Tuesday, December 19, 2006
PortSensor 2.1 Released!
Hot off of the heels of our PortSensor 2 release we've added even more features and enhancements. For those of you already using PortSensor you can update from within PortSensor itself by going to "Help"=> "Software Updates" => "Check for Updates". To try a fresh install you can find the download at http://www.portsensor.com/download.php . Here's an overview of what's new:
* Rule Operators
Previously, PortSensor has been capable of powerful validation thanks to the ability to create customized notification rules. We found that quite often this capability can be overkill, and regular expressions are not always the easiest way to solve simple validations like number comparisons. Now, when creating a rule you can specify that the response from the server must be less than, greater than, or equal to a value you specify (and when you need the power of regular expressions they are always an available option).
* Combined the status and output columns
To save some more space and cut down the clutter, we've combined the status column with the output column. We did this because the vast majority of the time your sensors (hopefully) have a status of OK, and you can tell that is the case from the colored icon as well as the color of the output column. If something goes wrong with one of your sensors, an error message will display prepended to the sensor output in the output column. This is definitely an improvement in situations where the error message was so long you had resize the status column just to be able to read it!
* Display of rule triggered in the output
When a sensor's status changes to critical or warning because of a notification rule, the name of the rule and its attributes (e.g. "WARNING if > .50") will display prepended to the output column. This makes it easier to know why a sensor has failed if the cause was due to a rule, and is certainly more informative than the generic "Validation Failed" message it displayed before.
* Ability to hide disabled sensors.
Oftentimes, sensors we've disabled just get in the way of the sensors we really want check on, so we've added a button to hide them next to the button that toggles the ability to show only critical status sensors.
* More useful data in notification emails.
We've spruced up the content in the notification emails so now it contains the server name, any error message or rule triggered, and the actual output returned by the sensor. This is in addition to the sensor's name and status. The result gives a much better idea of what is going on when a sensor has failed through whatever device you check email from without always having to run and look at PortSensor itself.
* Improved manual refresh
The refresh button has been improved so it will now always run the "maximum sensors to run at once" (from the preference setting) number of sensors. Before, it would skip sensors that it had run recently and whose next scheduled run time had not yet been reached. With this improvement you can always refresh all of your sensors systematically with confidence for when you can't wait until their next scheduled run times.
* Sensor wait countdown timer column.
To give you a better idea of when and how often your sensors are set to run we've added a column which displays a countdown for each sensor to give you an idea of how long before that sensor will run again. Some might find it a little distracting so we've hidden it by default. To reveal it and see a little more behind the scenes of PortSensor simply drag the rightmost side of the last column divider. This lets you tell at a glance if any of your sensors aren't set to refresh often enough.
* Notification rules and actions now display below their sensors in Overview
Now, notification events, rules, and actions can be seen in PortSensor's main view. Any sensors that you have enabled custom notifications for will display with an expandable tree node, so it's easy to tell which sensors you've defined notifications for, and which are using the defaults. It also makes it easier to see what rules will influence the status of your sensors without having to right-click and open the edit dialog every time.
* Shortened last check date column to display only the time to save screen space.
* Several other minor improvements and bug fixes.
Mike Fogg, Lead Developer
PortSensor Project - http://www.portsensor.com/
WebGroup Media, LLC. - http://www.webgroupmedia.com/
* Rule Operators
Previously, PortSensor has been capable of powerful validation thanks to the ability to create customized notification rules. We found that quite often this capability can be overkill, and regular expressions are not always the easiest way to solve simple validations like number comparisons. Now, when creating a rule you can specify that the response from the server must be less than, greater than, or equal to a value you specify (and when you need the power of regular expressions they are always an available option).
* Combined the status and output columns
To save some more space and cut down the clutter, we've combined the status column with the output column. We did this because the vast majority of the time your sensors (hopefully) have a status of OK, and you can tell that is the case from the colored icon as well as the color of the output column. If something goes wrong with one of your sensors, an error message will display prepended to the sensor output in the output column. This is definitely an improvement in situations where the error message was so long you had resize the status column just to be able to read it!
* Display of rule triggered in the output
When a sensor's status changes to critical or warning because of a notification rule, the name of the rule and its attributes (e.g. "WARNING if > .50") will display prepended to the output column. This makes it easier to know why a sensor has failed if the cause was due to a rule, and is certainly more informative than the generic "Validation Failed" message it displayed before.
* Ability to hide disabled sensors.
Oftentimes, sensors we've disabled just get in the way of the sensors we really want check on, so we've added a button to hide them next to the button that toggles the ability to show only critical status sensors.
* More useful data in notification emails.
We've spruced up the content in the notification emails so now it contains the server name, any error message or rule triggered, and the actual output returned by the sensor. This is in addition to the sensor's name and status. The result gives a much better idea of what is going on when a sensor has failed through whatever device you check email from without always having to run and look at PortSensor itself.
* Improved manual refresh
The refresh button has been improved so it will now always run the "maximum sensors to run at once" (from the preference setting) number of sensors. Before, it would skip sensors that it had run recently and whose next scheduled run time had not yet been reached. With this improvement you can always refresh all of your sensors systematically with confidence for when you can't wait until their next scheduled run times.
