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PRTG Network Monitor 7.3 - User Manual

1. Basic Settings Schedule Name Schedule 1 The name of the schedule nuages al Mo e we m Ee sa so ator 00 00 v v v v v v v 00 00 off 01 00 v iv iv iv iv iv Vv 01 00 off 02 00 Iv lv M M M M M 02 00 off 03 00 V v v Iv lv r2 iv 03 00 off 04 00 Iv iv iv lv lv v lv 04 00 off 05 00 v iv v v iv v v 05 00 off 06 00 v rz iv v lv r2 iv 06 00 off 07 00 v v iv iv v v v 07 00 off 08 00 v v v iv iv v v 08 00 off 09 00 v v v v lv Iv Iv 09 00 off 10 00 v v iv v v v Iv 10 00 off 11 00 v iv v v iv v v 11 00 off Here you can provide a schedule name for identification purposes as well as check the respective checkboxes to determine the time range of the schedule Clicking on the daily icons at the top or at the daily off icons at the bottom allow to select deselect entire daily ranges Clicking on the hourly icons on the left or on the hourly off icons on the right allow to select deselect entire hourly ranges At the very bottom of the window you can also assign user group access rights for the selected schedule The following rights can be assigned e None This user group has no access to the schedule whatsoever As such this user group cannot see or edit the specific schedule e Read This user group has read access to t
2. You are editing 3 objects Basic Sensor Settings Lj Sensor Name 1 The sensor s name Vv Tags here_is_a_new_tag_for_all_objects Enter a list of tags not case sensitive for filtering purposes e g the top 10 lists use these tags Use space or comma as separators Use this value in order to sort this object within lists Time between two scans Use schedules to pause monitoring for a specified time span days hours throughout the week You can edit schedule definitions under the system settings Set user group access rights for this object You cannot remove rights defined for a parent node All rights are inherited to child nodes P um K 2010 Paessler AG User Interfaces 49 Other Modules The usage of other modules is straight forward Lists show the sensors alarms maps reports logs and ToDos You can navigate these lists as usual for a Windows application e Review the information by scrolling the content e Resort the lists by clicking a column header e Resize the columns by dragging column separators e Edit the list items using their context menus shown upon right click The Sensors and Alarms module also offer controls to filter the lists Working With the Tray Tool Functionality When you close the Windows GUI main window you will still see a PRTG icon in the Windows System Tray in the lower right corner of your sc
3. Access the web interface for esitename at home programname program 4 m D Email Header HTML lt html gt lt head gt 2 chiles m e Site Information Here you can define a site name used in the web interface and in the subject of emails as well as the URL for the site used for building links in emails If you want to use a symbolic DNS name to access PRTG s web server you must enter the name here e Scanning Intervals Here you can define intervals which will in turn become selectable when adding objects to the installation In order to add a new interval value merely add a numerical value followed by a time span enumerator s m h d for defining seconds minutes hours days respectively e Uptime Threshold With this option you can define when a sensor goes to a red Down state If you experience repeated fail alarms you can expand the failure tolerance here 2010 Paessler AG 126 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual e Email Options Here you can edit the footer for text only mails and HTML template that will be used for outgoing emails placeholders allowed more information in the More section below and define whether ToDo emails are to be forwarded to the administrator a specific email address or to no one at all If specific email is selected a new field appears allowing to define the email address in case e Data Purging Limits Here you can select for how ma
4. 05 15 06 45 07 00 5 g 88 8 8 8 m Downtime 36 Loading time ms Sensor Homepage 2 days Paessler Servers via Nuremberg www paessler com FE Sensor Homepage 30 days Paessler Servers via Nuremberg www paessler com 1200 ess s 800 98 GENENCUCA KERES NT E 4 T Mobile B OW ntp prta paessler com iphone http prtg paessler com phone prtg paessler com iphone Cc 16 11 Q http prtg paessler com iphone vi Back iPRTG Details Refresh Sensor Homepage Type HTTP Advanced Interval 60s Last Msg OK Last Result 738 ms Last Scan 8 15 2008 7 12 28 AM 38s ago Last Up 8 15 2008 7 12 28 AM 38s ago Last Down T Uptime 100 0000 14d 1h Downtime 0 0000 0s Graphs 1 hour interval average of 8 15 2008 3 01 17 AM Unusual 985 ms Loading time is unusually high 5 min interval av 8 15 2008 2 41 17 AM Unusual 3 163 ms Loading Sr r4 unusually high 8 15 2008 2 39 17 AM Up 978 ms 12 649 ms Loading time is 8 15 2008 2 38 28 AM Waming above the warning limit of 2 500 ms 1 hour interval average of 8 15 2008 1 01 13 AM Unusual 805 ms Loading time is unusually high 5 min interval average of B 15 2008 12 41 13 AM Unusual 1 315 ms Loading time is unusually high 5 min interval average of 8 14 2008 8 21 27 AM Unusual 1 371 ms Loading time is unusually high 8 14 2008 8 17 48 AM Up 763 ms Connection timed out Socket Error 1006
5. Add Device Create Device Template Run Auto Discovery Create Report Details Create Report Check Now Settings Check Now Delete Create Report Delete Clone Check Now Clone Pause Delete Pause Fold Clone Fold Move Pause Move Priority Favorite Move Priority Favorite Historic Data Priority Favorite Historic Data Tools Historic Data Note If you want to access the browser s own context menu hold the CTRL key down when right clicking Working with Lists and Multi Edit Menus Throughout the web interface often you will see lists of items e g sensors devices maps reports etc All these lists provide common functionality Here are two sample lists sensors and logs 2010 Paessler AG User Interfaces 43 l 1to10of10 a Pos Sensor Status Message Graph Priority E 1 PING1 Up OK p 3m hhkkk FI 2 Messages in Warning 139 Messages is above the warning Messages nig queue 1 limit of 2 I1 3 if Queue Size 1 Up OK Size 1MByle F 4 CPU Load1 Up OK Total om he eA 5 Disk Free 1 Up OK Free Space C pr Joke 6 Memoryi Up OK Percent Available Mem 36 EIU 7 i Pagefile Usage1 Up OK Total ox m 8 IMAP1 Up OK Available 2msed FI 9 POP31 Up OK su M 3msed F
6. 40 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual The individual page content starts below the website header area Depending on the page s content you will see a menu and a few action links on the right Breadcrumbs that will always show the path back to the homepage can be found below the heading The yellow boxes display context sensitive help which can be hidden by clicking the small x on the top right Many pages have a tab like interface Using these tabs you can navigate to various sub pages for an object Tab s Overview Live Data 48 Hours 30 Days 365 Days Historic Data Alarms and Log Settings and Notifications Channels Comments History Description All monitoring objects offer this tab providing a quick overview of all parameters and statuses These three or four tabs show the group s device s or sensor s historical graphs and data tables note live data is only available for sensors With this function you can review or download historic sensor data See below for further explanations Reviewing Historic Data Shows a list of current alarms and historic events for an object and its child objects Allows you to edit an object s settings and notifications The available settings depend on the kind of object you are editing This tab is only available for sensors Each sensor has one or more channels on which it stores data In this tab you can confi
7. Sensor All Traffic Live Graph 2 hours Dreieichen Core Switch 192 168 2 204 Max 315 kbit s Bl Downtime 25 E Port 1 WAN Interface kbit s NH Port 2 LAN Interface kbit s E Port 3 Mediacenter kbit s Wl Port 4 Server kbit s Here is second sample A sensor factory which compares the results of an SNMP sensor a WMI sensor and two packet sniffer sensors for one data line And there is a horizontal line at 2 Mbit s Sensor Traffic Comparison Live Graph 2 hours a Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 Probe Device 4 500 4 000 4 3 500 4 Max 308 7 kbit s 3 000 4 l g 2 500 7 2 2 000 1 500 4 1 000 500 4 o Q ne pn c n n eoep o mn 9g g G n o un gG n 9g Bw o B a OQ O Oo FT un n FS GO AH G Q H mo F TFT Hh n GC GA uu T T gt s T T N N N N 1N n N u i wo wo wo so Lal La a Lal a no ni rd rd rd a rd rd rd rd rd i H et rd rd Wl Nicht verf gbar 64 I Firewall LAN Interface via SNMP kbit s E Switch s Mirror Port via WMD kbit s i Switch s Mirror Port via Content Sniffer kbit s Bl Switch s Mirror Port via Header Sniffer kbit s 2 Mbit s Limitation kbit s The Sensor Factory can be found in the Custom Sensors section when creating a new sensor Channel Definition Basic Syntax The behaviour of a Sensor Factory sensor is controlled by a text field called Channel Definition The basic syntax for a channel definition looks like this lt id gt lt name gt
8. Office s 5o j PING 21 a Internet 4 Bridge 5052 North Side EIS ne es Bridge WE Bridge WE West Sido East Sido PING 13 E PING 14 E X E 2 Se a v Bridge 052 Mediacenter pm south Sie PING 12 E ane fal susc rc FING 17 si ena Tue day ERE Bridge te Seir 1921682204 Downstairs Sewer PING 19 TE Drelechen PING 11 Ferris 2 eo 7 Pat LAN KLUS Pon Z LAN Pots Medi etter i reechen Server KDEA Step 1 Create a New Map To get started select Maps Add Map from the main menu 2010 Paessler AG 102 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Add Map Step 1 of 2 Map Name Map Name Map 6 Map Layout Map Width 800 Please specify the width of the map in pixels Map Height 600 Please specify the height of the map in pixels Background Image optional Choose File No file chosen used as background for your PG PNG or GIF image 2 MB Public Access No Public Access This map will not be accessible without a login Allow Public Access This map will be viewable without a login if the user enters the correct URL Continue to step 2 gt Cancel or d the correct URL Fill out the fields and optionally select a map background image Enable Allow Public Access if you want users without a PRTG user account to be able to view the map Cli
9. Packet Sniffer Content PRTG captures the TCP packets reassembles the data streams and then analyzes the content of the data using an internal set of rules to identify the type of traffic see Packet Sniffer Sensors NetFlow V5 Monitors Cisco switches using NetFlow V5 see xFlow NetFlow and sFlow Sensors e NetFlow V9 Monitors Cisco switches using NetFlow V9 see xFlow Sensors NetFlow and sFlow e sFlow Monitors switches using sFlow see xFlow Sensors NetFlow and sFlow To learn more about the four methods of bandwith monitoring in PRTG see section Comparison of Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors 7 3 Web Server HTTP HTTPS Sensors The HTTP protocol Hypertext Transfer Protocol is most commonly used for the World Wide Web Web browsers request web pages graphics etc from web servers using this protocol With PRTG you can monitor your web server s performance and availability Overview Different HTTP Sensors PRTG offers the following HTTP based sensors to monitor web servers e HTTP Monitors a web server via the HTTP protocol This is the easiest way to monitor if a website or a specific website element is reachable e HTTP Advanced Monitors a web server via the HTTP protocol with various advanced settings e g to check the content of a web page or to use authentication or a proxy server e HTTP Transaction Monitors a web server using a set of URLs to monitor whether logins or shopping carts are working fine You
10. 2 2 2 2 2 Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q a a A a a a a a AI a a a ad o rl o a o a eo eo T eo g e in o o TS TS co foal a o 2 2 n E el XE COE PEL SERGE ME RU NE N N N N e e e a a a a a a o a a a a 9 9 9 9 F 9 9 9 9 F F 9 9 9 eo eo eo co eo eo eo eo co co co co co co e 3 2 S A a a a a a a a a a a a a a Traffic in kbit s Traffic out kbit s IPX Leitung ASA WAN Interface firewall1 hp7 Firewall 1 Cisco ASA 5510 Cisco IOS Cisco Switch 4 000 20004 ty pof pn 2 Il Titi in I ES t eU L U eaaa AN A M TTD on T Tr T T T T T zi T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T S 9mnguumrsrzntumsamueonzszurrumnru su os5sosruumnrTtuunususzsgsrmusn nu SSAA AR AR KHRHR ARR ESE SSB SRS BSSERBHAAKRARRHARARAA B3 ES g ggg ggg ggg ggg g ghg ggg Ss SS ggg ggg Se SSS Be amp 4 4 4 3 9 43 amp 3 BUR a amp S RR a S RS M S S S S S S 8 8 8 8 amp 8 RRR RRR NN N8 amp N8 RRR RAR RRR RARRAR RRA RAR ARR RN RN RN Date Time Traffic in Volume Traffic in Speed Traffic out Volume Traffic out Speed Coverage 21 09 2008 2 993 862 KByte 284 kbit s 899 783 KByte 85 kbit s 100 20 09 2008 2 716 966 KByte 258 kbit s 770 235 KByte 73kbit s 100 19 09 2008 3 719 085 KByte 353 kbit s 1 868 967 KByte 178 kbit s 100 18 09 2008 3 450 011 KByte 327 kbit s 1 122 424 KByte 106 kbit s 100 17 09 2008 43144
11. e Step 2 Assessing the device type for all devices discovered in Step 1 using SNMP WMI and other protocols e Step 3a Creating sensor sets that match the discovered device types of Step 2 based on built in device templates with recommended sensors for many device types e Step 3b optional Creating sensor sets using user created device templates see Copying Devices by Cloning or Using Device Templates The Auto Discovery can be used on a group level for a range of IP addresses or for individual devices you might have created manually It can be run just once on demand via the context menu or scheduled every hour day or week Running the Auto Discovery every day or week will automatically create new sensors when new devices are connected to the network As soon as new devices or sensors are discovered new ToDos are created and mailed to the system admin Please be aware of the following restrictions of the Auto Discovery e PRTG can not discover devices that can not be pinged since Step 1 uses PINGs e g if a firewall blocks echo requests a device behind it cannot be discovered e You must supply authentication settings for SNMP Windows WMI and VMware servers in order to fully exploit the power of this feature If a device has more than one IP address it may show up more than once in the discovery results even though PRTG tries to identify these situations Creating an Auto Discovery Group To create a new auto disc
12. e e e o N If the EXE does not return control to the PRTG process it is killed as soon as the timeout value set for this sensor is reached 2010 Paessler AG 152 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual You can test the EXE file you want to use for the sensor very easily on the command line cmd exe Simply start the EXE file and pipe the results into a file e g sensorexe parameter gt result txt The results are then written into the file result txt and you can check the results with notepad or any other text editor As parameter variable you can also use the following placeholders host Device IP DNS device Device name probe Probe name name Sensor name Please make sure you write the placeholders in quotes to ensure that they are working properly if their values contain blanks CMD BAT files The CMD BAT file must send the results to the Standard OUT The data must be in the following format value message Value has to be a 32 bit integer and will be used as the resulting value for this sensor e g bytes milliseconds etc message can be any string and will be stored in the database The script s exit code has to be one of the following values e 0 ok e warning e 2 error If the EXE does not return control to the PRTG process it is killed as soon as the timeout value set for this sensor is reached A simple sample batch file would look like this ec
13. 27 02 2009 11 30 00 11 45 00 14 eee 80 le 24787 TCP 231 KByte lt 1 1 27 022009 11 15 00 11 30 00 15 mm 80 ee 153 TCP 213 KByte lt 1 27 02 2009 11 00 00 11 15 00 16 e 9 5665 ce 25 TCP 212KByte 1 l 27 02 2009 10 45 00 11 00 00 i 80 na 27561 TCP 211KByte ixl 27 02 2009 10 30 00 10 45 00 18 M 80 27565 TCP 20 KBye lt 1 1 27 02 2009 10 15 00 10 30 00 19 o 80 e Ml 24788 TCP 184KByte lt 1 l 27 02 2009 10 00 00 10 15 00 20 1449 23560 TCP i81KBye 1 l 27 02 2009 09 45 00 10 00 00 21 TT 80 55435 TCP 172KBye lt 1 27 02 2009 09 30 00 09 45 00 22 o 80 t oo 1239 TCP 170KByte lt 1 27 02 2009 09 15 00 09 30 00 3 80 om 4521 TCP 170K8yte 1 l 27 02 2009 09 00 00 09 15 00 24 o 80 lt 4864 TCP 170 KByte 1 l 27 02 2009 08 45 00 09 0000 25 e 20 e 27570 TCP 170K8yte ixl 27 02 2009 08 30 00 08 45 00 26 me 80 o 1979 CP 167 KByte lt 1 l 27 02 2009 08 15 00 08 30 00 z ara 80 l 2131 XP 163KByte ixl 27 02 2009 08 00 00 08 15 00 28 80 27568 TCP i158KBfe 1 l 27 02 200907 45 00 08 0000 29 m 80 49 TCP 157K
14. API All features for day to day use are implemented in the Windows GUI for some features the web interface 2010 Paessler AG 22 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 3 8 is shown Please see Windows GUI for details and installation instructions Uninstallation To uninstall PRTG Network Monitor e Select the Add Remove Programs option from the computer s Control Panel e Select PRTG Network Monitor from the list of programs e Click the Remove button to uninstall the program Or select the Uninstall PRTG Network Monitor icon from the PRTG Network Monitor group in the Windows Start Menu Note During uninstallation your monitoring data will not be removed automatically After the completion of the uninstallation process of the software please check the PRTG Network Monitor installation folder and delete all remaining files that you do not want to keep Also please check the Documents and Settings All Users Application Data PaesserPRTG Network Monitor V7 Windows XP folder for remaining data files which are not automatically removed 2010 Paessler AG Part Basic Concepts of PRTG Network Monitor 24 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 4 1 Basic Concepts of PRTG Network Monitor There are a number of basic concepts that lay the foundation for the functionality and ease of use of the PRTG Network Monitor We have made using our software as easy as possible Neverth
15. Add Sensor from the Sensors menu in the latter case you can choose if you want to add the sensor to a will be either asked to create a new parent device or to choose an existing device as parent The Add Sensor dialog appears Creating new sensors involves two steps First you must select a sensor type then after some preparations by PRTG you need to specify the sensor settings 2010 Paessler AG 58 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Sensor Type Your Top 10 Sensors The sensor types you are using the most Common Sensors O SNMP Traffic WMINetwork Card Bandwidth Monitoring Web Servers HTTP HTIPS SNMP Windows Systems WMI gt Internet Protocols Mail Servers gt SQL Servers gt File Servers gt Virtual Servers VoIP and Infrastructure Custom Sensors gt All Sensors The most common sensor types for network monitoring PINGS are used to check whether a device is reachable via the network at all Optionally you can use this sensor to measure packet loss Tries to connect to the specified TCP IP port number of a device and waits for the request to be accepted Performs PINGs to monitor the availability of a device Checks the availability of TCP based network services Monitors a web server via the HTTP protocol You only need to supply an URL for this sensor Supports monitoring of bandwidth bits s and volume bytes
16. Basic Concepts of PRTG Network Monitor 29 Root lt 3 PRTG Monitoring Station Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 Probe Device Group 1 Group la Le Mail Server 1 Lu Web Server 1 Group 1b 2 Firewall 1 i Probe Health 100 E PING 1 lmsec E Pagefile Usage o B PING 4 2msec e HTTP 3 B1msec B PING 3 2msec Ed48 portSwitchl PING2 Group 2 JNAs1 Linux Server BlESX Server1 EB VoIP Server Priority 2msec 5 010 Service F 6 kbit s ij 016 Ethernet 963 kbit s E 034 Servive F 6kbit s i 045 Mirror Pc 822 kbit s E PING 5 3msec s NIC3 180 kbit s i PING 7 2msec iM PING6 3msec i VM S 2 i PING8 7 msec 5 Disk Free 405 Messages ing 1404 ma IMAP 1 S msec lej HTTP2 76 msec of Web Interface 413 msec i HTTP 1 884 msec i 011 Service 6 kbit s of 022 Terastat 11 kbit s E 035 Service 6 kbit s E 046 Tape Lib 6 kbit s E CPU Load 3 5 E CPU Load 4 1 5 ESX Server He 10 E CPU Load 033 s IP SLA lmsec 5 Intel R PRO 1 150 kbit s E Queue Size 1 1MByte 5 POP31 4msec e ES Faes Sent 2 0 03 Files s s Port 1 24 kbit s 5 001 to SWw2 425 kbit s 5 012 Service 5 kbit s E 025 to sw2 327 kbit s E 036 Service F 6 kolt s af 047 VPN Des Bkbit s DiskFree 3 34 id HTTP 4 27 msec al VM1 2 ej NICL 26 kbit s
17. Loading imo is o oo ually high 8 8 8 8 38358 5 min interval average of 2233 838 11142008 8 2127 AM Unusual 1 371 ms Loading imo is nagg PE unusual high EAS 88 18 14 2008 8 748 AM Up 763 me Connection med out Socket Sensor Homepage 20 day Paestler Servers via Nuremberg www paesslercom wimoo8 1748 AM Warming Conor 3084 ms Loading mo is 1200 7 10 Asal 8 14 2008 8 16 30 AM Warning above the waming Smit of pm bos x 2 500 ma LE Visual Read more about it in section iPhone Interfaces 2010 Paessler AG User Interfaces 37 5 1 Web Interface The AJAX based web interface is used for the configuration of devices and sensors as well as the review of monitoring results The web interface 1s highly interactive and uses AJAX Asynchronous Javascript and XML to deliver a powerful and easy to use user experience While the user is logged in the data on the screen is permanently refreshed via Ajax calls so it always shows the current monitoring results refresh interval and method can be set by the user Login As default login name and password are both prtgadmin without the quotes unless specified differently during setup You can change login name and password any time using PRTG Server Administrator The Interface After logging into the web interface you will see PRTG s welcome page as default This page helps you to add sensors manually perform an automatic network
18. SMB SAMBA based monitoring files folders disk shares Remote Desktop Protocol RDP and Microsoft SOL when Windows Authentication is activated in this sensor s settings It is recommended to enter a user account with administrator privileges e WMI Compatibility Options Here you can specify a WMI timeout and the RPC server port for WMI communication Credentials for VMware Servers If you want to work with VMware ESX ESXi servers or VMware Virtual Centers please provide the necessary user account which will be used for auto discovery and for monitoring Credentials for SNMP Devices and SNMP Compatibility Options Please select the SNMP version and enter the necessary authentication strings used in your network The defaults are SNMP VI community string public and port 161 Scanning Interval Please select the default interval that shall be used for monitoring by all sensors Unusual Detection You can enable disable the detection of unusual sensor activity Access Rights Use these settings to define which user group may view or edit objects Channel Unit Configuration Configure the unit settings for each channel type All of these predefinitions can later be overridden by disabling the Inherit setting in an object s settings further down in the device sensor tree Creating Groups Devices and Sensors Manually Creating Groups Manually To create a new group go to the devices list Devices in the main menu and loca
