executable does not exist in the LTSVC directory it will download from the LTShare\ Transfer\Monitors. Parameters: Executable: Select an executable from the drop down. This information is updated when agents check in to update that table. Refer to the Agent Templates documentation for more information. Arguments: Enter any arguments to supply to the executable when it is called. How to Compare: This value will vary depending on the monitor chosen. Text to Compare with: This value will vary depending on the monitor chosen. Pressing [F2] in the text to compare box will bring up a list of escape characters that you can used for special characters. Editing the Monitor Configuration Network monitors are edited at the agent computer level because they require a single computer to run. 1. From the navigation tree, expand Clients > Client > Location > Monitors and then double-click on the desired monitor or right-click and select Monitors > Modify Monitor. NOTE: You can also click the Monitors tab from the menu bar in the Control Center to access all network monitors and then double-click on a monitor to edit. Figure 12: Network Monitor 7B RemoteMonitors 14

15 Figure 13: Monitor Configuration Sample Monitors Status NOTE: By default, the status colors will default to green (OK) and red (not OK); however, they can be changed to suit your needs in the Dashboard > Config > Control Center. Refer to the Branding documentation for additional information. Each tab will be discussed in the following sections: Status, Location, Alerting, Configuration, History and Data Collector. The Status tab is mainly for informational purposes; however, you can test and export the monitor from this tab. A description of each field is shown in the table below. 7B RemoteMonitors 15

16 Remote Monitors Figure 14: Monitor Status To test the monitor, click Test. You will receive a message informing you that it could take five minutes if the computer is not currently in FasTalk. Click Yes to continue. To export the monitor, click Export. You will be prompted for a location to save the monitor information. Select the desired location and click Save. To import the monitor information, select Tools > Import > SQL Script. Table 2: Status Field Descriptions Field Status Historical Description Shows the current status of the monitor. If the monitor is in an OK status, the background color by default will be green If the monitor is in a Not OK status, the background color by default will be red. Default colors can be changed in Dashboard > Config > Control Center > Agents. Displays a graph based on the number of failures and the total number of checks the monitor has performed. 7B RemoteMonitors 16

17 Reliability Current State Duration Current Notification Next Scheduled Check Last Check Time Monitor Setup Status Return Information Group Created Monitor Override Settings Displays the reliability of the monitor based on the number of failures and the total number of checks the monitor has performed. Shows the amount of time since this monitor was created. Displays the number of consecutive times the monitor has failed. Displays the amount of time until the next check. Displays the last date and time of the last check. Displays the date and time the monitor was installed. Displays the results of the last check. Displays only if the monitor was created from a group and will indicate the group that created it. If selected, the monitor can be edited here and the changes will remain without the group reverting it back. The monitor is still attached to the group, so if a computer is removed from the group, the monitor will also be removed from that computer, even if the Override Settings checkbox is selected. If, the Override Settings checkbox is deselected at a later date, the monitor will auto sync the next time the monitor syncs. With the Override Settings selected, you can change ANYTHING including the name of the monitor. For additional information, refer to the Overriding Monitor Settings section of this document. Location The Location tab shows the name of the monitor, the client, location and computer that the monitor is currently running on. Each field is editable. Make any necessary changes and click Save. NOTE: Alert Template (Alerting tab) and Agent Computer (Location tab) must be selected in order to save any changes. 7B RemoteMonitors 17

18 Remote Monitors Figure 15: Monitor Location Alerting The Alerting tab allows you to make changes to the current alert template, alert style, alert messages, which script to run in the event the monitor fails and the report category for reporting statistics in the status gauges. 7B RemoteMonitors 18

19 Figure 16: Monitor Alerting 1. To change the alert template, select the appropriate template from the Alert Template drop-down. If an appropriate template does not currently exist, click on Create a New Template to create a new template. If you need instructions on how to create an alert template, please refer to the Alert Templates documentation. NOTE: Alert templates can be edited from this screen; however, please note that any changes you make to existing alert templates will affect all monitors that are associated with that alert template. 2. Select the Alert Style from the drop-down. Alert styles determine the frequency in which you will be notified when the monitor fails. Continuous: The alert action will occur every time the monitor checks and fails. 7B RemoteMonitors 19

20 Remote Monitors Configuration Once: The alert action will occur one time until the monitor checks and returns a success message. Second through Tenth: The alert action will occur on the selected fail count until the monitor checks and returns a success message. For example, if second is chosen, the monitor must have two consecutive failures before performing the alert action. 3. Enter a subject for successful alert messages sent via in the Alert Message Subject on Success. When used with a custom failure message, this subject will only be used for the successes. Leave blank for a default subject. TIP: To embed ticket comments when a normal ticket update is posted, simply place a tag <COMMENT></COMMENT> and this will put the text in the tags into a comment attached to the ticket. This will make the Ticket alert action create two entries: one client facing and one technician facing. 4. A generic success alert message is created for you. Make any desired changes. Press [F2] for available LabTech replacements. 5. Enter a subject for failure alert messages sent via in the Alert Message Subject on Failure. Press [F2] for available variables. Leave this blank to use the success message instead. 6. The Ticket Category is used to classify tickets and will be leveraged by the ConnectWise plugin to route common types of tickets to different service boards in ConnectWise. New monitors will need to be assigned to the proper ticket category. For more information to ticket categories, refer to the Ticket Categories documentation. 7. If you want to run a script to automatically correct a problem reported by a monitor, select the appropriate Script to Run from the drop-down. 8. If you want to record the statistics from this monitor, select a Report Category from the drop-down. The statistics from this monitor will be combined with other monitors with the same report category and reported in the status gauges. Refer to the Status Gauges documentation for more information. 9. Click Save. The Configuration tab allows you to change the type of monitor, as well as the monitor parameters. The Monitor Type drop-down contains both network and system monitors. If you change a network monitor to one of the system monitors, it will no longer appear on the Network tab of the Monitors. It will be moved to the System tab. 7B RemoteMonitors 20

