PortSensor Community Forums - All Discussions

PortSensor 2.1 Released!

2006-12-19T13:14:15-08:00

Full information is on the blog:
http://www.portsensor.com/blog/2006/12/portsensor-21-released.html

Thanks!
-Jeff

Best Place to Start: Getting Started Guide

2006-10-02T09:01:37-07:00

You can find the thorough Getting Started guide here:
http://www.portsensor.com/getting_started.html

Feedback welcome!

-Jeff@WGM

Setup Tests

2006-09-02T20:51:31-07:00

It would be nice to have 'Test' connection option available under different sections. For example, when you setup the Mail Notifier options, have it send a test message to the email address(es) to ensure it works. Same with the Fail Check option (I am glad this has been added) as well as any of the PortSensors created. It is nice to correct a problem while it is being setup before having it apply.

Can't Run Client OpenSuse 11 64 Bit

2009-04-15T05:02:29-07:00

I just attempted to install and run the linux client on another machine and get the following error when I try to run it:

artman@linux-20dz:~/PortSensor> ./PortSensor
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib64/libv4l/v4l2convert.so' from /etc/ld.so.preload cannot be preloaded: ignored.
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module": libpk-gtk-module.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

From the reading I did, it looks like this is related to the PackageKit package which has this module.

Cerberus 4 HelpDesk Integration

2009-02-13T00:24:42-08:00

Howdy,

I think it will be cool for PortSensor if an issue has reached critical or is down for x amount of time, that it opens up a ticket with in Cerberus helpdesk. Also with in the Cerberus Helpdesk to have a status at the top of each page of how many services are "down" or and critical.

Thanks,
Adam

SNMP Monitor?

2009-01-18T17:30:11-08:00

I was wondering what people have come across as the easiest way to do snmp checks? I know in a previous post (way back) Jeff mentioned SNMP checks were added in but I don't see where and fear this was versions ago:

http://www.portsensor.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=21&page=1#Item_0

Here's a scenario of what we're trying to do. A server at a remote site currently reports back to our PortSensor server. We see all the expected ping, disk space, etc monitors. However, we'd like to to poll Windows machines on the network via SNMP (SNMP is enabled on the workstations). In turn, this would allow us to remotely monitor all workstations on the network without having to install software on those workstations. We're looking to monitor the typical things such as ping response, memory usage, disk space, etc.

Any thoughts or better suggestions?

Can't Run Linux Viewer

2008-10-16T20:33:45-07:00

I downloaded the Linux viewer, extracted to a folder, made the PortSensor bin executable (chmod +x PortSensor) but when I run it nothing loads and no errors are displayed from the console.

Any way to display something like a debug mode? Nothing even flashes on the screen. I'm using OpenSuse 11.

Thanks.

Viewer Alerts When Host Doesn't Update

2008-11-16T15:36:06-08:00

After testing in a few environments I can say the monitors kick back the needed information. However, I can't find any possible way to throw an alert when the monitors haven't update in say, 10 minutes. In essence, a monitor (host) can go down completely and there's no alert. As long as the viewer sees the last update is in a good state it just keeps checking and getting that last update.

Is there a way to set an alert for when the host doesn't provide any updates at a scheduled interval?

Error after install

2008-09-23T16:28:18-07:00

So I followed the instructions and installed the the server. After I logged in the first time, it attempted to forward me to /portsensor/home which doesn't exist. After I went back to /portsensor I seen a semi broken control panel then started receiving the error ERROR: ClassLoader could not find 'Zend_Registry':

I'm not really sure how to proceed. Any help is appreciated.

Questions and suggestions

2008-07-24T02:46:43-07:00

Hello!

I am very interested in buy PortSensor, but I have one question...

in this website the price is 99$
https://www.webgroupmedia.com/shop/products/portsensor/

but in this url the price is 199$
http://portsensor.com/buy

what is the correct price?
---------------------------------------------------
sorry for my bad english
---------------------------------------------------

I want to say my opinion and suggestions about PortSensor.

Portsensor is the software perfect to me, easy manage and very powerful, is great!

only I have differents suggestions and features request (I know that this project is stopped on this moment but I think is a good piece of software).

1) Possibility to add sensors from master server, the admin only need install de monitor and he can add custom sensor, ssh commands in web panel, etc. I think is very important take the full control from admin panel of master server.
2) Sensors with the option "Check for string on page" and "check url with user and password"
3) In PortSensor Deskop Viewer add uptime report and Response time report.
4) Advanced distribute monitoring system for the same server, for example if a monitor alert of a down port, first other monitor check if it is true.
5) In PortSensor Deskop Viewer improve the overview screen, If you have a lot of servers is very frustrate check all. For example you can see my image.

regards!

Wiki down, email rejected?

2008-07-06T20:19:40-07:00

I was really hoping to start using PortSensor, but don't seem to be having much luck.

All documentation (i.e. the wiki) appears to be unavailable at the moment. In fact, updates.portsensor.com appears to be down too, so maybe it's a problem common to all of your subdomains? I'm using OpenDNS, which confirms the lack of availability worldwide - see http://www.opendns.com/support/cache/

So, I email support@portsensor.com and the email bounces back to me!