19. When using a Microsoft SQL server you can also choose to use the Windows Authentication if probe computer and the Microsoft SQL Server are in the same domain You can change the Credentials for Windows Systems in the settings of the device on which you are creating the sensor As default these settings are inherited from the Root group unless specified differently see Reviewing Settings of the Root Group for more details For more configuration tips see Paessler Knowledge Base article http www paessler com knowledgebase en topic 1063 Notes for Oracle SQL Sensors e Supports Oracle servers 11g 10g 91 81 8 0 and 7 3 including Oracle 10g Express and Oracle 8i Personal and Lite editions requires default TCP Port Setting 1521 e Connections work through direct TCP IP communication SQL NET Note OCI is not supported any more e Port You need to supply the TCP IP port for the connection in this field Usually the default value 1521 is correct Notes for MySQL Sensors e Supports MySQL server 5 1 5 0 4 1 4 0 and 3 23 Note For this sensor type no port number can be set e The database setting is a logical entity on the database server where database objects like tables or stored procedures exist In case of the mySQL server it also reflects a physical directory structure where your database objects are stored Enter the appropriate string which is the same as you would supply when invoking the mysql exe admin tool with
20. virt 100 m Client 2003R2 50 m Client 2003 R2 virt 8 Client Vista 0 n Client 2008 Pig ae a s aO g S ae 4 SU a s Client 2008 virt E M ot Nd Na S AS s Client Win7 Beta x E eS 9 ge F ce S S S S S ri SUO 3 NE ss oS Client Win7 RC virt 7 S a 3 S S aS s P Ee S S s ne e wv w S The results of our tests are e On Windows XP Windows 2003 Windows 7 Windows 2008 R2 you can run about 10 000 WMI sensors with one minute interval under optimal conditions such as running the core and the target systems exclusively under Windows 2003 and being located within the same LAN segment Actual performance can be significantly less depending on network topology and WMI health of the target systems we have seen configurations that could not go beyond 500 sensors and even less On Windows Vista Windows 2008 R1 you can run about 300 WMI sensors with one minute interval e The more Windows Vista Windows 2008 Windows 7 client systems you have in your network the more WMI monitoring performance will be affected System performance CPU memory etc of virtualization does not strongly affect WMI monitoring performance If you want to use WMI for network monitoring of more than 20 30 boxes please consider the following rules Do not use Windows Vista or Windows 2008 R1 as monitoring stations for WMI based network monitoring If possible use Windows 2003 R2 Server for WMI based network monitoring followed by XP an
21. 35 85 9o 260 MB 55 GB 150 kbit s CPU load is higher while users are accessing the web interface Running PRTG on Virtual Machines PRTG Core Server as well as PRTG Probe can be run on virtualized platforms The following platforms were tested successfully Technology Client OS VMware ESX ESXi version 3 5 and VSphere 4 Windows XP Windows 2003 32 64 bit Windows Vista Windows 7 32 64 bit Windows 2008 32 64 bit 2010 Paessler AG 12 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual VMware Server 2 0 Windows XP Windows 2003 32 64 bit Windows 2008 XEN Server 5 0 Windows XP Parallels Virtuozzo Containers Windows 2003 Server 32 64 bit Cloud Platforms Amazon EC2 GoGrid SoftLayer Windows Server 2003 Web Browser Requirements The following browsers are officially supported for the PRTG web interface in order of performance and reliability e Google Chrome 3 recommended e Mozilla Firefox 3 5 e Apple Safari 4 e Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 e Note Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 is deprecated and may not be supported in future versions of PRTG A note on browser performance PRTG s web interface makes heavy use of Javascript and AJAX We found that for some functions Chrome and Safari are up to 10 times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and 3 5 times faster than Firefox 3 5 Requirements for Monitored Devices e SNMP monitoring The monitored device s must be equipped wi
22. 5 IP SLA 40 msec 021 FastEthe E 022 FastEthe E 024 FastEthe 95 kbit s 95 kbit s 95 kbit s f j 028 FastEthe mj 029 FastEthe 5 Free VO Mem 94 kbit s 97 kbit s 65231kb CPU Load 1 3 iM SMTP1 7 msec i CPU Load 2 2 id Port 2 28 kbit s 5 002 tp PC SW 795 kbit s 013 PP 164 kbit s i 026 to PC SW 657 kbit s E 037 POP 1145 kbit s E 048 Cisco Fin 820 kbit s E Memory 3 66 m Network Traffi 64 kbit s i VM2 1 i NIC2 174 kbit s i CPU Load 5 75 5 025 FastEthe 95 kbit s E Disk Free 1 65 i DiskFree 2 65 id Port 3 48 kbit s 5 004 Ethernet 1 168 kbit s 5 014 FRANK 501 kbit s fj 027 Temp Ra BS kbit s E 038 HANK 482 kbit s E 053 Uplink to 775 kbit s i NIC1 180 kbit s i VM3 1 lf Processes 74 Processes 5 001 BRIO 1 C lt 0 01 kbit s 5 026 FastEthe 95 kbit s is Port4 28 kbit s 4 005 Ethernet 8 kbit s 5 015 NAS1 708 kbit s E 032 LENNY 804 kbit s i 039 NAS2 27 kbit s s 054 Workstat 1452 kbit s i NIC2 441 kbit s a VM4 2 8 004 BRIO 1 1 lt 0 01 kbit s 9 027 FastEthe 94 kbit s The basic idea of the priority concept is ensure that the most important sensors are always shown first in the sensors and alarms lists This guarantees you never miss an important outage You can specify a priority for each object in the sensor tree sh
23. CloudWatch VMware Sensors The sensor types for VMware are e VMware Host Server Monitors a VMware ESX ESXi Host Server version 3 5 or vSphere 4 0 e VMware Virtual Machine Monitors a single virtual machine While the Host Server sensor only works directly with an VMware ESX ESXi server as its parent device you can use the Virtual Machine sensor in two ways e Use it to directly communicate with a VMware ESX ESXi Host Server to monitor virtual machines running on this server e Use it to communicate with a VMware Virtual Center installation to monitor all virtual machines managed by this virtual center Only this option supports virtual machines running on VMware Server 2 x and virtual machines that are under control of VMware s VMotion feature For VMware sensors PRTG needs an administrator login for the host server s You can enter these credentials in the VMware Credentials section for the parent device or group The sensors will then inherit these settings Remarks Due to performance limitations we recommend to keep the number of VMware sensors querying the same virtual server and using the same user account below 20 If you have more sensors you should use two or more user accounts or your should distribute the sensors across multiple probes VMware is a registered trademark of VMware Inc Microsoft Hyper V Sensors Hyper V is the virtualization technology built into the latest Windows servers With PRTG you can use two sens
24. Format This is the output format for the report You can select between an HTML web page an XML file and a CSV file for import in Microsoft Excel for example Include Percentiles Activate this option to add a percentile value to the report See section Calculating Percentiles for more information Click on Start to generate the Historic Data report Please note Depending on the selected output format either a new browser window or tab will open and show an HTML web page or the browser will start the download of an XML or CSV file If you just generated an HTML web page report and it is still opened while you are generating another no new browser window or tab will open but instead the existing HTML web page will be refreshed and it will show the most recent report During report calculation PRTG may allocate large amounts of RAM depending on average interval and the report time span To avoid system overload and ensure system stability PRTG automatically limits the minimum average interval depending on the time span automatically selected via Start and End date Level of Detail Maximum Timeframe in Historic Data Report Raw Data all single monitoring requests For up to 24 hours 1 day Averages between 1 and 60 minutes For up to 24 hours 1 day Averages between 60 and 1440 minutes For up to 30 days Averages for one or more days For up to 365 days 1 year 5 2 Windows GUI This program is a native Windows application that communicat
25. H 511049 of1876 gt 5 i 5110100 of 100 2 Tem Count Toplist periods Pos Source IP Source Port Destination IP Destination Port Protocol Bytes 27 02 2009 15 00 00 15 15 00 Other 56MBye 70 EBENEN 27 02 2009 14 45 00 15 00 00 1 mm T c ore 2 TCP 6 006 KByte 7 W 27 02 2009 14 30 00 14 45 00 2 me ree 80 POP paesslergmbh de 10 0 0 202 2093 TCP 1 116 KByte 1xl 27 02 2009 14 15 00 14 30 00 E o l 80 POP paesslergmbh de 10 0 0 202 4438 TCP 1 116 KByte 1l 27 02 2009 14 00 00 14 15 00 4 ee we 80 POP paesslergmbh de 10 0 0 202 3455 TCP 1116 KByte 15 27 02 2009 13 45 00 14 00 00 5 o eee eee 80 POP paesslergmbh de 10 0 0 202 4935 TCP 1116KByte 1 27 02 2009 13 30 00 13 45 00 6 23560 we 2137 TCP 775KBye lt 1 l 27 02 2009 13 15 00 13 30 00 7 443 ee M 8 1303 TCP 699KBye lt 1 27 02 2009 13 00 00 13 15 00 8 ee 22 oo o 49739 TCP S7SKBye ixl 27 022009 12 45 00 13 00 00 5 9 5 o 49108 443 TCP 481KByte 1l 27 02 2009 12 30 00 12 45 00 10 so p m m 54321 e e i76 TCP 435KByte il 27 02 2009 12 15 00 12 30 00 11 80 0 1597 TCP 365KByte ixl 27 02 2009 12 00 00 12 15 00 12 s se o an lt 80 51499 TCP 309KBye lt 1 1 27 02 2009 11 45 00 12 00 00 13 C t 49841 e 25 TC 271K8yte lt 1 l
26. Hard Disk Drive 78 Monitor Mail Server 75 Monitor PING 64 Monitor Port 64 Monitor SAMBA 78 Monitor SMB 78 Monitor SQL Server 77 Monitor via SNMP 68 Monitor via WMI 71 Monitor Web Servers 65 Monitor Website 64 Monitoring Bandwidth 87 Monitoring Switch 85 MOS 80 MS SQL 77 MSN Messenger 94 123 125 Multi Edit 37 Multiple Selection 37 My Account 121 MySQL 77 N Net Send 94 123 NetFlow 64 85 87 140 Network Broadcast 94 123 Network Provider 153 Network Sketch 100 New User 128 News 32 94 Notice 32 Notification 31 94 123 Notification Delivery 125 Notifications 61 Notifications Concept 32 0 Object 27 OIDLIB 68 Operating System Requirements 10 Oracle SQL 77 Orange Sensor 37 Order of Objects 27 Overview of Sensor Types 64 Own Application 151 P Packet Delay Variation 80 Packet Loss 80 Packet Sniffer 64 83 87 140 Packet sniffing 64 83 140 Paessler 18 Pager Message 94 Password 37 45 121 128 129 PDF 109 PDV 80 Percentile Calculation 153 PING 74 PING Sensor 64 Plan 32 Play Sound 94 123 POP3 75 Popup Messages 37 45 Port 74 129 135 Port Sensor 64 POST 65 Post Office Protocol POP3 75 Powershell 82 Probe 21 24 27 129 135 143 Probe Access Key 129 135 Probe Administrator 135 Probe Connection 129 135 Probe Management 125 Probe Server Admin Tool 135 Probes 30 Product Activation 20 Professional Edition 7 18 Program 82 151 Pro
27. Name Tags Device Icon mu m gla EJ el EJ Oh A Odo OF OD OD OF OA amp Bosmosuoeogososom m Bd xj Device Type Sensor Management 9 Manual no auto discovery D Automatic device identification standard recommended Automatic device identification detailed may create many sensors 5 Automatic sensor creation using specific device template s IV Inherit Credentials for Windows Systems from ist group visible to all user accounts Domain or Computer Name paesslergmbh Username admin IV Inherit Credentials for VMware Servers from 1st group visible to all user accounts User empty X Inherit Credentials for SNMP Devices from ist group visible to all user accounts SNMP Version V1 SNMP Port 161 SNMP Timeout sec 5sec Continue gt Cancel There are two settings that you must enter for a device The name and the IP address or DNS name Optionally enter Tags choose a device icon or review the inherited credentials and then click Continue If you want to use one of the automatic options in the Device Type settings please see section Creating Devices and Sensors Using the Auto Discovery for more details Creating Sensors Manually To create a new sensor go to the devices list Devices in the main menu and locate a device where the new sensor is to be added Right click the device and then choose Add Sensor from the context menu As an alternative you can choose
28. No Yes Yes bandwidth usage by protocol or IPs PRTG can No No Yes Yes show Toplists Top Talker Top 2010 Paessler AG 88 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual T 16 Connections Top Protocols etc Filter bandwidth usage by IP Filter bandwidth usage by MAC address Filter bandwidth usage by physical network port Monitor network parameters other than bandwidth usage CPU load on the machine running PRTG Excess bandwidth usage of monitoring WMI No Yes Low Small SNMP No Low Small Sensor Factory Sensors Packet Sniffer No Higher depends on the amount of traffic None except when monitoring switch ports are used xFlow Netflow sFlow Higher depends on the amount of traffic Depends on the traffic A sensor with special capabilities is called Sensor Factory It allows combining measurements from two or more sensors into one new sensor Samples for usage are e Show two or more channels from one or more sensors in one graph e Add the value from two or more channels from one or more sensors into a new value you can also subtract multiply and divide values e Create charts with one or more graph lines and one or more horizontal lines at specific vertical positions This is the graph of a Sensor Factory with 4 channels that use data from 4 different sensors 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 89
29. Servers via Cologne 55 devices Bj 6 Sensors 5 7 Sensors Monitored via Singapore SG usonyx net 116 12 51 166 Paessler Servers via Singapore 555 devices ii 4 Sensors 1Sensors B Sensors 2008 11 01 2009 01 01 46 2009 03 01 s a 2008 05 01 2008 07 01 PRTG Network Monitor V7 1 1 3046 2009 Paessler AG Logged in as Public Demo User Read Only Refresh in 13 sec 4 7 2009 2 26 47 PM Read more about it in section Web Interface Windows GUI The Windows GUI allows you to completely control your PRTG installation using a native Windows application When minimized it sits in your system tray and displays popups or plays alarm sounds whenever new alarms or events happen When maximized you have access to the sensor tree detailed information about groups devices sensors maps reports and logs 2010 Paessler AG 36 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual S 1 5l 17 E 785 i 46 Sensors Alarms Maps Reports Logs Todos Setup 9 o overview Graphs Log settings History 3 Local probe IE Broadcom Hetxtreme Gigabit Ethemet Live Graph 2 hours z T m etl Probe Device si 1 3Eichen Site Probe Device E Servers on prtgtestserver 4 4 ac prts 1 100 Date Time Sum volume Sum speed Trafficin volume 3tichen Site soo MA 05 09 20
30. T FRR ENE DE 50 Part VI Device and Sensor Setup 54 1 Reviewing Settings of the Root Group eese rer 54 2 Creating Groups Devices and Sensors Manually eene 56 3 Creating Devices and Sensors Using the Auto Discovery eee 59 4 Edit Sensor and Channel Settings eene enne nnne nnn nennen nennen 61 Part VII Sensor Types 64 LEE COMMON Sens m 64 2 Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors eese eene nnne nennen nennen nnne nnn nennen 64 3 Web Server HTTP HTTPS Sensors eese nennen entren nn nnn nnne nenne nennen 65 4 SNMP Sensors eue ae de aud 68 5 Windows Systems WMI Sensors eese nennen enne nnne nennen nennen nn nennen 71 6 Various Protocol Sensors neret eerta d ier EL desdcadenesteustaeedeedeeeedde laces 74 t Mall Server Sensors norit re Eee Idee tret ronde etre ERE 75 8 SQL Server Sensors eret einer EE RAINA EERE ASAA ENE RATA APR cvesscueteavastxceussaters 77 9 File Server Sensors eiie Ve nanda nenns ONANAN SN Ann an Eure NANNAN EES KENNAN SEa NEn EANES NERAN 78 10 Virtual Server Sensors eere Pme eet ce ete Er iret Ert aire ERA 79 11 VolP and QoS Sensors necne temere kecet etae pex Puno epe ERR Da Eee ReD e Ve ERR IDE a E Ex ennnen E RREEE 80 JAEOTEYGIHESJ ICI 82 13 Packet Sniffer Sensors eee rere AA iE AARNE URNA tet Robe REE ES DAN SAR DERE 83 14
31. The device s SNMP port Standard is 261 If the reply takes longer than this value the 1t 2 SNMP request fails PRTG tres again This helps with devices that fall to answer at times Some devices handle overfiows incorrectly This behavior can cause false peaks in regular intervals Some devices sometimes send incorrect 0 values causing peaks The interface scan wil search for 32bit traffic counters only even if the device reports 54bit counters angle option if you want a single request for each SNMP value might be useful for older SNMP devices Enter a single OID which is extended by the port number or a custom sting with placeholders in for Configure the unit settings for each channel type 2010 Paessler AG 56 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 6 2 Please review the settings and refer to the help texts on the right for detailed explanations for each of them Remember that you can override these settings for all child objects later There are the following sections e Credentials for Windows Systems The Active Directory user account provided here will be used to access different systems in your network especially during the Auto Discovery process This includes WMI based monitoring and Server Message Block
32. as separators Priority Saad v Use this value in order to sort this object within lists HTTP Specific imeou 60 lt If the reply takes longer than this value the ae i request is aborted and an error message is triggered http IE Enter a valid URL to monitor The server part e d e g www paessler com may be different from the DNS Name property in the settings of the associated server If the protocol part e c HTTP is omitted HTTP is used Request Method GET HTTP request method OPost OHEAD SSL Method sslvSSLv23 v Change this if you don t get a SSL connection 7 Inherit Scanning Interval from Probe Device Scanning Interval 60sec Continue gt Cancel In step two the settings available depend on the sensor type Please review the settings and make any necessary changes then click Continue The new sensor will start monitoring right away 2010 Paessler AG Device and Sensor Setup 59 6 3 Creating Devices and Sensors Using the Auto Discovery PRTG s Auto Discovery is a great way to automatically create a sophisticated and concise set of sensors for your complete network It is mainly suitable for LAN discovery since it involves a lot of SNMP and WMI To see a video of this please go to http www paessler com support video tutorials How Auto Discovery Works PRTG s Auto Discovery process has three stages e Step 1 Scanning a network segment for devices using PINGs for groups only
33. bar e g the name of an IP sensor you will leave the Map Editor and enter the object s details page 2010 Paessler AG 106 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual e Resize the item by dragging the small arrow at the bottom right corner e Delete the item by clicking the Delete link in the black grip bar at the top e Edit item settings by clicking the Settings link in the black grip bar at the top A dialog will appear similar to the one you already saw while adding a new map item You can then change the associated monitoring item template the HTML as well as the position and size Edit Map Object Object Pm 4 Template Status Icons for Groups Devices or Sensors m With Name White Background F Local probe With Name White Background Large EB Probe Device With Name Transparent With Name Transparent Large IM Probe Health No Name Transparent CPU Load No Name Transparent Large TJ Disk Free With Alarm Sound Audible Alarm if Alarms gt 0 Status Icons for Sensors Only li Memory Frae With Name and Minigraph White Background Broadcom BCMS708C Netxtreme II GigE NDIS VBD CL With Name and Minigraph White Background Large With Name and Last Value White Background MS TCP L ick interfa So E With Name and Last Value White Background Large _ Pagefile Usage 1 Minigraph only J Memory 1 Graph Large Fonts Live Graph 48 Hours L Probe Service 30 Days L PRTG P
34. by a specific OID WMI Custom Performs a custom WMI query written in WQL WMI Query Language See Windows Systems WMI Sensors EXE Script Runs a custom program EXE DLL or script batch file e Packet Sniffer Custom Accounts for data packets using user specific rules see Packet Sniffer Sensors NetFlow V5 and V9 Custom User configurable versions of the NetFlow sensor see xFlow Sensors NetFlow and sFlow sFlow Custom User configurable version of the sFlow sensor see xFlow Sensors NetFlow and sFlow e Sensor Factory see Sensor Factory Sensors Custom EXE DLL BAT CMD VBS PowerShell and WQL Sensors You must create the sensor as a file and place it in a specific folder on the system running the PRTG probe i e 1f you are using remote probes the files must be copied to the remote system e Place executables EXE DLL batchfiles CMD BAT VBS scripts VBS or PowerShell scripts PS1 into the PRTG Network Monitor Custom Sensors EXE subfolder e Place WQL scripts WQL into the PRTG Network Monitor Custom Sensors WMI WQL scripts subfolder You will find a sample set of demo sensors in these folders too As soon as a file is placed into the folders mentioned above you can create or edit your own Custom EXE sensor or WMI Custom sensor and select the new file from the list of files The local probe will run the file on the local PRTG Core Server system But for remote probes the file will actually run on t
35. com prtg download Downloading the Commercial Editions Updates are free to customers with an active maintenance contract Please log into the Paessler website at www paessler com login to get the latest download If you do not have an active maintenance contract please contact sales paessler com Upgrading to Version 7 from Previous Versions Upgrading from Older Version 7 x Versions If you have been running PRTG Network monitor with an earlier V7 x version number simply install the latest version on top of the previous version Upgrading from PRTG Traffic Grapher 6 or IPCheck Server Monitor 5 If you have been running one of the two predecessor products of PRTG 7 namely PRTG Traffic Grapher Version 6 or IPCheck Server Monitor Version 5 you can import most of your data monitoring setup and historic data into PRTG 7 Importing data from earlier versions is not possible Please refer to this Knowledge Base article on the Paessler website http www paessler com support kb prtg7 tricks data import from _prtg6 or ipcheck5 2010 Paessler AG 16 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 3 3 Installation of a PRTG Core Server Installing the software is similar to other Windows based applications To install the application please run the installation setup routine from the ZIP file that you have downloaded The usual software installation wizard will guide your through the installation process Setu