21 Figure 17: Monitor Configuration History Depending on the Monitor Type you selected, the parameters will vary. Each monitor and an explanation of the monitor parameters are explained in the Monitor Wizard Options section of this document. Make the desired changes to configure the monitor and click Save. NOTE: If using Between as a Check Condition, the result should be entered in lower case as, value x and value x (e.g., 2 and 5). The History tab will show you the successes and failures of the monitor and when they occurred. Click on each line item to show all result details in the lower portion of the window. Successes will only display after a monitor has recovered from a failure and will only display once. Failures will appear every time the monitor fails. 7B RemoteMonitors 21

22 Remote Monitors Figure 18: Monitor History Data Collector The Data Collector tab is used to create data collector monitors. These keep a history of every check performed and the results for the past 90 days. If you want to keep the history for more than 90 days, you will need to add a RetentionDataCollector property. Refer to the Properties documentation for additional information. 7B RemoteMonitors 22

23 Figure 19: Monitor Data Collector Table 3: Data Collector Graph Descriptions Graph Current Latency Daily Latency Weekly Latency Monthly Latency Description Displays the most current value. Displays the daily average value measured. In the above example, latency. This graph is updated during the daily maintenance that occurs at 3a. Displays the weekly average value measured for the past seven days. This graph is updated during the daily maintenance. Displays the monthly average value measured for the past month (if today is the 25 th of the month, it will go back to the 25 th of last month). This graph is updated during the daily maintenance. 7B RemoteMonitors 23

24 Remote Monitors 1. Click on the Enable Data Collection Mode checkbox to start collecting data. It will take up to 30 minutes for any data to appear and data is updated every 30 minutes. 2. Enter the name of the value you are graphic (e.g., Memory Avail, Latency, etc.). in the Value Name field. 3. Enter the name of the value being collected (e.g., KB, MB or ms) in the Unit Name field. 4. Enter the maximum value that can be displayed on the graph in the Max Value field. This is used for scaling on the graph that appears on the Data Collector tab. If you have a max of 100 but all your values are 200+, then your graph will be maxed out and show no definition. 5. Click Save. Deleting Remote Monitors To delete a remote monitor: 1. From the Control Center, expand Clients > Client > Location > Computer > Monitors. Figure 20: Delete Remote Monitor 2. Right-click on the monitor to delete and select Monitors > Delete Monitor. Overriding Monitor Settings There may be times when you have an agent computer that belongs to a group that consistently fails the monitor check and the monitor is configured exactly as it needs to be for all other members of the group. For example, you have a disk space monitor on the group and you want to be alerted when the disk space is less than 2048 MB; however, you are aware that one of the machines will always be less than 2048 MB, so you don t want to constantly get alerts on this one machine. Overriding 7B RemoteMonitors 24

25 the monitor settings will exclude that agent computer from triggering an alert when the disk space is less than 2048 MB. By using the override, you can then change this monitor for this particular agent computer to not alert or alert when the drive space is less 1024 MB. Once you select the Override Settings checkbox, you can edit the monitor and the changes will remain without the group reverting it back. The monitor is still attached to the group, so if a computer is removed from the group, the monitor will also be removed from that computer, even if the Override Settings checkbox is selected. If, the Override Settings checkbox is deselected at a later date, the monitor will auto sync the next time the monitor syncs. With the Override Settings selected, you can change ANYTHING including the name of the monitor. To override the monitor settings for one or more agent computers: 1. Open the agent computer (Expand Clients > Location and double-click on the agent). 2. Click on the Monitors tab. Figure 21: Monitors 3. Double-click on the monitor that you want to override for this agent. 7B RemoteMonitors 25

26 Remote Monitors Figure 22: Monitor Configuration 4. In the lower left-hand side of this screen will show you what group created this monitor. Select the Override Settings checkbox to override the group settings. 5. You will be prompted to disable group sync. Click Yes to continue. 6. Make the necessary changes to the monitor (e.g., alerting method, configuration, etc.) and click Save. The changes you just made will remain without the group reverting it back and the group monitor will remain at its original configuration. Any changes made to the group monitor will not affect the changes for this agent. NOTE: The monitor is still attached to the group, so if a computer is removed from the group, the monitor will also be removed from that computer, even if the Override Settings checkbox is selected. If, the Override Settings checkbox is deselected at a later date, the monitor will auto sync the next time the monitor syncs. 7B RemoteMonitors 26

27 Document Revision History Date Notes 03/06/12 New Document 09/06/2012 Updated for 2012 SP1 release. Added information on adding comments to tickets. Added ticket categories Added override capability Updated screens 7B RemoteMonitors 27