FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
 

FAQ

How Do I Create a New MonitorIT SQL Database without Monitored Data But with My Configuration Data?

Steps To Create a New, Empty MonitorIT SQL Database & Import Configuration from Original

What are the basic steps to get up and running with MonitorIT?

1)   Go to Configure Servers/Agent & Devices on the Configure menu tab.   Here you add those servers and devices in your network that you want to monitor with MonitorIT.  You can add entries one at a time using the New function, or you can have MonitorIT discover your servers/devices across a specified IP address range using the Discover function.  Configure the IP Services, such as HTTP, SNMP, SMTP, POP3, and so that you want to monitor on your various servers/devices. Once you have entered the servers/devices you want to monitor, use the Manage Agents function to display the Global Agent Management screen to easily install the MonitorIT Agent on your Windows NT/2000/XP servers & workstations that you want to monitor Event Logs, Services, Performance Counters, and Files.

2)   Once you have all your server/devices entered and configured, go to Configure Watches/Alerts to define the various watch, alert notifications and action parameters on your servers & devices.  Here you define and choose the watch parameters for all the various MonitorIT monitoring components: ServerWatch, CounterWatch, EventLogWatch, WinServicesWatch, FileWatch, and SNMPWatch.  Use the New button to define a new watch; select the watch type you want to define from the pop-up, and then specify the parameters for that particular watch type.

3)   Use the QuickStart feature to have MonitorIT guide you through these two key functions for using MonitorIT. 

I want monitor Processor, Disk and Memory Performance and Free Disk Space on my Windows servers.  How can I do this?

This type of monitoring is called CounterWatch.  It requires the MonitorIT Agent to be installed on your Windows NT / 2000 / XP servers.  See Configure Servers/Agents & Devices for the details on accomplishing this.  There are basically three ways you can monitor specific counters and accumulate monitored values to MonitorIT’s database from which you can then run reports.

1)   If you want to monitor specific counters by watching for them to exceed your defined thresholds, and then be alerted when your threshold values are exceeded, go to Configure Watches/Alerts and create a new CounterWatch for each of the counters that you want to monitor this way.  MonitorIT watches your selected counters by determining their value at the default sample rate, and saves the value each time in the database.  These values are then available for reporting and graphing.

2)   Go to Manage CounterWatch Monitoring and in the Tree view of all your servers and devices, expand to the Objects (Memory, Processor, Disk, etc), and then their associated counters to see what is available for monitoring.   You can select counters to be monitored by setting the checkbox associated with the counter.   See CounterWatch Monitoring for more details on the features available here for monitoring this way.

3)   You can create templates of counters you want to monitor, and then associate these templates with one or more servers you want to monitor.  This association of template and servers is called a report.  Go to Configure CounterWatch Reports for details on creating counter templates, and reports.   Once you have created reports, you can then schedule these for monitoring and accumulating monitored data to the database by going to Schedule CounterWatch Monitoring.

Regardless of which of these three methods above you use for capturing and accumulating monitored counter data to the database, you can run reports and/or graphs of this monitored data.  See View/Analyze & Run Reports on the Reports menu tab, and CounterWatch Graphs on the Monitor menu tab for details on these operations.

I want to View and Report on monitored Counter data that I have captured to the MonitorIT database.  How can I do this?

Review the previous FAQ above about How to Monitor Processor, Disk, Memory Performance, Free Disk Space and SNMP Counters.  Once you have captured monitored data in any of the three ways outlined in this FAQ, there are also three ways you can view and/or report on this data:

1)   In CounterWatch Graphs, press the New button to create a new Chart/Graph. Next, add Counters to be graphed to a chart by selecting the Counter in the Tree view, by clicking on its name, then pressing the Add button; or drag & drop the Counter onto the Chart.  Once Counters have been added to Charts, the charts can be named & saved. Then the charts can be opened at any later time and specifying a start date/time to begin a view of the Counter values from that start date/time forward, as long as the Counter values are in the database from monitoring by one of the available methods.

2)   Right-click on the Counter in the Tree view in Manage CounterWatchMonitoring or CounterWatchGraphs and select 'Summary' to see a summary of the Counter values.

3)   You can run a report of Counter data in the database, regardless of which of the methods used to capture the Counter data, but you do require a Report be created first in Create CounterWatch Reports with a template of the counters to be reported on.  Then in Run/Analyze & View Reports, you use this Report by selecting the New button.  This pops-up a dialogue box where you select from among your Reports, and you "schedule" an 'instance' of it for past-time, namely the past period you want to report on.  This creates a report "instance" in Run/Analyze & View Reports that is immediately in the "Ready" state so the counter data in the database can be analyzed and the Report generated.

You can schedule a CounterWatch report to run periodically and automatically in Schedule Periodic Reports.  As long as monitored data exists in the database for the period being reported on, you schedule a report to run periodically and analyze the specified previous period, and optionally Email the report results to one or more recipients.