36. must supply a series of URLs GET and or POST requests including the parameters to monitor a transaction e HTTP Content Monitors a return value provided by a HTTP request This sensor requests a HTTP URL and then parses the returned result for one or more values in square brackets This is mainly used in combination with scripts running on a server HTTP Full Web Page Monitors the full download time of a webpage including images etc uses Internet Explorer to perform a full page download All sensors support HTTP and HTTPS Common Settings HTTP Sensors All HTTP sensors include basic sensor settings and these HTTP specific parameters e Timeout Time in seconds after which the request is aborted URL The URL address of the web page to monitor including the leading http Please see section Smart URL replacement below for other options You can also enter the address of a specific web page element here for example the URL to a JPG file Request Method The HTTP request mode to use GET POST HEAD GET requests the website directly like browsing the web If you want to monitor a URL for a POST form you must select the POST method and enter the Postdata The HEAD method only requests the HTTP header from the server without the actual web page Although this saves bandwidth since less data is transferred it is not recommended because the measured request time is not the one experienced by your users and you might not be noti
37. no notifications will be sent e Master object for parent This setting will make the current object the so called master object for its parent device All sensors of the parent device will be paused whenever this master sensor is down It is recommended to set a basic sensor e g PING to be the master sensor for example the auto discovery sets the PING sensors for each device as the master object T Tip Testing your dependencies is easy Simply choose Pause Set sensor to error from the context menu of a sensor that other objects depend on A few seconds later all dependent sensors should be shown with a blue paused icon Select Pause Resume from the sensor s context menu to restart monitoring afterwards 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Part User Interfaces User Interfaces 35 5 User Interfaces With PRTG Network Monitor you have several options for the user interface You can use all of them at the same time and you can use multiple copies at the same time too e g by opening several browser windows or by running the Windows GUI on several computers Web Interface The main interface is a browser based interface which is used to configure the software set up sensors review current status and create reports Using an advanced control concept it provides full functionality and is the first choice for new users Here is a screenshot 3 41 47
38. search review results download the Windows GUI or iPhone applications and get further help and support ue Alarms 0s Response Time index 0 CPU Load index 0 Traffic Index KE Home Devices Sensors Alarms Maps Reports Logs ToDos Setup Heip logout Getting started with PRTG Network Monitor Download the Windows GUI Use PRTG s native Windows user interface Add Sensor s Manually Create sensors manually using a Perform Network Auto Discovery Pease Automatically create sensors for your servers and devices Install the iPhone App Log into PRTG from your iPhone Get Help and Support The user manual and the Paessler Ce support website are ready to help you Review Results Check the status of all sensors in the Sensor Tree Help Welcome Page ad This Welcome Page provides you with a simple starting point for PRTG Network Monitor It is your default homepage and will be shown when you log in and whenever you click the Home link To select another page as your homepage please navigate to the desired page and choose Make This My Homepage from the Home menu Your Freeware Edition license supports 10 sensors PRTG Network Monitor 7 2 1 4721 2009 Paessler AG Logged in as PRTG System Administrator Refresh in 19 sec 13 11 2009 13 46 29 E m j D By click
39. settings If you do not want to see any individual sensors in the tree view enter a zero for Max Sensors per Device Account Control only PRTG Administrator Users can edit settings here e Account Type Choose between Read Write User or Read Only User Read Only User can only view objects and values and cannot edit any configuration settings All editing functions are disabled and hidden in 2010 Paessler AG System Settings and Administration 129 the user interface Of course this user can only see objects that are enabled for this user A Read Write User can also edit every object that is write enabled for this user e Primary Group Each user is mandatorily member of a Primary Group User access rights for objects and settings are controlled on group level e Status The administrator can set a user to Inactive meaning the user can not log on Creating New User Groups This is for Administrator Users only To create a new user group select Setup User Groups from the main menu and click on Add new user group See next section User Group Settings for details about the options User Group Settings This is for Administrator Users only To edit a user group s settings select Setup User Groups from the main menu and select a group You have these options e User Group Settings Here you can enter the name of the group e User List Select which users from the user list should be member of th
40. to select a day week month 2010 Paessler AG Reports 113 or year period too Report only for specific hours of day Schedule You can select a schedule to narrow the monitor data for the report Only sensor data monitored during the specified time will be used then Please note The items in the drop down selection are inserted by the central Schedules engine To change these settings or to add a new schedule please select Setup Schedules from main menu see section Account Settings Edit Schedules for more details e Show Percentile For some report templates you can activate a percentile calculation here for each sensor channel See section Calculating Percentiles for more details e Report Comments You can enter a customized introduction and footer comments which will be added at the beginning and the end of your report Access Rights For each User Group you can specify access rights for this report Options are None Read Write and Full Remarks To get a quick and easy report of one single sensor its best to use the Historic Data report function See section Reviewing Historic Data in chapter Web Interface More If you want to further adapt the look of your reports you can change report templates Please refer to the Paessler Knowledge Base article HowTo Change Report Templates at http www paessler com support kb prtg7 prtg change report templates 2010 Paessler A
41. xFlow NetFlow and sFlow Sensors eese enne nnn innare nni rines 85 15 Comparison of Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors eeeeeeeeeeennenee nennen 87 16 Sensor Factory Sensors eeseeeeeeeeeeeen ee eeennn ERE ERE 88 Part VIII Notifications 94 Part IX Maps 100 Part X Reports 109 Part XI ToDos 115 Part XII User Management 117 Part XIII System Settings and Administration 120 1 Account Settings Edit My Account vsere nnne nennen ennemi n nnn nnne nnns 121 2 Account Settings Edit Schedules eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen eene nnne nnn nnn 121 3 Account Settings Edit Notifications eseeseeeeeseeeeenee nennen nnne nnne nennen nnns 123 4 System Administration Edit System Setup eese 125 5 System Administration Edit User Accounts and User Groups eee 128 2010 Paessler AG PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Part XIV A OO N O AON OU System Information and Optional Downloads eene 129 PRTG Server Administrator ere nnnn nnne nnn nnne nnn nnne nnn anne nennen 129 PRTG Probe Administrator eie ect eee ce trn ePe te exi orae bat rte XR EE SERE FREE ERR ERE rns 135 Advanced Topics 140 UPC 140 Multiple Probes and Remote Probes c eccceeceeeeseeeeeeeeeeeneeeeneeeeeeeeseseeaneeseseeeseeseneneneeeees 143 Copyi
42. you have to run through the Product Activation process in order to use it continuously only Freeware and Trial Edition are activated automatically and do not require a special procedure The activation has to be done within ten days after installation and only takes a few minutes If you do not activate PRTG for ten days it will temporarily revert to Freeware Edition with a maximum of 10 sensors until you activate Login to the PRTG Web Interface to activate 2010 Paessler AG Installation 21 Activation via Internet In the PRTG Web Interface choose Setup Activation Status from the main menu M3 46 48 mi Alarms R 3e Response Time Index n 138 CPU Load Index 0 Traffic Index 0 search_ Home Devices Sensors Alarms Maps Reports Logs ToDos Setup Help Logout Product Activation Refresh Menu License Activation Status Licensed Edition Current activation status of your software Activation required license Last message about activation Your license must be activated You have only 9 days left for activation afterwards the software will switch back to the Freeware Edition Click here to activate Current Activation Stamp 7 2 5 N3D66 41376638 Start Activation Now Activation Help Start Activation per EMail Finalize Activation per EMail Click on the button Start Activation Now to start product activation PRTG will now connect with Paessler to check you
43. 0 3 084 ms Loading time is 8 14 2008 8 16 30 AM Waming above the warning limit of 2 500 ms 8 14 2008 8 17 48 AM Waming Sensor Homepage Live Graph 2 hours M Simply point the Safari browser of your iPhone to the URL https your prtg server iphone and you will see the login dialog Enter your credentials and a few seconds later you will see the sensor tree with groups devices and sensors on the iPhone display Tap on a sensor and you will receive a display with detailed information about the sensor recent graphs logfile entries Please keep the following security aspects in mind e You could also use HTTP to connect to your server but encrypted access with SSL HTTPS is recommended in order to keep your password secure e As an added level of security you could create a user just for your iPhone logins that only has read access for the Root Group or for selected groups that you want to monitor remotely in case you have more than a few sensors 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Part Device and Sensor Setup 54 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 6 1 Device and Sensor Setup Before starting to create sensors review the Root group s settings that will be inherited by all other objects see Reviewing Settings of the Root Group As soon as this step is completed you can start to create groups devices and sensors to monitor your network Th
44. 01 channel ID 2 channel 2001 2 Channels can be gauge values e g PING ms or delta values e g traffic kbit s values Not all combinations are allowed in a formula There are calculations you cannot do You cannot add subtract a delta from a gauge channel and vice versa You cannot multiply two delta channel You cannot compare a delta with a gauge channel e e e e You cannot use a channel of another Sensor Factory channel in the formula min and max Functions The min and max functions return the minimum or maximum of the two values The syntax is min lt a gt lt b gt max lt a gt lt b gt Values for a and b are either numbers or channel functions see this example min 10 5 min channel 2001 1 channel 2002 1 The first one returns 5 the latter one returns the minimum of channel 1 of the sensors with IDs 2001 and 2002 avg Function avg returns the average of the two values This equals a b 2 The syntax is avg lt a gt lt b gt 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 91 Example avg 20 10 This function returns 15 percent function Calculates the percent value of a value e g a channel compared to a given fixed value The syntax is percent source lt maximum gt lt unit gt Source is the value the percent is calculated for This is usually a channel function Maximum is the limit value used for the pe
45. 09 10 01 28 AM SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net PING 24 Down Request timed out ICMP error 11010 9 9 2009 10 01 28 AM SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net HTTP 24 Paused Paused by Dependency 3 9 9 2009 10 01 26 AM SNMP 1000 sq prtgtestserver net PING 24 Warning Request timed out ICMP error 11010 9 9 2009 10 00 24 AM prtgtestserver net SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net Resuming Resumed by Dependency 9 9 2009 10 00 24 AM prtatestserver net SNMP 1000 sa prtatestserver net Active v Alarms 41new New Messages 8 New Todos 0 Lx Configuring the Windows GUI Select File Options amp Server Settings to edit the settings for the Windows GUI 2010 Paessler AG 50 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 5 3 Options System Start With Windows Alerting for new Messages Alerting for new ToDos Show in Tray PRTG Server Connection C Clear Tray Blink Notification automatically Update Interval s 60 Language English Lox cm Here you can set various alerting options enter one or more PRTG server connections and you can configure command line tools The following settings are available for alerting you can test the current settings by clicking Test e Blink the icon in the Windows system tray e Show a balloon popup near the system tray e Show a popup window e Play a soundfile e Open the main GUI window Alerting for new Ala
46. 09 16 58 02 69KByte 9 kbit s 21KByte Probe Device z fy MP 05 09 2009 16 57 02 69 KByte 9 kbit s 20 KByte 5 Probe Health 100 2 i piena ax 1 05 09 2009 16 56 02 71KByte 9 kbit s 21KByh 5 Disk Free 75 05 09 2009 16 55 01 70 KByte 9 kbit s 21 KByte _ Memory Free 31 g a 8 8 2 8 s E n E WP argiak binin enin Broadcom Netxtreme Gigabit Ethernet 2 days i PRTG Probe Process Ime 3Eichen Site Probe Device J FI al Hes Date Time Sum volume Sum speed Traff Packet Sniffer 3 11 kbit s 05 09 2009 16 50 00 16 55 00 346 KByte 9 kbit s H ST3750640AS 128 GB or i 44 C 05 09 2009 16 45 00 16 50 00 388 KB iibi E ST3750640AS 128 GB or 40 C E i Packet Sniffer 1 11 kbit s d a ER QoS 3Eichen to Miami 11ms 338823222288 05 09 2009 16 35 00 16 40 00 383KByte 10 kbit s gt tua hop BRLLSSLRRLES a H PING 67 21msec BS X X Um oM M E PING Quality 21msec Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet 30 days 2 E firewalla Serm Sis reba Davie Date Time Sum volume Sum speed T 10000 I PING 15 32m 05 09 2009 15 00 00 16 00 00 4748KByte 11kbit s E PING Quality 33msec s HS 38 LAN wis E 5 000 05 09 2009 14 00 00 15 00 00 4 668 KByte 11 kbit s 253 Paessler Labs Site paeclient 0 05 09 2009 13 00 00 14 00 00 4 703 KByte 11 kbit s 5 53 Probe Device Bio SEESSSESEE Sas 4 768 KByte 11kbit s E Servers on prtgtestserver 4 RRRRAR AAR A S88 3 Probe auf dirkO1 virtuozzo bs OHERERAgO RR RRS L H Probe Device mem Br
47. 2009 10 25 00 10 30 00 3 msec 0 100 96 111 msec 0 96 100 7Files 0 02 Files s 0 100 95 09 09 2009 10 20 00 10 25 00 3msec 0 96 100 83 msec 0 100 15 Files 0 05 Files s 0 100 95 09 09 2009 10 15 00 10 20 00 3msec 0 100 130 msec 0 100 13 Files 0 04 Files s 0 100 95 09 09 2009 10 10 00 10 15 00 2msec 0 100 95 89 msec 0 100 17 Files 0 06 Files s 0 100 95 09 09 2009 10 05 00 10 10 00 6 msec 0 100 156 msec 0 100 20 Files 0 07 Files s 0 100 09 09 2009 10 00 00 10 05 00 4msec 0 100 107 msec 0 100 28 Files 0 09 Files s 0 100 94 09 09 2009 09 55 00 10 00 00 3msec 096 100 77 msec 0 100 11 Files 0 04 Files s 0 9c 100 na na ING na cn na na amp c nn E meer ne nn oe 00 mear no nn o 17 Filer n n amp Flac le ne mn o v EA al Wl PING 4 Downtime IS HTTP 2 Downtime 26 Wl 15 Files Sent 2 Downtime Wi ATP 3 Downtime 22 3 PING 4 Average msec I3 HTTP 2 Loading time msec ise JN iS Files Sent 2 Files Sent Files s If you select the Settings tab you will see edit fields only for those object settings that are shared by all selected objects e g the interval is shared by all sensors tags are shared by all objects Select the leftmost checkbox for the settings you want to edit for all objects they will be shown with a green background enter the desired value s and click Save Overview Live Graph 2 days 30 days 365 days Log Settings History
48. 446 Alarms 0 Response Time Index 0 CPU Load Index 0 Traffic Index 0 search Home Devices Sensors Alarms Maps Reports Logs ToDos Help _ Legout d Group Root Edit Refresh Menu Home gt Devices Overview l 2 days 30 days 365 days Alarms Log Settings Notifications Comments History Group Name Root Group Root 2 days System Sensors by State ali 5447 446 Total 94 Root Monitored via San Francisco CA GoGrid com 216 121 88 83 Paessler Servers via San Francisco 6 devices B 5 Sensors 9 Sensors Monitored via Miami FL newservers com 199 34 125 241 Paessler Servers via Miami 76 devices tj 12 Sensors 2 Sensors WB Alarms I Response Time Index 5 HH CPU Load Index NM Traffic Index 94 04 05 18 00 4 04 06 00 00 4 04 06 06 00 4 04 06 12 00 4 04 06 18 00 4 04 07 00 00 4 04 07 06 00 4 04 07 12 00 4 Monitored via EC2 USA East Coast m1 small 75 101 167 67 Group Root 30 days lt Paessler Servers via East Coast USA System 55 devices Bj 2 Sensors j 11 Sensors Monitored via EC2 Europe cl medium 127 0 0 1 Paessler Servers via Ireland 5 devices of 12 Sensors 1 Sensors 2009 03 11 2009 03 14 2009 03 17 2009 04 01 2009 04 04 2009 04 07 Monitored via London UK webhosting co uk 91 186 1 54 gt Paessler Servers via London p6 devices Bj 6 Sensors of 8 Sensors Monitored via Cologne DE HostEurope de 80 237 173 201 Paessler
49. 49 KByte 409kbi s 1122875 KByte 205 RDMA 3008 16 09 2008 3 927 667 KByte 374 kbit s 1 205 807 KByte 115 kbit s 100 15 09 2008 4 392 578 KByte 418 kbit s 1 674 498 KByte 159 kbit s 100 Sums of 7 values 25 514 618 KByte 8 664 589 KByte Averages of 7 values 3 644 945 KByte 346 kbit s 1 237 798 KByte 118 kbit s 100 Creating reports involves 3 steps Step 1 Setting up a Report Select choose Reports Add Report from the main menu to get started 2010 Paessler AG 110 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Add Report Home gt Reports gt new object Basic Report Settings Report Name Report Please choose 2 descriptive name Template lt please select a file gt mm Please choose a report template from the list of available templates There are templates that offer optional data tables to the graphs You also specify the graph calculation intervals by selecting a template Note You can edit the HTML templates in the website reporttemplates subfolder of your PRTG Installation Timezone GMT 01 00 Amsterdam Berlin Bern Rom Stockholm Wien X Timezone setting for alle dates regarding this report This includes schedule dates report timespan and dates in tables graphs Paper size Letter Please specify the paper size for which the report shall be formatted Orientation Landscape mm Please specify the p
50. 94 123 Enterprise Edition ErrorLog 32 Error Settings 61 Espa ol 129 135 ESX 79 ESXi 79 Evaluate Data Events 32 EXE 82 94 123 151 Execute 123 E Factory Sensor Features 6 File Monitoring 78 File Transfer Protocol Firefox 10 Flash Graphs Folder 135 Folder Monitoring Folders 129 Frangais 129 135 Freeware 7 Freeware Edition French 129 135 FTP 74 NC German GET 65 Get Software 15 Global Status Bar Google Chrome Graph Intervals Green Sensor 37 Grey Sensor 37 Group 27 30 56 59 GUI 21 H Hard Disk Drive 78 Hardware Requirements 7 18 31 109 88 74 121 128 78 18 129 135 37 10 129 10 2010 Paessler AG Index 157 Hash 128 Header Based Packet Sniffing 83 Hierarchy 27 High Speed Switched Networks 85 Historic Data 37 Host 79 How Alarms Work 31 How Logs Work 32 How PRTG Architecture works 24 How PRTG Works 24 How the Object Hierarchy works 27 How to Access System Information 129 How to Activate Software 20 How to Change Probe System Language 135 How to Change Schedules 121 How to Change Settings of Sensors and Channels 61 How to Change System Language 129 How to Choose the Right License 7 How to Choose the Right Sensor 64 How to Choose the Right Sensor Technology for Bandwidth Monitoring 87 How to Choose the Right User Interface 35 How to Create Devices and Sensors Automatically 59 How to Create Devices and Sensors Manually 56 How t
51. Byte isl 27022009 073000 074500 s mm 20 375 TCP 150K8yte isl You can select a Toplist in the list at the beginning of the page You can select the time period on the left 2 27 2009 2 45 00 PM 3 00 00 PM H 31to100 of100 gt gt P Pos Source IP Source Port Destination IP Destination Port Protocol Bytes Other 807KByte 24 AMI M backup 192 168 2 104 1208 165 75 243 170 23560 TCP 357KByte 10 W 2 mail2 myzms com 62 146 10 41 80 backup 192 168 2 104 3932 TCP 203 KByte 6 B 3 mail2 myzms com 62 146 10 41 80 backup 192 168 2 104 449 TCP 203KByte 6 Il 4 mail2 myzms com 62 146 10 41 80 backup 192 168 2 104 4220 TCP 201KByte 6 B 5 www t online de 217 6 164 162 80 backup 192 168 2 104 4254 TCP 132KBye 3 ll 6 www t online de 217 6 164 162 _ 80 backup 192 168 2 104 4529 TCP 131 KByte 3 l 7 www t online de 217 6 164 162 80 backup 192 168 2 104 3964 TCP 129KBye 3 Il 8 www t online de 217 6 164 162 80 backup 192 168 2 104 3929 TCP 120 KByte 3 l 9 www t online de 217 6 164 162 80 backup 192 168 2 104 4492 TCP 120KByte 3 1 10 www t online de 217 6 164 162 80 backup 192 168 2 104 4216 TCP 120KBye 3 1 11 noname 192 168 2 102 1036 239 255 255 250 8082 UDP 98KByte 25 PRTG tries to show a DNS name for each IP address by performing reverse DNS requests Each entry of the list shows the IPs Ports etc depending on the Top
52. Device If you experience an overload please consider using sampling or setting up multiple probes and distribute the NetFlow streams to them We do not recommend adding more than 400 NetFlow sensors per PRTG probe Tools Paessler NetFlow Generator NetFlow Generator creates artificial NetFlow Version 5 data streams without the need for NetFlow compatible hardware It is a perfect tool to test the NetFlow functionality of PRTG or other NetFlow compatible programs http www paessler com tools netflowgenerator Paessler NetFlow Tester NetFlow Tester simply dumps the data of all NetFlow 5 packets that a computer receives from a Cisco router useful when debugging bandwidth monitoring configurations based on NetFlow protocol http www paessler com tools netflowtester See also e Comparison of Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors e Toplists e Paessler Knowledge Base Configuration Tips for Cisco Routers and PRTG http www paessler com support kb questions 20 e Cisco Netflow information http www cisco com go netflow e sFlow website http www sflow org 7 15 Comparison of Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors The following table shows the differences between PRTG s four methods available for bandwidth monitoring WMI SNMP Packet Sniffer xFlow Netflow sFlow Setup Medium Easy Easy to Complex Can be complex depending on filter e g the switch rules used must be configured Traffic can be No No Yes Yes filtered Differentiate No
