PortSensor Development Blog

Someday soon we plan to implement a 'Discovery Mode' ability where PortSensor can automatically detect servers and configure detected services. That will save a lot of hassle when configuring the a monitoring file for the first time.

Until that day comes, however, it's useful to know some shortcuts in creating a bunch of similar sensors across several servers.

For this example let's assume:

• We have three groups of servers based on their OS (Windows, Linux and Solaris).
• Each group has a single server.
• We want to create sensors on each server to monitor Ping, SMTP and POP3.
  

Here's what we need to do:

1. First, we need to create the Ping, POP3 and SMTP sensors on the first server in the list.
   
   
   
   Figure 1: Creating an SMTP Sensor
   
   
   
2. Once you have all three sensors set up, right click on each sensor and select Duplicate from the menu.
   
   
   Figure 2: Duplicating a Sensor
   
   
   
3. Now simply drag each copied sensor to the next server. Repeat this 'Duplicate and Drag' process until all your servers have copies of your desired sensors.
   
   
   Figure 3: Dragging a Sensor to a New Server

That's all there is to it! This process is especially a time-saver when working with more complex sensors, such as SSH Sensors, which have several properties you need to configure.

Happy monitoring!