 In Schedule CounterWatch Monitoring, recall that it creates a report "instance" that runs starting at current time or sometime in the future to capture data and only when it is done capturing is this "instance" then "Ready" to be analyzed.  (In Schedule CounterWatch Monitoring, on the Status tab, there is an option to Stop an "instance' that is currently in the monitoring state, or to change its stop date/time).  Just as in Schedule CounterWatch Monitoring where you can schedule many 'instances' of the same report to run at different times in the future, using the New button feature in Run/Analyze & View Reports, you can create as many different 'instances' of a Report with different past time-frames, that are 'Ready' to be analyzed.

One way to use this, for example, is let's say you create a Report in Create CounterWatch Reports with a set of Counters you want to monitor on a group of servers and network devices.  In Schedule CounterWatch Monitoring, you "schedule" an 'instance' of this Report to run for the next month, so that for the next month you are monitoring the Counters in the Report's template.  However, once a day you can go to Run/Analyze & View Reports, select New button, then create an 'instance' of the Report with a schedule of the previous 24 hours that is immediately 'Ready" so you can analyze and create a report on these monitored counters for the previous 24 hours.

I want to have selected MonitorIT reports run every morning automatically and then have the report output Emailed to two colleagues and myself. How can I do this?

On the Reports tab, select Schedule Periodic Report.  Here you can select an ‘Alert Notifications’, ‘IP Services Performance and Availability’, or any of you created CounterWatch reports, and schedule an instance that will run periodically and automatically.  You specify when it runs the first time, how frequently subsequently, what previous time period is included in the report, which servers/devices, and who the Email recipients should be for the report output.  There is an option to ‘Exclude Time Periods’ consisting of time-of-day, and day-of-week, so that you can create reports with results that match the time-frames you care about, as for example, the time periods you are responsible for as part of your Service Level Agreements.

You can create as many different report instances, as you like, with different parameters.  Once you schedule a report, you easily manage the queue of all your scheduled reports where you can delete those you no longer want, or edit schedule parameters to change them for those already queued.


I want to send Email alert notifications to my cell phone and I want to customize the Email text sent.  How can I do this?

In Configure Watches/Alerts, press the New button to create a new watch/alert, or select an existing watch/alert, then press the Edit button.  Go to the Action tab, then Email tab to define the Email alert notification parameters for this specific watch/alert.

1)   Check the Email Notify checkbox to enable sending Email, and specify one or more Email Addresses separated by a comma or semi-colon.  Edit the default Email Subject to be what you want.

2)   Click the button to the right of the Email Subject field to pop-up a text edit box where you specify the Email text you want to send.  This overrides the default Email text that would be sent otherwise.

3)   Custom Email text supports six ‘macros’ that are substituted with the appropriate data for a particular alter.  These ‘macros’ are: &N which is replaced by the name of the server/device causing the alert; &A which is replaced by the IP Address of the server/device causing the alert; &W which is replaced by the name of the Watch/Alert you have defined here; &S which is replaced by the Status message associated with this failure causing the alert; and &D which is replaced by the date, and &T which is replaced by the time of the alert.

I want to send “NET Send” alert notifications to my workstation for certain type of alert conditions. How can I do this?

In Configure Watches/Alerts, press the New button to create a new watch/alert, or select an existing watch/alert, then press the Edit button.  Go to the Action tab, then Program tab to define the ‘NET Send’ alert notification parameters for this specific watch/alert.  

In the ‘Program Name’ field, enter ‘Net’ (without the quotes); in the ‘Program Args’ field, enter ‘send WorkstationName “MonitorIT Alert Notification: &N &A &D &T &S &W” ‘ (without the single quotes; the double quotes are around the message text sent).

In this example, substitute ‘WorkstationName’ with the machine name of your workstation.  This example also shows the optional use of the special macros that MonitorIT supports.  The macros are in the body of the ‘NET Send’ text, and at run-time are replaced respectively with the server/device name causing the alert condition (&N), its IP Address (&A), the date(&D), the time(&T), the specific status for the alert type(&S), and the Watch/Alert name causing the alert(&W).

The macros are supported by MonitorIT in the ‘Program Args’ field, and can be used when invoking any batch, command, or program executable file.  Use of the macros is optional and you can choose to use some or all.

I want to monitor for selected SYSLOG messages. How can I do this?

When the MonitorIT Server starts-up, either the service or the foreground application, it starts listening on the default SYSLOG UDP port 514.  There are no special steps necessary to have this occur.  Be aware that if you already have a program running as a service, or as an application, that has previously reserved port 514 to listen for SYSLOG messages, MonitorIT will fail when it attempts to issue its listen.  Prior to starting the MonitorIT Server, you can run the MonitorIT Server Config File Utility from “Start->Programs->MonitorIT” and either change the SYSLOG listen port to something other than 514, or disable SYSLOG listening altogether.  When you run the Server Config File Utility, close the  ‘Unnamed1’ entry and open the ‘Default.btc’ entry from your “…\MonitorIT\Bin” folder.  Make any changes and save.