53. ER ve RR 2 EXIT Starting Probe on WINXPVMWARE Data Path C documents and settings V All Users a eel 1399 040 0 Corse Server IP and Port 10 0 2 167 23560 Probs WIR il Connected to 10 0 2 167 23560 Login OK Welcome to PRTG For example if the connection fails due to an incorrect Access Key password you will see Hi OL ZOLO LO Sle O2 ew i lees s il Ol ZOLO 16s 33 02 Comaceecl tuo 10 0 2 1672 23560 11 01 2010 16 31 07 Login NOT OK Access key not correct 14 3 Copying Devices by Cloning or Using Device Templates After configuring a device with one or more sensors there are two options to copy it e Cloning a device Is the best option to simply duplicate a device only a few times with all its sensors and settings e Using device templates Is the preferred option if you have many similar devices and if you do not want to create all devices manually through the web interface This is also the better option if the devices do not have the same number of ports Cloning a Device Choose the context menu item Clone from the device s context menu PRTG will ask you for the new parent group and well as a new name for the device The new device will be initially be paused to give you the chance to edit sensor settings if necessary When all sensors are configured correctly you can resume monitoring for the device with all its sensors Using Device Templates In order to create a device template PRTG stores t
54. G 134 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Under the Service Control tab you can install uninstall as well as start stop the Core service Log PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log About View View Today s Web Server Log s Web Server Log View Core Server View Core Server System Log Log Open Log Folder Log Folder 12 4 2009 11 38 12 AM 12 4 2009 11 38 12 AM PRTG Network Monitor 7 2 3 4990 Core Server starting on XP PRO 12 4 2009 11 38 12 AM Freeware Edition licensed For DEFAULT FREEWARE Edt 0 MaxS 10 DayL 0 ce 12 4 2009 11 38 12 AM Windows XP 5 1 1 Build 2600 Service Pack 2 1 CPUs Intel Pentium on VMware 12 4 2009 11 38 12 AM System Path C Program Files PRTG Network Monitor 12 4 2009 11 38 12 AM Data Path C Documents and Settings All Users Application DatalPaesslerlPRTG A 12 4 2009 11 38 12 AM Formatting M d yyvy dddd MMMM dd yyyy himm AMPM h mm ss AMPM 12 4 2009 11 38 12 AM Starting Core Server PRTG Network Monitor 7 2 3 4990 Freeware Edition ID 10 12 4 2009 11 38 13 AM Starting webserver For IP 10 0 9 141 80 URL http 10 0 9 141 12 4 2009 11 38 13 AM Loading Configuration File C Documents and Settings All Users 4pplication Data 12 4 2009 11 38 15 AM Loading Configuration File OK Under the Log tab you can view the current day s web server l
55. G PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor ToDos ToDos 115 11 ToDos ToDos to do tasks are PRTG s way to hand over tasks to you as the administrator when an event occurs that PRTG cannot handle without your attention Click on ToDos in the main menu to see a list of all ToDos ToDos Refresh Menu Home Todos Help ToDos ad Whenever PRTG comes across and event or monitoring object that needs your attention it will add an entry to this list ToDos will remain in this list until you acknowledge them or until the database is purged 1to3 of3 p DateTime Object Status Priority Message Links 18 02 2009 Probe on New Probe Anew probe has connected Probe on Virtuozzo 10 0 10 2 3426 Go there Acknowledge 15 14 03 Virtuozzo 16 02 2009 Root New Version Software update available for PRTG Network Monitor Recommended update V7 0 9 2049 is a Acknowledge 11 27 22 maintenance release covering multiple bugfixes particularly covering a number of WMI issues Please visit www paessler com prtg7 download to download the latest version and to view the change log You are using V7 0 0 278 the new version is V7 0 9 2049 Visit the Paessler website 31 01 2009 Root SMTP E Mail via MX Sending E Mail via MX failed Please consider using a SMTP Server Configuration Acknowledge 00 03 39 Configuration 1to3 of3 Dom You will see a new ToDo whenever any of the following situations arise e Th
56. I 10 s SMTP 1 Up OK valable 3m 1to100fl0 on l gt 51t08 of 530 04 09 2009 i8 v Date Range v Item Count Date Time Parent Type Object Status Message 04 09 2009 15 13 27 None User fa PRTG System Administrator Edited See history for details 04 09 2009 14 21 00 Mail Server1 Exchange Server 2003 WM Messages in queuel Warning 139 Messages is above the warning limit of 2 04 09 2009 14 20 27 Group 1a Device e Mail Server 1 Resuming Resumed by Dependency 04 09 2009 14 20 27 Group 1a Device amp Mail Server 1 Active 04 09 2009 14 20 27 Mail Serveri Exchange Server 2003 WM Messages in queue 1 Resuming Resumed by Dependency 04 09 2009 14 20 27 MailServeri Exchange Server 2003 WM Queue Size 1 Resuming Resumed by Dependency 04 09 2009 14 20 27 Mail Server WMI CPU Load I CPU Load 1 Resuming Resumed by Dependency 04 09 2009 14 20 27 Mail Server1 WMI Memory Memory1 Resuming Resumed by Dependency 1 to8 of530 e 04 09 2009 B s The following functions are available for lists Feature Display What it does Paging l 1to8 of 530 I Use the small triangular icons at the top or bottom to walk through a list page by page Sorting Pos Sensor Status You can re sort a list by clicking the header of the O column you want to use as sorting index Date Range v Date Range When viewing log lists you can click on Date Range to change the desired date range Item Count v Item Count Some lists off
57. Imports MIB Management Information Base files and converts them into OID libraries for use with PRTG Network Monitor http www paessler com tools Paessler SNMP Tester SNMP Tester can run simple SNMP requests against a device in a network to debug SNMP requests down to the protocol level in order to find communication and or data problems in SNMP monitoring configurations http www paessler com tools See also e Comparison of Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors e Knowledge Base article SNMP MIBs and OIDs an Overview on Paessler website http www paessler com support kb questions 49 7 5 Windows Systems WMI Sensors Windows Management Instrumentation WMI is the base technology from Microsoft for monitoring and managing Windows based systems WMI allows access to data for many Windows configuration parameters as well as current system status values Access can be local or remote via a network connection WMI is based on COM and DCOM and is integrated in Windows 2000 XP 2003 Vista and Windows 7 add ons are available for Windows 9x and NT4 PRTG officially supports WMI for Windows XP or later In order to be able to monitor remote machines PRTG s WMI sensor needs Active Directory account credentials to have access to the WMI interface You can enter these credentials in PRTG for the parent device or group The sensor will then inherit these settings WMI Sensors PRTG supports the following WMI based sensor types e WMI C
58. Interval 60 Username username ua we pani tm FORDELTE SE Last Msg oK OK 143 ms Avers OK 740 ms Load OK 1922 m Lose Password Downioads USA Downicads EU Last Result 738 ms pisai Last Scan 8 15 2008 7 12 28 AM 38s ago dl Last Up 8 15 2008 7 12 28 AM 38s ago OK 1 ms Average Last Down Device Firewali 2 PING Uptime OK 23 me vrac Ur 100 0000 14d 1h Downtime poA 0 0000 0s E pes R E ms Average BR 197 ms tas PRT Nt Mo 78127 ies E08 O88 Pe A Deve bole mentors Beet Graphs Ph Wiebste Website 5S1 OK 184 ma Avara hour mterval aw OK 1140 ms Lom Sensor Homepage live Graph 2 hous T Mobile 3 16 11 16 12 Graphs Date Time Status Mossage 1 hour interval average of 18 15 2008 3 01 17 AM Unusual 985 me Loading ta is Sensor Homepage Live Graph 2 hours Paesse Servers via Nuremberg www paesslercom unusually high 5 min interval average of T 85 2008 2 41 17 AM Unusual 3 163 ms Loading time is unusually high 15 2008 2 20 17 AM Up 978 ms 0530 6 00 4 oro H i 12849 ms Loading ine gt 1182008 2828 AM Waring above va warning Vd pte Downtime 96 Loading time mi Sensor Homepage 2 days Passer Servers via Nuremberg www paestlerom 1 hour interval average of 18152008 1 01 13 AM Unusual 805 ms Loading imo is 4000 7 10 unusually high PN i 5 min interval average of Bam VIL E amp lanso 12 41 13 AM Unusual 1 915 ms
59. PRTG Network Monitor V7 sarawan monitoring m Availability monitoring User Manual m Usage monitoring PAESSLER the network monitoring company PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Table of Contents Part I 1 2 3 Part Il 1 Part lll ce N Oa Ft WD Part IV O co 0 0 OQ NM N a O Part V Introduction 6 Key Feature Sus iiien aa aE a o EE ENAN tence AND ced ESSEN A a Eaa sede cue EINO ENAERE INR E 6 Available licenses cer EEN aana i oaaao Eaa EAEE 7 About This Document 2 aaae a aeaaaee e ra aE ete decode ce teer ra aaa Aa ce raso a aiaa aate Naaa 8 System Requirements 10 Detailed System Requirements eese eee eene nennen nenne nennen nnn nnn 10 Installation 15 Downloading the Software ceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee enne rer nnne nrnn innen nnne nenne nennen 15 Upgrading to Version 7 from Previous Versions eeeeeeeeeeennnenenennnneennnen nnne 15 Installation of a PRTG Core Servet ccccecceeseeeceeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeseneeeaneeseseeeseseeaaneeseeeseseeseeaneeeeeees 16 Entering a License Key esses nennen enne Er nnne nnn n nnne nnn n nennen 18 Activating the Product inerte entrenar rna o nn Ea annm ernannt ER amer LASERE 20 Installation of a PRTG Remote Probe c ccceceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaneeeeeeeeseesaaneeseeeseseeseeaneeeeaees 21 Installation of the Win
60. PU Load Measures CPU load of a system total and per CPU e WMI Memory Displays free system memory MB and 95 e WMI Disk Free Free disk space on fixed drives MB and per drive Monitors all disks of a target system in one sensor each volume in a different channel 2010 Paessler AG 72 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual WMI Network Card Measures traffic going through network cards WMI Volume Monitors free disk space on Volumes Monitors only one volume one disk per sensor available for Windows Vista or higher Preferred option to WMI Disk Free WMI Pagefile Checks the usage of the Windows page file WMI Service Checks if a service is running and optionally restarts a service if it is not running WMI Process Monitors a single process WMI Event Log Monitors a system s application system and security event log for specific events WMI File Monitors file size and existence as well as changes to a file WMI Custom Performs a custom WMI query WMI Vital System Data Users can select from more than 30 different vital Windows System parameters CPU Percent Processor Time CPU Processor Queue Length CPU Processor Percent Privileged Time CPU Processor Percent User Time System Thread Context Switches sec Memory Free Physical Memory Memory Total Visible Memory Memory Pages sec Memory Page Faults sec Memory Page Reads sec Memory Page Writes sec Memory Percent Pagefile Usage Mem
61. System Language With this setting you can change the language of the web interface and the PRTG Server Administrator Select a language of your choice German English Spanish French Japanese A restart of server services will be necessary 2010 Paessler AG System Settings and Administration 131 Core Server PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log About _ IPs for Probe Connections O Localhost only 127 0 0 1 no remote probes OC Specify IPs For probe connections 127 0 0 1 is automatically active as it is needed For the local probe Probe Connections Port 23560 ER Standard 23560 Path for data files C Documents and Settings All Users Application Data Paessler PRTG Ne bd Use compression Note Please copy your PRTG data files to the desired location BEFORE changing the path here Revert to defauk path Under the Core Server tab you can define the IPs for probe connections The connection between Core and probe is initiated by the probe see section Multiple Probes and Remote Probes You can select to use all IPs for connections localhost only or individual IPs from the list provided You can further define the port for probe connections as well as define a path for all Core Server data files you can optionally turn on compression and revert to the default path by clicking on the r
62. T Checks the availability of TCP based network services FTP Monitors the availability of a FTP Server DNS Checks a DNS Domain Name Service server RDP Remote Desktop Checks whether the RDP service of a device is available HDD Health Monitors the health of IDE disk drives via SMART RADIUS Checks Remote Authentication Dial In User Service servers It connects to a RADIUS server and checks if login credentials are accepted Syslog Receiver Receives and analyzes Syslog messages can only be used in probe devices e SNMP Trap Receiver Receives and analyzes SNMP Traps can only be used in probe devices FTP Sensor FTP short for File Transfer Protocol is used on the Internet for exchanging files e g to upload content to a webpage or to download files from a server The FTP sensor monitors a FTP server s availability Parameters include Timeout If the reply takes longer than this value the request is aborted and an error state is triggered Port The port number of the FTP service you want to monitor usually port 21 FTP Mode If you don t get a connection use the passive mode Username The FTP username to log in with Password The FTP password for this username TLS Transport Level Security Select whether or not to use a secure connection If you chose Use you can additionally select an SSL Method If you do not get a connection try a different SSL method DNS Sensor Configuration The DNS Domain N
63. X 60 Mail to Admin v Mailto Admin v 300 Mailto Admin v Delete Add State Trigger Speed Trigger s Using Speed Triggers you can send out notifications when a traffic sensor reaches a certain bandwidth limit for a specified time Channel Condition Value Scale Time Latency sec On Notification Off Notification no triggers defined Add Speed Trigger Volume Trigger s Using Volume Triggers you can send out notifications when a traffic sensor has reached a certain volume limit in a specified time Channel Value Scale Period On Notification no triggers defined Add Volume Trigger Threshold Trigger s Threshold Triggers are flexible means of sending out notifications when certain values are measured by a sensor Channel Condition Value Latency sec On Notification Off Notification no triggers defined Add Threshold Trigger Save Cancel You can add as many triggers of each type as desired e g one trigger for DOWN events and another one for UNUSUAL events This even includes several triggers for one single sensor channel e g you can create a 2010 Paessler AG Notifications 97 bunch of Threshold Triggers for several different thresholds of one sensor channel Click on Add Trigger fill out the edit fields and click on Save State Trigger s When editing state triggers you will see the following sett
64. a 100 Short Message Service 94 123 Short Message Service Delivery Show System Information 129 Show System Settings 129 Show Traffic Usage 140 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol 75 Simple Network Management Protocol Simple Network Management Protocol Sensor Site Information 125 Site License 18 SMB 78 SMS 94 123 SMS Delivery SMTP 75 123 SMTP Delivery 125 SMTP Relay 123 Sniffing 64 83 SNMP 64 68 87 SNMP Helper 68 SNMP Library 68 SNMP Sensor 64 SNMP Traps 68 80 125 78 125 64 68 87 64 125 Software Requirements 10 Software Version 129 Sound 94 123 Sound Notification 94 123 Spanish 129 135 SSL 150 Static Images 121 128 2010 Paessler AG Index 161 Statistic 153 Status Bar 37 Status Information 129 Stop Sensor 33 Synchronization Information 129 Syslog 94 123 System Administration 125 System Events Log 32 System Log 94 System Requirements 10 System Settings 125 System Setup 120 System Startup Log 129 System Tray 45 eT Tables 31 109 Tabs 37 Take Over Settings 30 Tasks 32 115 Timetable 32 Timezone 121 128 ToDo 32 115 ToDos 32 115 ToDo Concept 32 Todos 115 Toplist 140 Traffic Sensor 68 83 Transaction 65 Tray 35 45 Trial 7 Trigger 123 Triggers 94 U Uninstallation 22 Unlimited License 18 Unusual Detection 125 Upgrading From 15 Use Secure Connection 150 User Access Concept 31 117 User Account 117 User Concept 31 User Defi
65. a without the need for a user account Read more about this in the section Maps Reports Concept Reports are used to analyze monitoring data either once or at specified intervals You can define any number of reports specify the sensors for a report select a template and run them at any interval you like such as once 2010 Paessler AG 32 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 4 8 4 9 4 10 4 11 daily weekly or monthly Read more about this in the section Reports Logs Concept In the Log list the log file with all monitoring events is shown In a typical setup a huge amount of data is produced here As the activity of every single object is minuted you can use this data to check exactly if your setup works as expected To support you when viewing the log files there are several filters available Move your mouse pointer over the Logs main menu item and from the appearing menu select a filter Filters By Group By Status Change and By System Events are available Select All to see all log entries unfiltered Additionally to browsing the pages you can also use the controls in the upper right corner of the list to change Date Range and Item Count of the currently shown list ToDos Concept Whenever PRTG comes across an event or monitoring object that needs the administrator s attention it will add an entry to the ToDos list and send an email to the admin user ToDos are cre
66. abits For xFlow monitoring the router gathers bandwidth usage data flows aggregates them and sends information about these flows to PRTG using UDP packets When sampling is used mandatory for sFlow only information about every n th packet is sent to PRTG which reduces CPU load a lot Because the switch already performs a pre aggregation of traffic data the flow of data to PRTG is much smaller than the monitored traffic This makes NetFlow the ideal option for high traffic networks that need to differentiate the bandwidth usage by network protocol and or IP addresses 2010 Paessler AG 86 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Re QeQedG e Cao S NetFlow Monitoring PRTG supports flow monitoring using NetFlow with the following sensors types e NetFlow 5 Monitors switches using NetFlow VS e NetFlow 9 Monitors switches using NetFlow V9 e NetFlow 5 Custom User configurable version of the NetFlow sensor e NetFlow 9 Custom User configurable version of the NetFlow sensor Before you can create NetFlow sensors you must configure the NetFlow export on your switch router Configure the switch to send the NetFlow packets to the computer running a PRTG probe either the local probe or a remote probe The NetFlow port port number that the UDP packets are sent to and the flow timeout must be set to the same value in the router and in PRTG Finally don t forget to open the NetFlow port in the PRTG s
67. ach object can be defined in an object s settings There you can define different rights for each group Again these settings are inherited See section User Management for more information Alarms Concept Alarms are sensors in Error Warning or Unusual state The Alarm page shows the list of sensors that are in one of these states If all your systems are running fine this page should not list any sensors at all The Alarm overview is a good start if you want to solve problems in your network Using the on mouse over main menu you can select what kind of Alarms you want to see The options are All Errors only Warnings only and Unusuals only Additionally to browsing the pages you can also re sort the data shown in the Alarm list just by clicking on the column headers or change the item count per page available for big lists Maps Concept Using Maps you can create personalized overviews and dashboards of your monitored network A map can include a background image such as a network drawing You can place status icons lists of sensors as well as graphs with your current monitoring status on the map You can define any number of maps and use them to create a NOC Network Operation Center Dashboard an overview of the network status for your Intranet a webpage with the graphs of your most important sensors and more By setting the Access rights to Public Access you can provide others with URLs to a map so they can view the dat
68. additionally control the group access settings A user can only add and delete objects if the user has Write or Full access to the parent object You will see an additional checkbox for groups and devices Revert children s access rights to inherited If you select this box the access right of all child objects will be reset to inherited which actually deletes all individual right settings for the underlying objects This is the quick way to reset all access rights and should be used with caution 2010 Paessler AG Part System Settings and Administration 120 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 13 System Settings and Administration Basically you can make settings at two different locations In the web interface and in the Windows administrator programs The settings for your account the system settings and most of the system administration settings are available from the Setup menu in the web interface Some settings that dig deeper into the system e g web server IP and port entering the license key or changing the system language are located in the PRTG Server Administrator and PRTG Probe Administrator This is a screenshot of the web interface s Setup screen Overview My Account Schedules Notifications Comments History Account Settings Edit My Account Edit Schedules Edit Notifications Please choose this option to edit your Using Schedules you can paus
69. age and what refresh interval in seconds you want to use You can also specify when Pop up Alerts are shown or an Audible Alarm should be played e Web Interface Here you can enter the URL which the web interface will use as homepage As default welcome htm is used which is the welcome page you have already seen after logging in Also you can set the charts display mode Select static images for faster graph processing or Flash for increased interactivity You can further specify a delay for Flash graphs to better support slow clients e Auto folding PRTG tries to keep the page size for the pages with the sensor tree small by automatically folding groups and devices with many items In these fields you can define how many groups devices or how many sensors maximum are to be shown before the specific branch is reduced folded e Account Control These fields allow you to define to what group s the user in case belongs to among other defining the user s access rights Non admin users can also be set to active or inactive by selecting the respective radio button available for the admin only e User Groups Shows a list of all groups the user is a member of Account Settings Edit Schedules In the web interface click on Setup Schedules in the main menu to open the Schedules settings Here you can define timetables that can be used later to pause monitoring for groups servers or sensors based on time and day of week as well as p