Recipient address: support@portsensor.com
Reason: Remote SMTP server has rejected address
Diagnostic code: smtp;554 5.7.1 : Relay access denied
Remote system: dns;portsensor.com (TCP|203.97.37.64|57909|72.36.158.10|25)

Can somebody get back to me and let me know what is going on? I hope this product is still alive and well - I was looking forward to using it.

Installed and configured but getting the following error :

2008-04-10T04:35:24-07:00

# java -jar psmonitor.jar config.xml
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: java.lang.String.isEmpty()Z
pat com.portsensor.main.Main.getXML(Main.java:145)# java -jar psmonitor.jar examp
at com.portsensor.main.Main.main(Main.java:64)

# cat config.xml

http://admin.********.com/portsensor
mon1
testing

HTTP
#PORT 10.0.0.4 80
text
Critical

HTTP-SSL
#PORT 10.0.0.4 443
text
Critical

# java -version
java version "1.5.0_14"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_14-b03)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 1.5.0_14-b03, mixed mode)

# uname -a
Linux edapp01 2.6.18-6-amd64 #1 SMP Sun Feb 10 17:50:19 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# cat /etc/debian_version
4.0

Any help would be gratefully received.

- Z

Duplicate Server ?

2007-08-20T05:34:09-07:00

Hi,

In this scenario I have 32 servers

If I create 10 sensors on the first server and I want to duplicate those to 31 more servers, I have to individually duplicate 310 sensors and drag them all over the place.

It would be A LOT easier to create a "model" server with its 10 sensors, then duplicate that 32 times. All Id have to do then would be to edit each servers IP address.

Any chance of including this in a future release ?

SSH Sensors

2007-08-20T04:24:47-07:00

Hi, How can I truncate or edit output from an SSH sensor ?

For example, if I run

service exim status

I get ...

exim (pid 11775 11774 11453 11452 4121 855 850) is running...

I just want it to say ...

exim is running...

I'm not very good with regular expressions, they confuse me.

My other thought was to write a shell script that would display the formatted output of several commands and use Portsensor to run that script on a shcedule.

Windows File Service/Samba monitoring

2007-10-18T19:10:42-07:00

Hello,

Been using PortSensor for a few days now...i noticed that there aren't any sensors specific to Windows File Server/CIFS/Samba(using a Sockets Sensor set to port 139 doesn't seem to work). This would be a welcome addition in future releases B)

SSH sensors not working with SSH keypairs

2008-01-19T16:42:23-08:00

I've made some SSH sensors and have tried them out on both a non SSH keypair machine two machines that use keypairs.
The one without works perfectly.
The ones with SSH keypairs give a critical error - "authorization failed" on all SSH sensors (though the ping and HTML sensors work fine). Looks like they just cant connect.
I have entered the right keypair file in when i created the server and input the password correctly. not sure what is going on here. Looks like it is being rejected when the SSH sensor tries to connect.

Any ideas?

defined ports for http: test

2007-02-03T04:30:11-08:00

i would like to test non stadard http ports like 8080 on most routers, in much the same way as you can define ports in socket server sensors. i have tried servername.com:8080 which works in browsers.

cant use ping sensor from windows

2007-02-03T04:27:20-08:00

Ping works fine from a command prompt, but creating an ICMP sensor fils when a server is tested. also when trying to change sensor type, this does not save. using 2.1.

SSH port - custom doesn't work

2007-01-19T04:51:48-08:00

For security reasons, we don't run SSH on the standard port. I enter our custom port into the SSH port text box and everything is ok until we try to run an SSH sensor. It fails stating that it couldn't connect to :22 even though we changed that.

Can't use ANY sensors, getting weird errors

2007-02-10T05:57:11-08:00

Hello Guys

I have been with PortSensor for awhile (signed up for some beta deal like 9 months ago), but now I am just getting around to trying it out.

Well, I installed it and everything, added a server group, a server, configured it all up ... I know the information I used was correct, but here are the errors' I am getting.

Ping Output: Unknown Host - Details: host.hostname.com: host.hostname.com
HTTP Output: IO Exception - Details: UnknownHostException

Note: host.hostname.com aren't my server's actual values :P They were just there for the error post.

Nothing works, it seems as the application has gone haywire. Do I just have a screwed up version? I'd like to use the software, but it's making it impossible for me to do so.

Look forward to hearing some replies.

Oh yeah, I'm Sam ... nice to meet everyone :P

-Sam

Who wants to share his license with me ?

2007-02-21T09:29:26-08:00

Hi,

Can you please share your software license with me ?

Email : k4m1_67@yahoo.com

Thanks a lot

SSH sensors aren't working

2006-10-31T15:35:19-08:00

I've tried setting up an SSH sensor according to the tutorial, however, it doesn't appear to work. The sensor remains listed as "yellow", and the server doesn't show any attempt to login via SSH from the system running PortSensor. (It does of course show login attempts from other systems.)

Any ideas on what might cause this? For reference i'm running PortSensor on Windows 2003.