To have MonitorIT process, and log, any received SYSLOG messages, you must define one or more SYSLOGWatch Watch/Alerts in Configure Watches/Alerts.  Go to Configure Watches/Alerts, press the New button to create a new watch/alert, and select “SyslogWatch for SYSLOG Messages”.   Here you specify which SYSLOG Messages you want MonitorIT to watch for, from which servers/devices, and what actions to take, if any, when these watched for messages are received.  All “watched’ for messages are logged to the MonitorIT database. Refer to the section on Configure Watches/Alerts for more information on setting the various parameters.

Finally, be sure the servers and devices that generate SYSLOG messages are configured to send them to the MonitorIT Server’s machine IP address.  The MonitorIT Server Log found on the Utilities tab, always displays an entry when any SYSLOG message is received so you should refer here to see if MonitorIT is seeing any SYSLOG messages.  For those received SYSLOG messages that match your Watch/Alert criteria, you can view these in the SYSLOGWatch Display found on the Display tab.  You can generate a report, either one time, or automatically and periodically, by running or scheduling the “Alert Notifications” report and specifying the appropriate parameters.


I want to monitor for selected SNMP Trap messages. How can I do this?

When the MonitorIT Server starts-up, either the service or the foreground application, it starts listening on the default SNMP Trap port.  There are no special steps necessary to have this occur.  To have MonitorIT process, and log, any received SNMP Trap messages, you must define one or more SNMPWatch Watch/Alerts in Configure Watches/Alerts.

You may want to first go to Configure SNMP Trap Definitions.  Here you define the Trap types you will want to set watches on.  If you have the associated MIBs from the servers/devices that will be generating Traps, copy these MIBs to the “…\MonitorIT\MIBs” folder, and in Configure SNMP Trap Definitions, press the “Process MIBs” button and MonitorIT will extract all the defined Traps. And add them to the available list. 

Next, go to Configure Watches/Alerts, press the New button to create a new watch/alert, and select “SNMPWatch for SNMP Traps”.   Here you specify which SNMP Traps you want MonitorIT to watch for, from which servers/devices, and what actions to take, if any, when these watched for Traps are received.  All “watched’ for Traps are logged to the MonitorIT database. Refer to the section on Configure Watches/Alerts for more information on setting the various parameters.

Finally, be sure the servers and devices that generate SNMP Traps are configured to send them to the MonitorIT Server’s machine IP address.  The MonitorIT Server Log found on the Utilities tab, always displays an entry when any SNMP Trap is received so you should refer here to see if MonitorIT is seeing any SNMP Traps.  For those received SNMP Traps that match your Watch/Alert criteria, you can view these in the SNMPTrapWatch Display found on the Display tab.  You can generate a report, either one time, or automatically and periodically, by running or scheduling the “Alert Notifications” report and specifying the appropriate parameters.



Are there any special characters that MonitorIT reserves and cannot be used in the various input fields?

MonitorIT reserves and uses the tilde character ‘~’ as part of its protocol for sending and receiving various parameters to and from the MonitorIT Server and the client ‘console’ interface.  If you experience problems with parameter data verify that no tilde characters are involved as part of the names, descriptions, passwords, etc, of the parameters involved.  Please contact Breakout Support if you encounter this problem and cannot work around it.

I've been running MonitorIT for a month and have noticed that things seem to be a bit slower. What can I do to increase the performance?

Use the Database Maintenance screen to remove records older than a date you're interested in. This will reduce the size of the database. You should perform a database compaction from the same screen to optimize the indices and eliminate the records that you are no longer interested in viewing.


All of my charts are called "New Chart 1", "New Chart 2", etc. How can I change the chart names?

On the View Charts page, open the chart you wish to rename. Select the `Config' button. Activate the `General' tab. In the `Setting of:' control, select `Title_B'. You will see near the bottom of the page a section called `Chart Title:'. Key in the new chart name as you would like it displayed. Select the OK button and your chart setting will be saved.


How do I use my standalone browser to connect to the MonitorIT Server to perform administration and analysis from any location?

MonitorIT requires the use of the Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) as a stand-alone browser when accessing the MonitorIT Server remotely. The IE should be version 6. (Download IE version 6 directly from Microsoft now, if you require it). Determine the IP address of your MonitorIT Server. Then in the Address line of IE, specify the IP address of the MonitorIT Server using port 81, as follows: "http://a.b.c.d:81" where "a.b.c.d" is the MonitorIT Server IP address.