70. age through third party services Please see Check Notification Delivery Settings in this section e Execute HTTP Action Send postdata to a URL e Execute Program Run an external program or batch file Play Sound File Play a sound via external speakers of the system running the PRTG core sound card required Notifications contain valuable sensor information such as e ast error message e Last good failed request e Total downtime e Total uptime e Recent sensor history You can use various placeholders in your message Some are already filled in by default For a list of all placeholders please refer to the Knowledge Base article at the end of this section More Using Notifications There are three steps to take in order to use notifications with PRTG 1 In the System Setup check the Notification Delivery Settings 2010 Paessler AG Notifications 95 2 In the Account Settings create edit notifications for later use 3 In an object s settings create triggers that invoke your notifications Check Notification Delivery Settings Before using certain notification methods a general one time administrator setup is required Please refer to the section Notification Delivery Settings in System Administration Edit System Setup Creating Notifications To create or edit notifications choose Setup Notifications from the main menu Click a name to edit a notification or click o
71. ame System or Service is an Internet service that translates domain names which are easier for humans to remember into IP addresses which computer use to address each other Every time you use a domain name therefore a DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address For 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 75 example the domain name www paessler com might translate to 62 146 51 168 The DNS sensor sends a request to resolve a specific domain name to an IP address to the server it is associated with This 1s useful e g to ensure that a company s web server address can be resolved by the outside world or to check a DNS server in a LAN for availability Note The device associated with this sensor has to be a DNS server and not the domain name of the server you want to monitor As DNS server the sensor will use the IP Address DNS Name of the device you re creating this sensor on If you only enter the Domain in the settings PRTG will only check whether the name is resolved to an IP address at all which simply means that the DNS server works correctly and the domain name is valid If you also enter an IP address the resolved IP address will be compared to this and the sensor will show an error when the two addresses are different DNS Specific parameters include e Timeout If the reply takes longer than this value the request is aborted and an error message is triggered e Port Define the DNS po
72. ange colors line width scaling etc to suit your needs The field Spike Filter is only available if applicable for the channel If enabled you can enter an upper and or a lower limit With the existing data all values above the upper limit and below the lower limit will be ignored This option is recommended only if you repeatedly receive obviously wrong data e g enormously high or far too low values due to an error in data transmission or due to incompatibilities with the device your are monitoring The field Limits is only available if applicable for the channel If enabled you can enter Upper and Lower values for both an Error and a Warning Limit If one of these limits is reached for this channel the whole sensor is then set to Error or Warning status as specified Additionally you can also enter an Error Limit Message and a Warning Limit Message which will be added to the respective status In combination with the settings in the Notifications tab you can setup PRTG to notify you when a sensor reaches a limit Remarks For all other tabs in a sensor s details view see table overview Page Header and Tabs in section Web Interface 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Part Sensor Types 64 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 7 1 7 2 Sensor Types PRTG offers more than 40 different sensor types for various network services All sensor types have a number of type
73. aper orientation for which the report shall be formatted Sensors What sensors will be included in the report Add Sensors Manually There are too many sensors to show here Please edit sensors and channels When selecting sensors manually you can also forthis report on the tab Select sensors manually later select deselect individual channels of each sensor Add Sensors by Tag Enter tags to add all sensors from the sensor tree to the report which have one of the tags Tip lherited from parent objects ie if you enter a specific tag into a group s tag setting and into this report setting all sensors of that group cluded in the report additionally to the selected manually Use spaces to separate Schedule When will this report be run Report Schedule No schedule Run interactive on demand only oa on 2 ery hour day D Every Full Hour day of week day of month or a specific date If A Every day at a specific hour you choose scheduled proci ou will receive i 2 ToDo email everytime the report is run Every specific day of a week D Every specific day of a month OD Every specific date Scheduled Processing 7 Save report to disk and send it by email When PRTG runs this report due to a schedule t 2 can simply email the report to an email address or 9 Save report to disk only write the PDF file to the disk or both D Send report by email only Period What time span will the
74. art 2010 Paessler AG 130 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Menu and allows configuring basic server settings It is divided into eight tabs Web Server PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log About Web Server IPs O Localhost only 127 0 0 1 no external access Specify IPs vi 10 0 9 141 Web Server Port O Standard Web Server Port 80 S HTTPS SSL on port 443 recommended setting Specify port WA System Language English Under the Web Server tab you can define the web server IP addresses You can select to use local host only This means that no external access will be possible and is the most secure setting Alternatively you can specify individual IPs from a list provided You can further define the web server port to use The options are e Standard Web Server Port 80 Unencrypted connection via standard HTTP port 80 is used to access the web interface e HTTPS SSL on port 443 The web interface can only be accessed using a secure SSL connection https your IP This is the default setting and recommended for most installations Note If you are using the PRTG Web Interface via an Internet WAN connection we strongly recommend using an SSL encrypted connection Please see See also at the end of this section e Specify Port Enter a port number of your choice e
75. as well as number of packets and errors Monitors bandwidth and traffic via SNMP Monitors bandwidth usage and traffic through a network card via WMI Bandwidth usage monitoring SNMP Packet Sniffing NetFlow sFlow Sensors based on the HTTP protocol Sensors based on the Simple Network Management Protocol SNMP Monitoring for computers running Windows using Windows Management Instrumentation WMI Various sensor types for services used on the Internet PING PORT FTP DNS RDP Mail server sensors SMTP POP3 IMAP SQL server monitoring MySQL MS SQL and Oracle Monitoring of file servers NASs etc Sensors for virtualzed environments VMWare HyperV and Amazon EC2 Various sensor types used to monitor VoIP QoS and network infrastructure Various sensor types that enable you to define your own sensor scripts A complete list of all sensors TEE Haven t found what you need Find more custom sensors online In step one you must select a sensor type from the available types list There are more than 40 different types see Sensor Types for detailed descriptions so PRTG offers various groupings Simply click one of the group headings and then select a sensor Then click Continue to Step 2 Basic Sensor Settings Sensor Name HTTP 22 1 The sensor s name Tags httpsensor Enter a list of tags not case sensitive for filtering purposes e g the top 10 lists use these tags Use space or comma
76. ated when e A new device or sensor has been created by the auto discovery process and should be acknowledged by the user e A new probe connects to the core and must be acknowledged e A new version of the software is available e A new report is ready for review e na few other situations such as when the system runs out of disk space for licensing issues etc Read more about this in the section ToDos Notifications Concept Whenever PRTG discovers downtime an overloaded system threshold breach or similar situations it will send a notification Notifications use various methods by which you can be notified e g email SMS pager message and others After creating notifications in the system settings you can select them on the setting pages for a group a device and a sensor See Notifications for more details Schedules Concept Group device or sensor monitoring can be paused by user intervention or by a schedule e g don t monitor Sundays between 4 and 8 a m Using schedules you can limit the monitoring time PRTG comes with a number of pre defined schedules You can activate schedules in the Settings menu of a group a device or a sensor by changing the Inherit Schedules and Dependencies entry Schedules are also used in Reports and for Notifications 2010 Paessler AG Basic Concepts of PRTG Network Monitor 33 To change the default pre defined schedules or to add your own schedule ente
77. ation Status started paused Schedule None XII e specific Postpone 5 No Yes Access Rights User Group Access User Group Rights PRTG Users Group None v User Group None X Send Email Add Entry to Event Log Send Network Broadcast NET SEND _ Send Syslog Message _ Send SNMP Trap Send ICQ Message Send MSN Message Send SMS Pager Message __ Execute HTTP Action Execute Program Play sound file Windows XP 2003 only save cmm jJ You can also assign user group access rights for the selected notification The following rights can be assigned None This user group has no access to the notification whatsoever As such this user group cannot see or edit the specific notification Read This user group has read access to the notification The group can see but not edit the specific notification Write This user group has read and write access to the notification The group can see and edit the specific notification Full This user group has read and write access to the notification plus it can assign notification access rights to other user groups First you can enter a name for the notification and you can set the user group rights e g 1f you want to enable or 2010 Paessler AG System Settings and Administration 125 13 4 disable the use of a specific notificatio
78. ation Up 1msec 5 HTTP 2 Up 116 msec Parent Group Group 1a H IIS Files Sent zUp 0 13Files s Parent Device Web Server 1 E CPULoad2 Up 2 Status 5 DiskFree2 Up 65 7 OK IU Memory 2 Warning 7 HTTP 3 Up 86 msec Last Result 1msec 6 Mail Server 1 isi 1018 9 Last Scan 09 09 2009 10 25 37 3s ago FE p 1b Last Up 09 09 2009 10 25 37 3 s ago 5c 48 port Switch 1 30 f Firewall 1 6 Last Down Fr Group 2 een Cumulated Uptime 100 0000 4 d 12h 15 m E Nas 1 dise Cumulated Downtime 0 000094 0 s Linux Server m4 E ti ESX Server 1 Bi 11 Uptime Downtime Total 4d 12h 15m 63 VoIP Server 15 Uptime Coverage since 04 09 2009 13 41 58 Ef UPS si 14 Channels Value Average imsec cam B Refresh in 47 seconds V 7 2 0 4512 PAESSLER At the top of the window you can find the summarized status for all sensors a button to manually refresh the monitoring data and a search box 3 105 Si Using tabs the Windows GUI offers the same main module selection as the web interface Devices Sensors Alarms Maps Reports Logs Todos Setup Module Devices In the Devices module you will find a tree like view of the groups devices and sensors on the left side You can select one or more items from the list using CTRL and SHIFT while clicking with your mouse and you will see detailed information about the selected items on the right side Using a second row of tabs you can select
79. ause the delivery of notifications In the account settings schedules are managed centrally Once a schedule has been created you can use it in the object settings for either a probe group device or sensor at the Inherit Schedules and Dependencies entry Various common schedules are available by default further schedules can be added using the Add new schedule button 2010 Paessler AG 122 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Overview My Account Schedules Notifications Comments History Using Schedules you can pause monitoring for Groups Servers or Sensors based on time and day of vieek You can also pause the delivery of Notifications After creating schedules here you can select them on the respective settings pages j 1to8 of8 Object 7 Links E Saturdays GMT 40200 Delete ii Sundays GMT 0200 Delete Eit Weekdays Eight To Eight 8 00 20 00 GMT 0200 Delete aii Weekdays Nights 17 00 9 00 GMT 0200 Delete lili Weekdays Nights 20 00 8 00 GMT 0200 Delete ii Weekdays Nine To Five 8 00 17 00 GMT 0200 Delete ail Weekdays GMT 0200 Delete w Weekends GMT 0200 Delete 1to8of8 gt Fl Add new schedule By either selecting an existing schedule or when adding a new schedule the following window appears Edit Schedule Menu Home gt Schedules gt new object
80. c s 1 Myte 1 64 H Memory Pagafile Usage Hf IMAP 1 HH Pop31 4 SMTP1 EZA 0 3msec Smsec Smsec Group 1b Sd4 portSwitch 1 l 30 Sensors 8232882888 Firewall 1 i RN63 cjWeblmerace i Port Pon2 Por 3 PT tmp Rast Say 17 msec 539 msec 26 kbit s 21 kbit s 21 kbit s S system cj Por 21 kbit s Group 2 te nasi ANGS ml CPU Load 3 Disk Free 3 Memory 3 MICI 15 msec 4 B 5 180 kbit s anc a Nic 3 8 68 8 8 8 247 kbit s 183 kbit s A A A A A A 3 8 d 3 g g Linux Server i ANG mf CPUlcad4 f HTTPS mf Network Traffi d E E E z Smsec 19 267 msec 440 kbit s GIESK Server 1 j9Semos ial VM2 PITE KS VoIP Server i 15 Sensors m The main layout consists of a status bar at the top the header area with the main menu and quick search box below it and finally the main page content all these elements are described in the next section When you navigate through PRTG s web interface you will always use one of the following five navigational paths The main menu provides access to all important aspects of the software The quick search is often the fastest way to navigate to an object Using the page s tabs you can switch between various sub pages for an object Many objects offer a context menu that will pop up when you right click them And finally you are able to drill down into the object hierarchy of probes groups devices and sensors in the object tree shown above by merely clicking an sub object
81. ce an increased SNMP Interval Delay or Open Requests reading of the probe health sensor Values above 0 indicate that the SNMP requests cannot be performed at the desired interval you need to distribute the load over multiple probes SNMP V1 and V2 do not have this limitation If you run into SNMP Overload problems you have three options e Increase the monitoring interval of the SNMP V3 sensors e Distribute the SNMP V3 sensors over two or more probes e Switch to SNMP V1 or V2 if you can live without encryption 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 71 What is the SNMP Community String The SNMP Community String is similar to a user ID or password that allows access to a router s or other device s statistics PRTG Network Monitor forwards the community string along with all SNMP requests If the correct community string is provided the device responds with the requested information If the community string is incorrect the device simply discards the request and does not respond Note SNMP community strings are only used by devices that support SNMP V1 and SNMP V2c protocols SNMP V3 uses safer username password authentication along with an encryption key By convention most SNMP V1 V2c equipment ships with a read only community string set to public It is standard practice for network managers to change all the community strings to customized values within the device setup Tools Paessler MIB Importer
82. ck Continue to Step 2 and you will be taken to the new map Step 2 Add Items to the Map Click on the Map Editor tab to enable the Map Editor Map Map 1 Map Editor Edit Delete Refresh Menu Home gt Maps gt Edit Map View Map 52 Map Editor Settings d Get HTML Comments Add Map Item Open Map Editor in New Window To add an item to the map click on the button Add Map Item 2010 Paessler AG Maps 103 Add Item s to Map Object s Template Status Icons Devices or Sensors Bs With Name White Background m 1 3 PRTG Monitoring Station With Name White Background Large s With Name Transparent E PEN With Name Transparent Large o _ Probe Health No Name Transparent E A No Name Transparent Large EAD Frue i With Alarm Sound Audible Alarm if Alarms gt 0 L Intel R PRO 1000 MT Network Connection Status Icons for Sensors Only o TJ Packet Sniffer 1 With Name and Minigraph White Background o With Name and Minigraph White Background Large Group 1 With Name and Last Value White Background Ov Group 1a With Name and Last Value White Background Large Fy p Group ib ub Group Graph Large Fonts Oo Group 2 re Graph v Es ays o NAS 1 30 days By EE Linux Server 365 days ov mcs Graph Small Fonts v o EE VoIP Server Before Ov ups HTML After Height 200 Width 200 Add Item to Map cancel Choo
83. cket sniffer apply For larger installations please refer to our knowledge base article Planning Large Installations of PRTG Network Monitor 7 2010 Paessler AG PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor System Requirements 13 http www paessler com support kb prtg7 system requirements 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Part Installation Installation 15 3 1 3 2 Installation To use PRTG Network Monitor you need to download and install the software as described in the following sections e Downloading the Software How to get the latest version from Paessler e Upgrading to Version 7 from Previous Versions Read this if you have used PRTG Traffic Grapher 6 or IPCheck Server Monitor 5 before e Installation of the PRTG Core Server How to install the PRTG core server software on your PC Server e Entering A License Key How to enter a license key e Uninstallation How to remove the software from your PC Server Downloading the Software Please download the latest version of PRTG Network Monitor from the Paessler website There are two different installers for PRTG a public download for the Freeware and Trial editions and another download for the commercial editions which is only available for paying customers Downloading the Freeware Edition and Trial Edition Please download the latest publicly available file from the Paessler website at www paessler
84. combination with cloning devices the smart URL replacement makes it easy to create many like devices Please note that smart URL replacement does not work for sensors running on the Probe Device Notes For HTTP Advanced Sensors For general settings please refer to Common Settings HTTP Sensors above Using the HTTP Advanced sensor you can optionally enter the following advanced settings you can also leave any of them blank e Content Check Monitor Changes if you want to monitor any changes on the file at the given URL You can combine this setting with a On Change notification trigger later tab Notifications in sensor s settings e Response must include If you enter a string here the sensor will check if this string is part of the HTML page at the given URL If so the sensor status will be OK Note The characters and work here as placeholder whereas stands for no or any number of characters and stands for exactly one character as known from Windows search Therefore a literal search for the characters and is not possible e Response must not include If you enter a string here the sensor will check if this string is not part of the HTML page at the given URL If so the sensor status will be OK Note The characters and work here as placeholder whereas stands for no or any number of characters and stands for exactly one character as known from Windows search Therefore a literal search for t
85. ction step is aborted If this happens the sensor for the complete transaction series is set to Failure e Use cookies If cookies are needed for one of the transactions check this option If you are unsure keep it checked e Authentication User Password If the websites at the given URLs below need authentication you can enter the credentials here Please also choose if the websites use a HTTP Basic or a Windows Integrated NTLM authentication Proxy If you want or need to access the given URL via a certain proxy please enter the according information in these fields We do not recommend using a proxy because in case of a connection failure you will not be able to determine if it s the web server or the proxy server causing it Transaction URL 1 to 10 In these fields you can enter up to 10 different URLs that will be requested in a series If all of them succeed the sensor will be in UP status To help you find the right transaction URLs you can use the Paessler URL Recorder to build a suitable URL list see Tools at the end of this section Please see Common Settings HTTP Sensors and Notes For HTTP Advanced Sensors above for information about the other fields For tips configuring Transaction Sensors see Knowledge Base article http www paessler com knowledgebase en topic 443 Notes for HTTP Content Sensors This sensor requests a URL with a script and in the result received it searches for a certain value
86. d Remote Probes e Probe GID the unique identifier for each probe use with extreme caution e Outgoing IP for monitoring requests Choose the IP address that all outgoing monitoring requests should use The setting auto is recommended e g it automatically chooses the right IP on multi homed systems e Probe Administration Tool Language With this setting you can change the language of the PRTG Probe Administrator Select a language of your choice English German French Spanish Japanese A restart of the probe service will be necessary Please note You can set the language of the PRTG web interface in the PRTG Server Administrator Service Control 2010 Paessler AG PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor System Settings and Administration 137 PRIG Network Monitor Probe Administration Tool EJPAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Service Control Files j Directories About Under the Service Control tab you can install uninstall as well as start stop the probe service Files Directories PRTG Network Monitor Probe Administration Tool EIPAESSIER PRTG Network Monitor Files Directories about Under the Files Directories tab you can select a path specifying where probe data is to be stored You can further show the probe log files and open the probe s log file directory 2010 Paessler AG 138 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual About PRTG Netw