* Sensor wait countdown timer column.
To give you a better idea of when and how often your sensors are set to run we've added a column which displays a countdown for each sensor to give you an idea of how long before that sensor will run again. Some might find it a little distracting so we've hidden it by default. To reveal it and see a little more behind the scenes of PortSensor simply drag the rightmost side of the last column divider. This lets you tell at a glance if any of your sensors aren't set to refresh often enough.
* Notification rules and actions now display below their sensors in Overview
Now, notification events, rules, and actions can be seen in PortSensor's main view. Any sensors that you have enabled custom notifications for will display with an expandable tree node, so it's easy to tell which sensors you've defined notifications for, and which are using the defaults. It also makes it easier to see what rules will influence the status of your sensors without having to right-click and open the edit dialog every time.
* Shortened last check date column to display only the time to save screen space.
* Several other minor improvements and bug fixes.
Mike Fogg, Lead Developer
PortSensor Project - http://www.portsensor.com/
WebGroup Media, LLC. - http://www.webgroupmedia.com/
Friday, December 08, 2006
PortSensor 2.0 Released! What's New?
What's New in PortSensor 2.0
At a glance:
* Multiple Notifications per Event
* Nested Alerts
* Sensor Run/Schedule Optimization
* SSH Delegate
* MacOSX (x86) Support
The major focus of PortSensor 2.0 was to add more flexibility to the alarm system. You can now nest alarm rules and configure multiple actions to respond with at any point. That means you can now do a lot of interesting things, especially with SSH sensors, such as escalating alerts on a server disk space sensor every 10%.
The alarm rules system does add some complexity, but every sensor has the option to use 'defaults' which will behave exactly like PortSensor 1.0 -- simply playing a sound if anything is wrong.
Another major focus of 2.0 was the optimization of many concurrent sensors. We set up a much better scheduling system which ensures that the sensors running in any given batch are the sensors that have been waiting the longest to run. In previous builds it was possible to always start from the top of the list, with a small number of runs per batch and short sensor wait times, and not always get full sensor coverage.
An additional aspect of optimization had to do with SSH sensors. In prior builds PortSensor would open an SSH connection per sensor. In 2.0 we use a single SSH connection per server which is responsible for running any attached SSH sensors. This removes a lot of SSH overhead while checking sensors, as well as fixing a potential issue where several monitoring users could tie up the available SSH connections on a machine.
You'll also notice a new graphic at the top of the application window. We felt there were enough boring server monitoring tools -- PortSensor now has some personality!
You can grab the new builds from:
http://www.portsensor.com/download.php
We'd love to hear your feedback, both about the changes and what you think we should be working on next. Drop by the forums or send a message to support@portsensor.com with your thoughts.
Special 2.0 Price: In the interest of growing the PortSensor Community we've also dropped the price of PortSensor 2.0 to $99 for unlimited servers and sensors. (One year of support and upgrades is included)
Thanks for your interest!
--
Jeff Standen, Project Manager
Mike Fogg, Lead Developer
PortSensor Project - http://www.portsensor.com/
WebGroup Media, LLC. - http://www.webgroupmedia.com/
At a glance:
* Multiple Notifications per Event
* Nested Alerts
* Sensor Run/Schedule Optimization
* SSH Delegate
* MacOSX (x86) Support
The major focus of PortSensor 2.0 was to add more flexibility to the alarm system. You can now nest alarm rules and configure multiple actions to respond with at any point. That means you can now do a lot of interesting things, especially with SSH sensors, such as escalating alerts on a server disk space sensor every 10%.
The alarm rules system does add some complexity, but every sensor has the option to use 'defaults' which will behave exactly like PortSensor 1.0 -- simply playing a sound if anything is wrong.
Another major focus of 2.0 was the optimization of many concurrent sensors. We set up a much better scheduling system which ensures that the sensors running in any given batch are the sensors that have been waiting the longest to run. In previous builds it was possible to always start from the top of the list, with a small number of runs per batch and short sensor wait times, and not always get full sensor coverage.
An additional aspect of optimization had to do with SSH sensors. In prior builds PortSensor would open an SSH connection per sensor. In 2.0 we use a single SSH connection per server which is responsible for running any attached SSH sensors. This removes a lot of SSH overhead while checking sensors, as well as fixing a potential issue where several monitoring users could tie up the available SSH connections on a machine.
You'll also notice a new graphic at the top of the application window. We felt there were enough boring server monitoring tools -- PortSensor now has some personality!
You can grab the new builds from:
http://www.portsensor.com/download.php
We'd love to hear your feedback, both about the changes and what you think we should be working on next. Drop by the forums or send a message to support@portsensor.com with your thoughts.
Special 2.0 Price: In the interest of growing the PortSensor Community we've also dropped the price of PortSensor 2.0 to $99 for unlimited servers and sensors. (One year of support and upgrades is included)
Thanks for your interest!
--
Jeff Standen, Project Manager
Mike Fogg, Lead Developer
PortSensor Project - http://www.portsensor.com/
WebGroup Media, LLC. - http://www.webgroupmedia.com/