Change to balloon

2007-01-23T15:02:17-08:00

Would it be possible to make it so that if the balloon pops up because of a down sensor, but the sensors comes back up again, that the balloon changes to green and says like "All sensors now ok" and fades/disappears after a certain amount of time. At the moment, the balloon stays there even when the sensor was out for a minute.

Also, if a sensor goes down and the balloon comes up, could you make it go to the sensor, or even make the programme maximise when you click on the balloon.

Saving XML - problem with SNMP

2007-01-19T07:23:12-08:00

Whenever I add an SNMP V1 sensor with a community string, I am unable to save the XML file. Every other sensor is fine, but nothing can make it save when theres an SNMP sensor on any server.

Run as a Windows service?

2006-11-14T14:17:46-08:00

Hello,

I was wondering if PortSernsor would run as a Windows service?
and would it do so on Windows 2003 server?

regards,
itatcapital

PortSensor 1.0 Release (Build 255) is live on the site!

2006-10-02T08:54:09-07:00

We've just posted the 1.0 Release of PortSensor on www.portsensor.com!

What's New?

Per-Sensor Scheduling: You can now schedule the check interval of each sensor individually. This helps a lot with performance since you can now delay a slower metric like Disk Space checking to every 15-20 minutes, while CPU Load is checked every minute.

Update/Extensions Site: Download new plugins and updates through PortSensor's Help menu. You no longer need to download the whole 20MB zip file each release.

SSH Improvements: Switched to a better performance SSH library (Ganymed[sic]) which provides terminal emulation support (no more funky ANSI output on some SSH Sensor commands). Fixed memory leak issues with sensors and jobs. Added an SSH Delegate to group multiple SSH commands to be performed on the same server (one SSH/RSA handshake per server). Moved the SSH Login Details from Sensors to Servers to eliminate the redundant data entry -- this also gives us the ability to add quick SSH commands to servers in the near future (stop/start service, reboot, etc.)

Sensor Batching: To assist with installs using hundreds of sensors, and to boost performance in general, we've implemented sensor batching with a configurable amount of concurrent sensors to run per update. Sensors will also now lock while waiting to run so things are always added to the run queue in the proper order without duplication.

Monitoring Pause: You can now pause monitoring entirely from the global toolbar. Sensors can still be run manually.

SNMP v1/v3 Sensors: Support for SNMP v1/v3 was added using SNMP4J, so NSClient (Windows Performance) is no longer required. If you would still like to use NSClient for Windows Server monitoring you can download it from Help->Software Updates->Add Extensions.

Server/Group Drag & Drop: You now drag Servers and Server Groups to rearrange them.

Duplicate Sensor: Setting up a common set of sensors between servers is a lot easier with the new ability to Duplicate any sensor from its right-click menu. Simply duplicate a sensor, then drag it to a new server.

What's Next?

Instanced Notifications: The ability to configure multiple notifications per sensor, each with its own criteria to trigger. For example, a CPU Load sensor could warn to the screen at moderate load and then ring pagers/mobiles/PDAs on high load.

Historical Metrics/Reporting: Reports on sensor metrics over time (charts, etc).

Network Discovery: The ability to map your network by scanning an IP Range for specific services. Discovered services could automatically be converted into sensors.

SSH Commands: The ability to send commands via SSH from a server's right-click menu: stop/start/restart service, reboot server, clear logs, etc. SSH Commands could also be used as notification events (i.e., if a service is reported as down then try to restart it automatically).

If you're a glutton for punishment, the full changelog between 1.0 Beta (Build 206) and 1.0 Release (Build 255) is below.

Enjoy!
-Jeff@WGM

Remote Connect Option

2006-09-02T21:02:03-07:00

For extra management ease ('cause I can be as lazy as the next guy), it would be nice to have the ability to connect to the devices listed by adding a CONNECT TO option when you right-click on a server and to define the option to connect in the server profile - RDP, SSH, Telnet, etc.

Also, an INFO section so that other details can be added about the server - IP, location, main contacts, etc. This could again be a item listed when you right-click on the server or a mouse-over option with some details. Possibly some default properties window (kinda like Visio device labels) or allow custom fields and labels to be created like we can in Cerberus (did I mention we use it?)

As with any tool used by support staff, the more info available in one place it always beneficial.

GUI Icon Order

2006-09-01T08:22:44-07:00

Just something on the semantics of the GUI display. You have the icons listed as Add Sensor, Add Server, & Add Group. I think it should be the other way around. You need to have a Server Group then a Server and then a Sensor before you can do anything.

Email Notifications

2006-08-25T13:04:16-07:00

Notification is a global policy associated to one email address at this time (although one could send it to a distribution list). It would be nice to allow for multiple servers (I mean what if your main mail server dies?) as well as different email addresses or group addresses - DB Sensors alert DB admins, network devices to network admins, etc.

In our environment we have devices that need to be monitored on a 7x24 basis but failure notification on certain devices and even certain services are 9x5 M-F.

ability to send SSH-based command for service restart

2006-09-09T10:45:37-07:00

It would be nice to be able to configure an automatic SSH-based restart to failed services.