87. d Windows 7 2008 R2 If you can t run PRTG on Windows XP Windows 2003 consider setting up a remote probe with XP for the WMI monitoring You still get far better WMI monitoring performance with a remote probe on a virtual machine running Windows XP or Windows 2003 than on any bare metal system running Windows Vista Windows 2008 R1 e Consider switching to SNMP based monitoring for large networks Using SNMP you can easily monitor 10 times as many nodes as with WMI on the same hardware Links to WMI related articles Paessler s Guide to Troubleshooting WMI Problems http www paessler com support kb prtg7 wmi not working 2010 Paessler AG 74 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual T 6 Paessler WMI Tester A useful freeware tool to test WMI connections Tests the accessibility of WMI Windows Management Instrumentation counters in a quick and easy manner http www paessler com tools wmitester Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation Technical Articles Managing Windows with WMI http msdn2 microsoft com en us library ms811533 aspx Microsoft WMI Reference http msdn microsoft com en us library aa394572 aspx See also Comparison of Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors Various Protocol Sensors The following sensor types allow to monitor various TCP and UDP based services e PING Performs one or more PINGs to monitor the availability of a device and optionally measure packet loss in percent POR
88. d authentication for multiple users and optional data packet encryption increasing available security plus all advantages of Version 2c e Cons Difficult to configure Not suitable for large networks see below for more information It 1s important to know that if you select an SNMP version which is not supported by the server or device you want to monitor you will receive an error message Unfortunately most of the time these error messages do not explicitly mention the possibility that you could be using the incorrect SNMP version These messages provide minimum information only such as cannot connect or similar The same situation exists 1f community strings usernames or passwords are incorrect SNMP Overload and Limitations of the SNMP System SNMP VI and V2 scale directly with the performance of the hardware and the speed of the network In our labs we were able to monitor 30 000 SNMP VI sensors at 60 second interval with one PRTG server core and local probe plus two remote probes 10 000 sensors on each probe But SNMP V3 has software dependent performance limitations due to the SSL encryption Due to internal limitations you can only monitor a limited number of sensors per second using SNMP V3 The limit is somewhere between 1 and 50 sensors per second depending on the SNMP latency of your network This means that using an interval of 60 seconds you are limited to between 60 and 3 000 SNMP V3 sensors for each probe If you experien
89. der to use instant messaging for notifications you always need two accounts One account that sends the messages and another one that receives the messages This page allows to define the following information in detail e SMTP Delivery Here you can define the SMTP delivery mechanism either use PRTG s automatic relay or 2010 Paessler AG System Settings and Administration 127 define your own SMTP server or even two servers as well as all relevant information for email forwarding If you select to define your own SMTP server s you will need to provide your server s information including the server itself use either IP address or DNS name the SMTP port as well as the relay authentication type none standard or SASL If you require authentication username and password need to be provided If you choose to set up two SMTP Relay Servers the second server is used when the first server is not reachable fallback server Furthermore it is possible to define when PRTG should start merging individual notifications as well as provide a maximum number of notifications to be merged at any given time this will reduce the number of mails that you will receive e SMS Delivery Please choose whether to select a SMS provider from a list and choose a provider or choose to enter a custom URL and enter a URL If you have choosen a provider from the list enter your gateway s access username and password and API ID if necessar
90. dministrator Note Only for a PRTG Administrator User all settings are visible If you re logged in as another user you may not see all options described in this manual 2010 Paessler AG System Settings and Administration 121 13 1 13 2 Account Settings Edit My Account In the web interface click on Setup My Account in the main menu to open the My Account settings Here you can change various settings specific to your user account Overview My Account Schedules Notifications Comments History User Account Settings Login Name prtgadmin Username PRTG System Admin Email Address support amp paessler com Timezone GMT 01 00 Amsterdam Berlin Bern Rome Stockholm Vienna v Password Don t change C Specify new password Auto Refresh Settings Auto Refresh Type Refresh Page Elements recommended C Refresh Whole Page C No Auto Refresh Auto Refresh Interval sec 60 This page allows to define the following information in detail e User Account These fields allow you to define the login name the user name the email address for the user time zone and data format and it allows you to set a new password The Hash value cannot be changed and can be used for certain API calls e Auto Refresh and Alerting Using these fields you can select whether you want the content of your browser to be refreshed automatically or not if you want to merely refresh page elements or the entire p
91. dows GUI seeseeeeeeseeseessesssseeeseeee enne entem e nennen enhn nnne nnns 21 UICE ETT e ee 22 Basic Concepts of PRTG Network Monitor 24 Architecture PRTG Core Server PRTG Probe and the User Interfaces MOSES 24 Object Hierarchy Probes Groups Devices Sensors Channels 27 Inheritance of Settings 5 reri nannaa Anina ENS enaA AARAA nain eren ocn anni RD Pn an nE PD cna REP RSS 30 User Access Rights odere deiner AERA AA EAA Enan AEREA EENAA E ASAA ERANA 31 Alarms Concept TAT A 31 Maps Cone pt 31 Reports Concept ene EE e enu eee ote x Ea euet aa x ra enara ak sek xa databanden SEa 31 Logs Concept eerie t Doer E enel ee nee EE E wdc ceeded au ee Er a S 32 TODOS Concept eniti suede tectis ease Pl ettet tesoro LI Pe REND EC er ERR aranana 32 Notifications Goncept 5 25 reor ooi da e aE ceca dama d ies dede posses tUe d us 32 Schedules Concept tee aree erede eniti ke aer RUP de LE e eet ce ca a D 32 Dependencies Concept in arae ea er nen e eee e ED di are aaa ERR EL a aue Rena ERR ERR Ea me CR ERR rs 33 User Interfaces 35 Web Interface 5 nion EET RUE DIR Une in 37 WIndOWS GU ep 45 2010 Paessler AG Contents 3 9 iPhone nterfacos 5 i FREE TREE NE
92. e Code http code google com p prtg7addons 14 9 Calculating Percentiles Wikipedia describes a percentile as the value of a variable below which a certain percent of observations fall Providers often use it in their billing models e g when determining the used bandwidth With percentile calculation you can cut off an x percent of peak values from a certain amount of values In PRTG you can calculate percentiles when creating general Reports see section Reports or performing Historic Data reports of a certain sensor see section Web Interface Activating the Percentile Results for your reports the according values will be added to the tables You can customize the following settings e Percentile Enter the percentile number you want to calculate If you choose for example to calculate the 95th percentile enter 95 here and 5 of peak values will be discarded e Percentile Average This is the averaging interval in seconds which is used for percentile calculation Default value is 300 which is equivalent to 5 minutes Percentile Mode Choose between Discrete and Continuous Continuous percentile interpolates between discrete values whereas discrete percentile chooses the next smaller discrete value e Discrete percentile means that the value must be a member of the data set For this kind of calculation you require a discrete distribution The median of a discrete distribution can not be defined as such meaning that the 50th d
93. e Delete c Probe Device interface 3 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 00 EH Pagefile Usage 1 IV Total IV Downtime Delete Probe Device 3 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 4 Memory 1 IV Percent Av M Available MY Downtime Delete Probe Device 3 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 Probe Service IV Running V Downtime Delete Probe Device 3 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 PRTG Probe Process v Working S IV commit Si M Processor M Downtime Delete Probe Device 53 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 PRTG Server Process v Working S Iv Commit Siz Iv Processor Iv Downtime Delete Probe Device 3 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 Header Packet ASA v Andere M www IV Fpp IV mait IV chat Delete i Probe Device IV Remote Cc IV infrastruct M NetBios M various M summe Add Sensors Manually I5 4 1to 20 of 364 gt PI 24 WMI Vital System Data 1 Probe Group Device Object Actions 3 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 Probe Device Probe Device Add Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 Probe Device Probe Health Add iari Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 Probe Device CPU Load Add 55 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 Probe Device 5 Disk Free Add al P 27 27 BCMS7 NetXtreme II G idd i Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 Probe Device Add 111 You can enable disable individual channels of a sensor using the checkboxes Use the D
94. e Notifications offer various notification personal account settings like email monitoring for groups servers or sensors methods through which you are informed in address password timezone etc based on time and day of week You can case a sensor trigger is activated see also pause the delivery of Notifications below once a certain threshold has been reached System Administration Edit System Setup Edit User Accounts Edit User Groups Edit system settings for webserver Use this link to manage user accounts for Access of users to monitoring objects is probes database as well as notification this PRTG installation You can add as many controlled using user groups and email handling user accounts as desired System Information and Optional Downloads View System Status View Activation Status Download Add Ons Displays comprehensive system status Displays detailed information about the Download additional software for PRTG information for your PRTG installation status of the software activation for your PRTG installation Please read on in the following sections Web interface Account Settings Edit My Account Account Settings Edit Schedules Account Settings Edit Notifications System Administration Edit System Setup System Administration Edit User Accounts and User Groups System Information and Optional Downloads Administrator programs Windows applications e PRTG Server Administrator e PRTG Probe A
95. e and consists of the following e An optional background image a PNG GIF JPG file e g your company logo or a graphical view of your network e A set of map items which can include sensor status icons graphs or lists of sensors You can also specify the size of the map Using the AJAX based map editor you can place the items anywhere on the map and you can also control the size of the items Each map has a unique URL which can be used to link to the map Users who want to access the map either need an account in your PRTG installation or can access a public URL of the map if you enable the Public Map feature Public maps contain a unique access key Map ID in the URL that secure the map from unwanted visitors Sample maps Here are a few sample maps which include live monitoring data 2010 Paessler AG Maps 101 vornenes g5 24er SwitgH 10 0 1 126 pbc at aa gt Eou jr m wa pager com u y m pues EL en won pocsercom uou TOG Seog feo eval 100 01 pee WAN SRI GEN Loadbalancer PF SQUESTSERVER PIG pu FS me WAN EX Ks E m ceo e Lr m e M D Drs PRTG Ste Drehen fl vv http ark prigtestserver net public mapshow htm id 2676 amp mapd dreteichen po A 4 sgprigtestserver net PING 30 EEEE T ihe T H firewalll paessler con FING 15 a sl E office E E nr RE
96. e auto discovery has discovered a new device and has created new sensors and you should acknowledge them e A probe which had never connected before has connected and this new probe must be acknowledged by the administrator e PRTG s built in check for new versions has found a new version of the software available from Paessler e A PDF report has been created and is now ready for review e A critical situation has shown up on the server system e g system runs out of disk space licensing issues etc Whenever a new ToDo is created by PRTG the administrator user will receive an email asking to take care of the issue You can disable this automatic email in the system settings see section System Administration Edit System Setup ToDos remain in the list until they are acknowledged by clicking on Acknowledge Note You can acknowledge all ToDos at once by choosing the corresponding item from the ToDos menu in the main menu bar 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor User Management User Management 117 12 User Management In PRTG you can control the access rights for every user with a smart User Management Overview The default administrator can use the PRTG installation as the only user or can create an unlimited number of users Users are organized using an unlimited number of groups which also control their security settings There are three types of users e Administrato
97. e s main menu or by the administrator choose Setup User Accounts from the web interface s main menu These settings are e User Account Enter user specific data such as a Login Name a Username for display purposes Email Address Timezone Date Format and Password The Hash value cannot be changed It can be used for identification in certain API calls Auto Refresh and Alerting PRTG automatically refreshes the content in your browser Here you can choose between different refresh methods you can disable the refreshing and you can specify the refresh time 30 seconds recommended You can also specify which Pop up Alerts are shown and where an Audible Alarm should be played if there are alarm messages Web Interface You can specify the URL of the Homepage that is shown after login and when clicking on the Home button You can also choose a Chart Rendering method whether or not to use the more interactive Flash Graphs and specify a Flash Graph Delay to improve browser performance in case of using Flash Graphs Auto folding In order to provide you with a speedy user experience PRTG tries to keep the page size for the pages with the sensor tree small by automatically folding groups and devices with many items The two settings Max Groups Devices per Group and Max Sensors per Device control how many groups devices or how many sensors are shown at max before the automatic reduction is performed Recommended values are 10 30 for both
98. eb Server 1 8 Mail Server 1 Group 1b Sc 48 port Switch 1 g Firewall 1 Group 2 nas 1 f Linux Server EJ ESX Server 1 GR VoIP Server ups Group 1 Group la Web Server 1 i PING 4 m HTTP 2 IIS Files Sem CPULoad 2 j Disk Free 2 2 msec 61 msec 0 13 Files s 3 65 tj Memory 2 m HTTP 3 4296 111 msec Mail Server 1 s PING 1 Messages inc Queue Sze1 j CPULoadi Disk Free 1 2 msec 1s 1 MByte 2 6496 mj Memory 1 s Pagefile Usag mj IMAP 1 sj POP31 mj SMTP 1 4196 096 2 msec 2 msec 3 msec Group 1b 5 48 port Switch 1 i30 Sensors Firewall PING 3 Web Interface Port 1 Port 2 gj Port 3 S cede M mec perds MNT kois id SS Kbijs oo das sj Port 4 155 kbit s Step 3 Move and Edit Map Items As soon as you have added an item to the map you can modify it as follows Sensor Probe Health Live Graph 2 hours Local probe Probe Device 40 1 0 P gt 20 3 05 a ri t 0 0 0 s a m S E m A n n n a n n n Downtime 96 Health 96 Load 936 Message Queue Length Probe Core Msgs Open Requests Requests WMI Interval Delay 96 Delay i SNMP Interval Delay 96 Delay Other Interval Delay 96 Delay i BRP arr EER renter Senere H PEER Ki Move the item by clicking and dragging the black grip bar at the top If you move an item outside the map area the Map Editor will move it back in automatically Remark If you click on an object s name instead of the black grip
99. ecified threshold with condition Above Change Trigger s When editing change triggers you will see the following settings Notification Only the notification can be selected here Change triggers are triggered by some sensors themselves More Section Notification Delivery Settings in System Administration Edit System Setup Account Settings Edit Notifications Paessler Knowledge Base PRTG 7 Placeholder Overview http www paessler com support kb prtg7 placeholder_overview 2010 Paessler AG PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Maps 100 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Maps PRTG s Maps feature which also sometimes referred to as dashboards is a unique concept that enables the user to create web pages with up to the minute monitoring status information in a customizable layout Overview There are countless possibilities for the implementation of maps For example this feature can be used to e Create network maps with an overlay of status icons for each device on the map Create quick views of your network that can be shown on network operations center screens Create a quick network overview for publishing on the Intranet allowing at a glance information for management of other employees e Create a custom view of the most important sensors in your monitoring setup e Create Top 10 lists of the sensors of a specific group or device Technically a map is a normal web pag
100. ee views e Map Width Height Enter the size of the map in pixels e Background Picture If you want to use your own background picture click On and select a picture from your hard disk drive e User Group Access Select which rights each user group has for this map None Read Only Write Full e Public Access Here you can allow or disallow the public access to your map e Map ID If public access is allowed this string will be used to create the URL for this map A proper ID is generated automatically and can be changed if necessary As the ID works similar to a public password it s a good idea to keep it hard to guess To enter any comments for your map visible within PRTG only please click on the tab Comments write down your notes and click Save 2010 Paessler AG Maps 107 Step 5 View a Map and Share a Map Click on the tab View Map to look at the final layout To use the map outside of PRTG you have to two options e Option 1 Link directly to a web page with the map e Option 2 Show a map inside other webpages using an IFRAME Click on the tab Get HTML in order to discern the necessary URLs and HTML codes as well as additional instructions Please note that further changes in your firewall settings may be necessary if you want the map to be accessible from the outside world 2010 Paessler AG PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Reports Reports 109 10 R
101. eless there are some basic principles we would like to explain to you Please read this section carefully to make it easier for you to understand how best to use the software Architecture PRTG Core Server PRTG Probe and the User Interfaces Object Hierarchy Probes Groups Devices Sensors Channels Inheritance of Settings User Access Rights Alarms Concept Maps Concept Reports Concept Logs Concept ToDos Concept Notifications Concept Schedules Concept Dependencies Concept Architecture PRTG Core Server PRTG Probe and the User Interfaces PRTG Network Monitor consists of different parts which can be divided into three main categories System P arts control interfaces and basic system administration interfaces Type Name Description See also PRTG Core Server Below in this section This is the central part of a PRTG installation and includes data storage web server report engine a notification system and more System parts PRTG Probes Below in this section The part of PRTG on which the actual monitoring is performed PRTG Web Interface Section Web Interface The AJAX based web interface is used for configuration of devices and sensors as well as the review of monitoring results Control interfaces PRTG Windows GUI Section Windows GUI A native Windows application as web interface alternative 2010 Paessler AG Basic Concepts of PRTG Network Monitor 25 Supports the most im
102. elete links in the Actions column to remove an object from the report To add more objects to a report choose one from the list of all objects in the lower half and click the Add link To find a specific object either use the paging function of the table or enter a search term in the search box and click Search All changes to the sensor list are saved automatically and immediately Step 3 Run the Report Click on the Run Now tab to create a report immediately Run Now Stored Reports Settings Select Sensors Manually Sensors Selected by Tag Comments Run Report Bericht for C current Period This week 16 02 2009 22 02 2009 Choose a period to run the report for Last week 09 02 2009 15 02 2009 C Previous Period C quick Select 16 02 2009 22 02 2009 zl C Manual Select Start Date 2009 02 16 za End Date 2009 02 22 za P CO View Report as HTML Create and store PDF file You will receive a ToDo when report has been created Create PDF file store it and send by email Run Report Choose a target file format for this report 2010 Paessler AG 112 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Select the desired settings and click on Run Report HTML Reports will be shown immediately PDF reports will be created in the background and you will receive an email with a ToDo when the report is finished In the Report Settings you can also set an auto
103. elivers the email to a POP3 IMAP server which can be located at a remote site in your local LAN or on the same server as well e Step 3 Every few seconds PRTG retrieves emails from the POP3 IMAP server until the test email arrives 2010 Paessler AG 76 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual PRTG 1 PRTG sends test email via SMTP i i 3 PRTG retrieves test email from POP3 server Internet Recommended Configuration Here is a simple concept to check delivery of email out of and into your organization 1 Create a dedicated email account for this test in your mail system 2 Set up an external email account hosted mail server freemailer etc and configure it to send all emails back to this dedicated email account in your organization which you created in step 1 3 Set up PRTG s round trip sensor to send an email to the external email account which you created in step 2 using your LAN s mail server and then check for the email account on your mail system which you created in step 1 for arrival of the email With this technique you are testing multiple aspects of your email server setup As long as the sensor shows a green light this means e Your email server accepts emails via SMTP e Emails are being sent to the outside world internet connection works MX lookups work etc e Emails from external mail server can be delivered into your mail system this includes aspects like the fact that
104. emplates from which you can select one or more templates Afterwards enter the IP Base the first 3 bytes of the IP Range and the first and last 4th byte of the IP address range As soon as you click on continue PRTG will start the discovery process visible in the sensor tree Devices menu item of the main menu Group 5 Autodiscovery in Progress 5 c pip paesslergmbh de Add Sensor Autodiscovery 31 c pop paesslergmbh de Add Sensor Autodiscovery 25 If you keep looking at this page you will see more and more devices and sensors showing up in the list The Auto Discovery process takes between 10 and 50 seconds per IP address depending on configuration and network All sensors created by this process will start monitoring immediately and will notify failures as soon as they happen Creating an Auto Discovery Device Creating sensors for just one device using the Auto Discovery function is quite similar to creating an Auto Discovery Group Go to the devices list Devices in the main menu and locate either a probe or group that is intended to contain the new device Right click on the object and select Add Device from the context menu 2010 Paessler AG Device and Sensor Setup 61 Device Type Sensor Management Manual No Autodiscovery 9j Automatic Device Identification Standard recommended IJ Automatic Device Identification Detailed may create many sensors Automatic Sen
105. eports Reports are used to analyze historic monitoring results over a specified time such as one or more days one month or one year PRTG includes a powerful reporting engine for ad hoc as well as scheduled report generation in PDF format Reports can be run on demand or can be run on a regular basis e g once a day A report can be created for one or more sensors The content and layout of the report is controlled by the report template of your choice and is the same for all sensors in a report Here is a sample report page for one sensor You can see two graphs one for the current month and one for the sensors history over the last 365 days plus a data table with the numerical results Sample Report IPX Leitung ASA WAN Interface Report Time Span 15 09 2008 00 00 00 22 09 2008 00 00 00 Sensor Type SNMP Traffic 60s Interval Probe Group Device Local probe gt BSX Firewalls and DSL Infrastructure gt firewalll hp7 Firewall 1 Cisco ASA 5510 Cisco IOS Cisco Switch Average 464 kbit s Uptime Stats lup 10098 15225031215 Down o 0s Request Stats Good 100988 12220 Failed 09 lI 0 IPX Leitung ASA WAN Interface firewall1 hp7 Firewall 1 Cisco ASA 5510 Cisco IOS Cisco Switch 1 500 1 g 1007 a 2 5004 Wi i dud I at es E s A A ai eum Ee DE n 03 T T T T T T T T T T T T 2 2a 2a 2a 2 2 o
106. er the possibility to change the number of entries in the list by clicking on Item Count New window f Opens the table in a new window Show XML HME Views list as XML your browser may offer you an XML file download Additionally some lists offer a column of checkboxes The checkboxes are used to select two or more items from the list and work with the selected items As soon as you select one or more checkboxes an additional green colored menu will show up 2010 Paessler AG 44 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual vig ul P o amp a o Depending on the object type different functions are available Some frequently used functions are available as quick buttons other functions are available in the drop down menu Edit Check Now Acknowledge Alarms Pause Priority Favorite Move Delete Reviewing Historic Data Additionally to exhaustive reports that additionally can be scheduled for regular execution see section Reports you can view a report of the historic data for each single sensor on demand Additionally you can also export this data and download it for further processing in external applications To get to the Historic Data reports choose a sensor right click on it and from the context menu select Details In the sensor s detail view click on the Historic Data tab to start the review 43 JZB 4943 4206 16 A
107. erly complete the installation Although you can choose to reboot later it is strongly recommended to reboot the machine right away to fully complete the installation That s it You can now work with PRTG Network Monitor Entering a License Key A license key for PRTG Network Monitor consists of the name of the licensee and a string that contains 70 characters and numbers This information is usually sent to customers via email 2010 Paessler AG Installation 19 e Sample Username Paessler AG e Sample License key 0223515 FFSEJC ZHGRDFM URICS8 U73FGK G645F2 Y VFIDD H8323N D11HG9 M2DRG You can either enter the license key during the installation process or you can use the PRTG Server Administrator tool to enter a license key later Step 1 Make Sure You Have Installed the Correct Edition There are two different installers available for PRTG see Downloading the Software e The publicly available installer only contains the Freeware Starter and Trial Editions e The Commercial installer is only available for download for paying customers The Commercial Installer must be installed to run the commercial editions of PRTG Network Monitor If you have purchased a license key for PRTG you must download and install the latest Commercial Installer from the Paessler website in order to apply your license key Step 2 Enter the License Key in the PRTG Server Administrator You must enter the license key into the server ad
108. es with the Core Server using the PRTG API AII features for day to day use are implemented in the Windows GUI for some features the web interface is shown Install The Windows GUI is automatically installed on the computer where you have installed your PRTG Core Server To use the Windows GUI on other computers simply download and install the software from PRTG s web interface select menu item Setup Downloads It can be installed on all Windows versions XP or later The Windows GUI runs in two modes e Graphical user interface for PRTG You can add edit groups servers devices and sensors includes viewing sensor data and graphs as well as comparing sensor data You can review and configure alarms maps and reports e Tray tool runs on your PC in the background and will notify you with popups sounds etc whenever PRTG discovers changes in your network 2010 Paessler AG 46 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual The Windows GUI shares many concepts with the web interface and also opens a browser window for some features For new PRTG users it is recommended to start with the Web Interface before using the Windows GUI Login Information When you start the Windows GUI for the first time it will ask for Server IP DNS name and your credentials Please enter the same Server IP address DNS name Login Name and Password that are set in the PRTG Server Administrator Please enter the DNS name o
109. espective element 2010 Paessler AG 132 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Memory Usage PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log About Memory Used for Graphs and Tables The RAM memory usage of PRTG depends on the memory required to store the data for group device and sensor graphs This is necessary For Fast graph display You can minimize this memory requirement by choosing shorter time frames with longer intervals below Please select the period and average interval used For the graphs and tables Note IF you change these values the data cache must be recalculated During recalculation the graphs may show incomplete data Live 120 Values 2 hours with 1 min scanning interval v Graph 1 2 days with 5 minutes averages v Graph 2 30 days with 1 hour averages v Graph 3 365 days with 1 day averages v Under the Memory Usage tab you can define PRTG s memory usage for graphs and tables To do so you can define timeframes for live graphs as well as the other three standard graphs displayed under PRTG You can reduce memory usage by decreasing the graph time frame and increasing the intervals Administrator PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log Abou
110. ess of the server running PRTG or by filtering requests from PRTG s browser agent Mozilla 5 0 compatible PRTG Network Monitor Vxxxx Windows Tools Paessler URL Recorder Find out the URLs and the POSTDATA strings that a user sends to a web server while surfing a sequence of URLs useful when setting up HTTP Transaction sensors http www paessler com tools SNMP Sensors The Simple Network Management Protocol SNMP is the most basic method of gathering bandwidth and network usage data 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 69 How SNMP Monitoring works SNMP can be used to monitor bandwidth usage of routers and switches on a port by port basis as well as device readings such as memory CPU load etc eo i k k RS b LIEIIITI ALLL OTTE EET prceceger g Eao When this technology is used PRTG queries the devices e g routers switches and servers for the traffic counters of each port with quite small data packets These are triggering reply packets from the device Compared to PRTG s other bandwidth monitoring techologies xFlow NetFlow Packet Sniffer and WMI the SNMP option creates the least CPU and network load Reasons To Choose SNMP Monitoring SNMP is the most commonly used method mainly because it is easy to set up and requires minimal bandwidth and CPU cycles If your network devices support SNMP and or if you want to mo
111. etc are working correctly or whether for example the database of the web server is ok It is recommended to also check the content of a web page by using the HTTP Advanced Sensor instead of the simple HTTP sensor for added reliability What it Means When the HTTP Sensor is Down There are numerous reasons for an HTTP sensor to fail Besides normal connectivity problems the most common problems are internal server errors error codes 50x and problems caused by an incorrect URL error code 404 page not found Bandwidth Issues and Log File Analysis Issues Important Keep in mind that the HTTP sensor can create substantial bandwidth load since it is one of the sensors that transfers many bytes per requests sometimes 1000 times more that a simple ping So choosing a URL that only provides a small HTML page in return is recommended if you have to pay for the bandwidth either for your connection or for your web server This is certainly not a major problem in most LANs and Intranets but bandwidth usage should always be monitored Requesting a 25 kb web page with an interval of one minute creates a traffic of 36 MB per day or more than one Gigabyte per month Also keep in mind that the monitoring requests will show up in your web server log analysis one month of monitoring with a one minute interval will create 43 200 requests You should filter out the requests from PRTG when analyzing log files Filtering can be done based on the IP addr
112. fferent value for a specific group device or sensor All objects below will inherit these new settings not the ones from levels above Settings that are inherited among all objects include Monitoring interval Notifications and Triggers Windows authentication settings and WMI compatibility settings for WMI sensors ESX ESXi Server authentication settings for VMware servers SNMP authentication settings and compatibility settings Channel and unit configuration User access rights Paused status If an object is paused by the user by a schedule or by a dependency all associated sensors are paused as well There is one exception for devices and sensors The IP address or DNS name of a device and the SNMP and WMI settings are always inherited by sensors and can not be changed on sensor level The actual overriding of the parent s settings takes place by deselecting the checkbox Inherit from on the object s settings page As an example this screenshot shows Windows authentication settings after deselecting the checkbox _ Inherit Credentials for Windows Systems from parent object Group Domain or Computer Name empty Username lt empty gt Domain or Computer Name a Username Enter a login Password Enter a password for the Windows access Default values For all settings except passwords PRTG already includes a set of default values so you can get started with the software immediately For exa
113. fied for slow results or timeouts Postdata When using the POST request method you can enter the data part here no XML allowed O 2010 Paessler AG 66 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual e SSL Method Relevant only when you re using HTTPS If you are using a HTTPS URL and do not get a connection please try with another SSL method For monitoring a simple web page choose a simple HTTP sensor for more advanced HTTP sensors see below Enter the URL with http at the beginning and keep the default request method selection GET Smart URL Replacement Instead of entering a complete address in the URL field you can merely enter the protocol followed by colon and three slashes that means you can enter either http or https or even a simple slash as equivalent for http PRTG will then fill in the device s IP address DNS name in front of the third slash automatically Whether this results in a valid URL or not depends on the IP address DNS name of the device where this HTTP sensor is running on For example if you have a device with DNS name paessler com and you put a HTTP sensor on it with the value https in the URL field PRTG will automatically create the URL https paessler com from that Similarly if you create a HTTP sensor on the same device using the value support in the URL field PRTG will automatically create and monitor the URL http paessler com support In
114. for details http www paessler com support kb prtg7 tricks data import from prtg6 or ipcheck5 Installing an SSL Certificate for the Web Server PRTG Network Monitor comes with a default SSL certificate so you can securely use the web interface through HTTPS out of the box But because it is not an official certificate that matches the domain name or IP address of your PRTG installation a web browser will always show an alert the certificate is not correct when it connects to this server although the transmission is already secure Please see the Paessler Knowledge Base for details http www paessler com support kb prtg7 tricks install_ssl_certificate Customizing the Web Interface There a different possibilities how you can customize the PRTG Web Interface By changing the surface of the web interface you can re brand the look and feel to fit into your company s corporate design Note A good knowledge of HTML and CSS is necessary to perform these changes 2010 Paessler AG Advanced Topics 151 Please see the following articles from Paessler s Knowledge Base e HowTo Customize PRTG Login Screen http www paessler com support kb categories prtg7 customize prtg login screen e HowTo Re Brand and Customize the PRTG Web Interface Using CSS http www paessler com support kb prtg7 branding and customizing prtg web interface using css 14 7 Using the PRTG API Application Programming Interface PRTG Netw
115. from probes If a new probe connects for the first time the administrator will receive a ToDo and will then see the new probe in the sensor tree As a security precaution the probe must be manually acknowledged by the administrator in the ToDos list before any sensors can be created and monitored The admin can also deny a probe which will then be disconnected No further connection attempts will be accepted and the probe IP is added to the Deny IPs list in the probe system settings see section System Administration Edit System Setup This ensures that unauthorized probes can not connect to a Core Server Since the probe initiates the connection you must ensure that a connection can be established from the outside world onto your Core Server e g you may need to open any necessary ports in your firewall and you may need to specify a NAT rule for your network The process is the same when you want to allow access to the web server of the Core Server via port 80 Note The local probe is automatically configured and approved and connects to the Core via localhost 127 0 0 1 and SSL Situations That Require Monitoring Using Remote Probes Upon installation PRTG creates the first probe automatically called the Local probe The Local probe runs on the same machine as the Core Server and monitors all sensors from this system Working with only one Local probe should suffice for LAN monitoring and if you have just one location that you need
116. from the core system all probes are able to work independently of the core server for some time e g in case the connection between probe and core is lost due to connectivity problems During a connection loss a buffer stores a maximum of 500 000 sensor results in RAM memory of the remote probe system up to 50 200 MB This means that for 100 sensors with one minute interval the monitoring results of up to 3 days can be buffered or 52 minutes for 10 000 sensors with one minute interval The probe automatically reconnects to the core as soon as it is available again and transmits all monitoring results gathered during the connection loss Note Core server and probe s are running as Windows services which are permanently run by the Windows system without the requirement for a logged in user PRTG automatically monitors the system health of the core server and each probe in order to discover overloading situations that may distort monitoring results To monitor the system status of the probe computer PRTG automatically creates a few sensors These include a Probe Health a Disk Free sensor and a bandwidth sensor for all installed network cards 2010 Paessler AG Basic Concepts of PRTG Network Monitor 27 Probe Device al Probe Health Disk Free mf Intel R PRO 1 100 40 59 kbit s It is recommended to keep these sensors but you can optionally remove all except for the Probe Health sensor It measures vari
117. ggers you will see the following settings e Channel Select a channel which is used to compare the given values with e g Primary Sum Traffic In Traffic Out Condition Select the condition under which a notification is triggered e g Above Below Equal Not Equal Value The value you want to compare with Scale The scale for the value entered Time The time after which the counter is reset e g second minute hour day Together with Scale you can enter notations like bit per second or MByte per day etc Latency Latency is used to defer a notification for a specified time e g to give a server or service the chance to recover from failure or to avoid being spammed with notifications just because a data line was low for three seconds For example if you set the latency for a trigger to 60 seconds the notification will only be sent if the failure situation remains active for 61 seconds e On Notification This notification will be sent when the trigger becomes active e g a sensor goes over a specified speed with condition Above e Off Notification This notification will be sent when the trigger becomes inactive e g a sensor goes back below a specified speed with condition Above Volume Trigger s When editing volume triggers you will see the following settings e Channel Select a channel which is used to compare the given values with e g Primary Sum Traffic In Traffic Out 2010 Paessle
118. gh the network interface s of the machine running the PRTG probe software This is fine 1f you only want to monitor the traffic of this machine e g your web server In switched networks only the traffic for a specific machine is sent to each machine s network card so PRTG can usually not discern the traffic of the other machines in the network If you also want to monitor the traffic of other devices in your network you must use a switch that offers a monitoring port or port mirroring configuration Cisco calls it SPAN In this case the switch sends a copy of all data packets traveling through the switch to the monitoring port As soon as you connect the PRTG core to the switch s monitoring port PRTG is able to analyze the complete traffic that passes through the switch Another option is to set up the PC running PRTG as the gateway for all other computers in the network The Different Packet Sniffer Sensor Types PRTG offers three sensor types that are based on Packet Sniffing e Packet Sniffer Header Looks at the headers of the data packets to account traffic by IP by port by protocol etc Packet Sniffer Content Reassembles data packets to streams and looks into the payload data of the streams to assess the type of traffic e g SMTP HTTP IMAP file sharing NETBIOS etc Packet Sniffer Custom Accounts for data packets using user specific rules header based You find this sensor in the group Custom Sensors In
119. gs for your needs Add Sensors Manually If you want to add or remove sensors for this report manually please use the Select Sensors Manually tab You will find the according options there See Step 2 Select Sensors Manually above Add Sensors by Tag Enter one or more tags Every sensor from the sensor tree which has one of the tags will then be added to the report Note The concept of inheritance also works with tags see section Inheritance of Settings Filter Sensors by Tag Use this field to further filter all sensors added to this report either manually or by the Add Sensors by Tag option Enter one or more tags and only sensors with one of these tags will be visible in the report Works best if used in combination with a manual selection of probes groups or devices Report Schedule You can choose between no schedule and several different schedules This report will be run automatically on the scheduled dates According to your settings you will be asked to additionally specify an hour a day or date If you choose automatic processing you will receive a new message in your ToDos every time the report is run Scheduled Processing Select what should be done when an automatic report is run Options are Save report to disk email it or both Reported Period Report Period Type Period Please select if you want a report with data of the current or previous day week month or year According to your settings you will be asked
120. gure how a channel s values are processed See section Edit Sensor and Channel Settings for more details Provides a notepad for your own comments Shows a lifetime log for each object who created it who edited it etc These are the most common tabs Please note that you will also see other tabs for other objects If you make any changes in a tab please make sure you click on the Save button to save your changes If you change tabs without saving your changes will be discarded Overview Page for Groups Devices and Sensors Have a look at the following three screenshots showing the Overview tab of a group a device and a sensor g g group 2010 Paessler AG User Interfaces 41 Group Group 1 tam pause pelte Acasioup Add oevre keresh menu Device Web Server 1 UCET Home gt Devices PRTG gt Group 1 Ovewiew 2e0n 20 anve 365 ys mas iss RER Aene FM E iu peor Use g a a control jou car leur of ir sic ue A etm ata olii IEEE FRE pe is PRTG onmes tow seme sees aars too Asenna Anean elm Parent Probe G Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 Device Name u Web Server 1 jammifogbugzbsd Parent Groun llora Probe on 127 0 0 1 rity Sensors by State 152 ota 53 parent tte aci Frobe on raoa View SM LL uen seus EBEN Group 1 HEREC tats Group la Sensors Tawet Server Hmes Heze aicu varer E ERES LIC Jp dis Was I coc me dep o
121. h Hundreds of Sensors or More As a rule of thumb an average PC server built in the year 2007 or later should be able to monitor 1 000 sensors with ease some exceptions for SNMP V3 WMI and packet sniffer apply For larger installations please refer to our knowledge base article Planning Large Installations of PRTG Network Monitor 7 http www paessler com support kb prtg7 system requirements Detailed System Requirements Operating Systems for PRTG Core Server and PRTG Probe The 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the following operating systems are officially supported for PRTG Core Service and Probe Service Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows Vista Microsoft Windows 7 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hardware Requirements for PRTG Core Server and PRTG Probe Hardware requirements mainly depend on the sensor types and intervals used The following values are provided as reference for common usage scenarios of PRTG 7 based on a default sensor interval of 60 seconds e CPU An average PC built in 2007 can easily monitor 1 000 sensors see sensor type specific notes below e RAM You will need about 150K B of RAM per sensor e Hard Disk You will need about 200KB of disk space per sensor per day for sensors with 60 second interval e An Internet connection is required for license activation via HTTP or email There are also non hardware dependent limitations fo
122. hange Settings 61 Change System Language 129 Change User Settings 128 Change Web Site Title 125 Change Website DNS Name 125 Channels 27 30 61 Charts 31 109 Chrome 10 Cisco 64 Cisco Switch 68 80 85 Cisco Switches 140 Client 79 CMD 82 151 COM 71 Combine Sensor Values 88 Commercial Edition 7 18 Common Sensors 64 Configuration 10 Content Based Packet Sniffing 83 Context Menu 37 Core 129 Core Server 24 2010 Paessler AG 156 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Core Server Admin Tool 129 Core System Memory Usage 129 Create Devices Automatically 59 149 Create Devices Manually 56 Create Network Overview 100 Create Sensors Automatically 59 149 Create Sensors Manually 56 Custom 82 151 Custom Layouts 100 Custom Sensor 88 151 Customize Web Interface D Dashboard Data 153 Data Extraction Data Folder 135 Data Folders 129 Data Purging Limit Database Objects DCOM 71 Deinstall PRTG 22 DenyIP 125 Dependencies Settings Dependency Concept Depending on 33 Deutsch 129 135 Device 27 30 56 59 Device Settings 33 Device Template 149 Device Tree 33 Diagram 100 Diary 32 Distribute Network Load 143 Distributed Component Object Model DCOM DNS 74 150 31 100 31 109 125 129 61 33 71 Domain Name System 74 Download 15 129 Download iPRTG 129 Download Windows GUI 129 A VE EC2 Instance 79 Edit Schedule 121 Edit Sensor 61 Edition 18 EMail 75
123. have specified in the core server administrator tool above Note If the core server resides in a NAT ed network behind a firewall you must edit your firewall NAT settings and supply the external mapped IP address e Port Please enter the same port number that you have set up in your Core Server above You can edit the access keys on the server through the web interface Choose Setup System Setup from the main menu and you will see this screen 2010 Paessler AG 148 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual System Setup Edit Refresh Menu Home Setup Webserver Probes Notifications History Probe Connection Settings Access keys 630BFOFF 44BC 4779 8357 85B177A592D3 Allow IPs any Enter all IPs that are allowed Deny IPs Enter all IPs that are not aliowed You can enter one or more access keys in the web interface one for each probe is recommended and the exact same string must be entered into the probe s setup otherwise the core server will not accept a connection By default PRTG accepts connections from any IP Using the two settings you can make your configuration even more secure especially by only allowing authorized IPs Simply enter these IPs in the Allow IPs setting If you ever need to hard block a probe from a specific IP please enter the IP in the Deny IPs settings When you are done with the probe setup the probe service is started automatically and the it tries to connec
124. he characters and is not possible Limit download To avoid exhaustive bandwidth usage you can enter a kB limit for the data transferred per request If you re using Response must not include options only the part of the HTML page that is retrieved before reaching this download limit can be compared to your strings e Authentication User Password If the website at the given URL needs authentication you can enter the credentials here Please also choose if the website uses a HTTP Basic or a Windows Integrated NTLM authentication Proxy If you want or need to access the given URL via a certain proxy please enter the according information in these fields We do not recommend using a proxy because in case of a connection failure you will not be able to determine if it s the web server or the proxy server causing it Notes For HTTP Transaction Sensors This sensor is a special kind of HTTP Advanced Sensor Instead of one single URL it will check a series of URLs For your HTTP Transaction Sensor you can additionally configure the following settings e Timeout This HTTP specific setting defines the time in seconds after which the complete series of transactions is aborted If this happens the sensor for the complete transaction series is set to Failure 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 67 Single URL Timeout With this HTTP specific setting you can define a timeout in seconds after which a single transa
125. he definitions of the sensors of a device in a device template file Later this template file can be used to recreate all sensors that can successfully be recreated for the a device To create a device template choose the Create Device Template item from the device s context menu and PRTG will ask you for a filename and a template name The template file will be stored in the devicetemplate subfolder of your PRTG installation To create new devices with the same set of sensors you now have two options e Create an auto discovery group select option Automatic sensor creation using specific device template s and choose this specific device template from the list of templates e Create a new device select option Automatic sensor creation using specific device template s and choose 2010 Paessler AG 150 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 14 4 14 5 14 6 this specific device template from the list of templates Limitations of Device Templates Copying devices using device templates has the following limitations cloning a device does not have these limitations e Only the following devices are supported Generic Device PING only Generic Device SNMP enabled Detailed Generic Device SNMP enabled VMware ESX Server Hyper V Host Server Printer HP DNS Server FTP Server Server Compaq HP agents HTTP Web Server Mail Server MS Exchange 2007 Mail Server MS Exchange 2003 Mail Server Gener
126. he remote system If your custom sensor code relies on other files eg DLLs NET framework Windows PowerShell etc you must copy install these files onto the probe machine manually The probe either O 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 83 local or remote probe will execute the file on the probe system using the user account configured for the PRTG 7 Probe Service local system account is the default You can change the account running this service in the Windows Computer Management console Services See Interface Definition for Custom EXE Sensors for detailed documentation There you will also find information about what placeholders are allowed in the parameter field Notes For PowerShell scripts make sure that they may be executed by either code signing the files or changing the security policy for Powershell exe accordingly The API interface for custom EXE sensors is compatible to the custom EXE sensors provided by IPCheck Server Monitor 5 If you re looking for a sensor to work with scripts running on a remote web server please see documentation for HTTP Content sensor section Web Server HTTP HTTPS Sensors and also see the Paessler Knowledge Base at http www paessler com kb 7 13 Packet Sniffer Sensors Packet Sniffing should come into consideration if your network device s do not support SNMP or xFlow to measure bandwidth usage or if you need to differentiate the bandwidth usage by network pro
127. he schedule The group can see but not edit the specific schedule e Write This user group has read and write access to the schedule The group can see and edit the specific schedule e Full This user group has read and write access to the schedule plus it can assign schedule access rights to other user groups 2010 Paessler AG System Settings and Administration 123 13 3 Account Settings Edit Notifications Under Notifications you can discern an overview of all configured notifications see Notifications Overview My Account Schedules Notifications Comments History Notifications offer various methods by which you are notified when a sensor has fired a triggers see below reached a certain threshold After nofitications here you can select them on the group device and sensor settings pages Object Content Links Mail to Admin Delete Test Add new notification Clicking on any particular notification will direct you to the its configuration page You can add a new notification by clicking on the Add new notification button Use the Delete link to remove any particular notification or use the Test link to test any particular notification The edit page looks like this 2010 Paessler AG 124 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Basic Notification Settings Notification Name Notific
128. his checkbox if your SQL expression returns a result set Then the value of the first column in the first row of the result set is used as the return value of the monitoring request 1 e will be compared to the limits Otherwise the number of affected rows is regarded to be the return value of a monitoring request The latter usually makes sense with a data modification statement like DELETE Note The Result Set has to be of type integer Notes for Microsoft SQL Sensors e Supports SQL Server 2008 SQL Server 2005 including SQL Server Express Server Compact Editions SQL Server 2000 SQL Server 7 and MSDE requires OLE DB installed on the machine running the PRTG probe that accesses the server e Instance This holds the name of the instance if you want to connect to a named instance otherwise this field should remain empty Note Sometimes you will see connection strings like SQLSERVER SQLINSTANCE in 2010 Paessler AG 78 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 7 9 database clients The first part is the server name configured under the general server settings The second part refers to the instance name mentioned above Never enter this complete string in this PRTG form merely provide the second part without the backslash e Port If your SQL server runs the instance at a different static port than 1433 you can define the port number here Select Manual and change the port number e Authentication
129. ho 100 Everything OK exit 0 DLL sensors Every time the sensor is to be checked the selected DLL file is called The DLL must export one function function perform para msg pchar integer stdcall para and msg are zero terminated strings The allocated buffer for msg is 255 bytes the DLL must make sure that fewer bytes are returned Msg must be in the following format value message Value has to be an 32 bit integer and will be used as the resulting value for this sensor e g bytes milliseconds etc message can be any string and will be stored in the database The integer return value of the perform function has to be one of the following values 2010 Paessler AG Advanced Topics 153 ok warning system error e g a network socket error protocol error e g web server returns a 404 content error e g a web page does not contain a required word e e o o o AW DD mm CO Warning If the function call in the DLL does not return control it could block the whole PRTG system Make sure to handle your own timeouts and build in a reliable error management For this reason EXE sensors are recommended Links Sample projects for these Custom sensors can be found e In the PRTG Network Monitor custom sensors EXE subfolder of your PRTG installation e n the Knowledge Base on the Paessler website at http www paessler com kb e On the prtg7addons website on the open source platform Googl
130. ic Switch Cisco Catalyst Switch Cisco Generic Switch Cisco IOS Based Switch HP Procurve UNIX Linux Device UPS APC Windows Detailed via WMI Windows via WMI Windows IIS via SNMP Only the following sensor types can be stored in a device template DNS EXE FTP HTTP HTTP Advanced HTTP Full Web Page IMAP Ping POP3 Port RemoteDesktop SMTP SNMP Custom SNMP Helper discontinued SNMP Library SNMP Traffic WMI Custom WMI Disk Free WMI Event Log WMI File WMI Memory WMI Network WMI Pagefile WMI Process WMI Processor WMI Service WMI Vital System Data HyperV Virtual Machine Credentials settings of the device are not stored in the device template file You should enter credentials on the group level before you create devices using a device template Sensors that are created based on available objects e g SNMP Traffic and WMI Network Card sensors which look at available ports of a device will be recreated from scratch for all available ports on the new device e Schedules triggers dependencies and channel settings are not stored in device templates Importing Data from PRTG Traffic Grapher 6 or IPCheck Server Monitor 5 You can import your sensor configuration and historic monitoring data from PRTG 7 s predecessor products PRTG Traffic Grapher V6 or IPCheck Server Monitor 5 into your PRTG Network Monitor 7 installation using the Import tool Please see this Knowledge Base article on the Paessler website
131. in an own sensor channel So if your script sends back e g 10222 12 as result enter 2 for Number of channels to catch both values If your script sends back less values than the number specified here this will result in an error The number of channels cannot be changed later Content Check Monitor changes to monitor any changes to the values your script sends back In a second step this can be combined with an On Change notification trigger tab Notifications in sensor s settings e See the Paessler Knowledge Base for examples on how to use this sensor For examples on how to use the HTTP Content Sensor see Knowledge Base articles http www paessler com knowledgebase en tags http content sensor 2010 Paessler AG 68 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 7 4 Notes for HTTP Full Web Page Sensor This sensor uses Internet Explorer to load a full web page including all images and page elements and monitors the loading time Please note that only the given URL is monitored and no links are followed What it Means When the HTTP Sensor is Up The UP status of an HTTP sensor means that the web server delivers an HTTP result that is correct according to the HTTP protocol and that the URL is available This means that the web server software is up and running but you do not know whether the results are correct e g the webpage can contain error messages So you don t know whether the CGI scripts
132. ination of measurement results In this group you ll find a user definable version of some sensors from other groups In the following sections the most important sensors will be described Common Sensors The most common sensors for network monitoring are shown in this section e PING Performs one or more PINGs to monitor the availability of a device and optionally measure packet loss In percent PORT Checks the availability of TCP based network services e HTTP Monitors a web server via the HTTP protocol see Web Servers HTTP HTTPS Sensors SNMP Traffic Supports monitoring bandwidth bits s and volume bytes as well as the number of packets and errors via SNMP for a port of a network card on a PC server switch firewall printer etc see SNMP Sensors e WMI Network Card Measures traffic going through network cards see WMI Sensors Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors The following sensors can be used for bandwidth monitoring e WMI Network Card Measures traffic going through network cards see WMI Sensors e SNMP Traffic Supports monitoring bandwidth bits s and volume bytes as well as the number of packets 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 65 and errors via SNMP for a port or a network card on PCs servers switches firewalls printers see SNMP Sensors e Packet Sniffer Header PRTG looks at the IPs and ports of source and destination to assess the protocol see Packet Sniffer Sensors
133. ing objects e g groups devices sensors maps reports etc using the following settings in the according object s setting page Inherit Access Rights from New Sensor Types User Group Access User Group Rights demo Group Inherited None eal PRTG Users Group Inherited None Ed I Revert children s access rights to inherited For sensor tree objects the default setting is to Inherit Access Rights which means that a user has the same 2010 Paessler AG 118 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual access rights to all child objects if one has access to the object itself see section Inheritance of Settings This can be overridden by disabling the checkbox in front of Inherit Access Rights and setting the User Group Access options You can specify the access rights to the current object for each user group by choosing an option from the drop down list Inherited None The options are Inherited Uses the setting of the parent object None User cannot see or edit the object The object does not show up in lists and in the sensor tree unless a child object is visible to the user then the object is visible in the sensor tree though not accessible Read User can see the object and review its monitoring status Write User can see the object review its monitoring status and edit the object s settings except for group access settings Full Same as Write but the User can
134. ing on Review Results you enter the tree like device view which will be your starting point for everyday use Please have a look at this screenshot of PRTG s device page in the web interface 2010 Paessler AG 38 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 2 J2 410 m1 Alarms 24 Response Time Index s snin M0 CPU Load Index 0 TrafticIndex 096 search Home Devices Sensors Alarms Maps Reports logs ToDos Setup Help Logout Probe PRTG Edit Pause Delete Add Group Add Device Refresh Menu Home gt Devices gt PRTG Help Probe E HEPTEN NE E e FX aside a GIDC ect wells CUED RES SCNT E Overview 2 days 30 days 365 days Alarms Log Settings A Notifications vm Probe Name PRTG Group Root 2 days Priority Bibl Parent Group lt a Root Sensors by State 2 42 103 m1 Total 108 View S M LXL PRTG Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 Probe Device i Probe Heatth Disk Free 1 Imel R PRO 1 ad Packet Sniffer 22222225 100 46 960 kbit s 203 IN eo ae uy m Group 1 e gaages a a Group la Bl Alarms i6 E Response Time Index 26 u Web Server 1 PINGS sf HITP2 MIS FilesSem 2 wi CPULcad2 l DikFree2 PW CPU Load Index 2 Traffic Index 94 13 msec 187 msec 1Rles s 9 65 Ej Memoy2 Ei HTTP3 Group Root 30 days 35 201 msec System amp Mail Server 1 i ANG1 Messages ing 6 Queue Sie CPUlcadl l Disk Free 1 14 mse
135. ings Condition Select the condition under which a notification is triggered e g Down Warning Unusual e Latency Latency is used to defer a notification for a specified time e g to give a server or service the chance to recover from failure or to avoid being spammed with notifications just because a data line was offline for three seconds For example if you set the latency for a trigger to 60 seconds the notification will only be sent if the failure situation remains active for 61 seconds e On Notification This notification will be sent when the trigger becomes active e g a sensor goes down for a state trigger with condition Down e Off Notification This notification will be sent when the trigger becomes inactive e g a sensor goes up for a state trigger with condition Down State Trigger s Escalation Notifications If an error situation remains unsolved for some time it is a good idea to send additional notifications e g with a more aggressive recipient list called Escalation Notifications You can set the latency time to control when escalations are sent and you can also choose to repeat escalation mails every X minutes e Esc Latency This is the latency time after which escalation notifications will be sent e Esc Notification The notification that will be sent e Repeat Every If this value is unequal to zero the notification will be re sent at the specified interval Speed Trigger s When editing speed tri
136. is can be done either manually or automatically The following sections Creating Groups Devices and Sensors Manually and Creating Devices and Sensors Using the Auto Discovery explain these steps Note If you want to create a multi probe setup you need to add and configure the necessary probes first see Multiple Probes and Remote Probes Reviewing Settings of the Root Group Objects in the sensor tree inherit many settings from their parent objects as explained in the Inheritance of Settings section Obviously the Root group which is the parent object to all other objects is especially important in this regard So before you create your own sensors it is a good idea to review the Root group s settings to ensure they suit your network Choose the Devices item from the main menu and click the Settings tab There are several relevant settings 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Device and Sensor Setup 55 Use this feld to enter the physical location of the object computer name for the user account Enter a login name for the Windows access Enter 2 password for Windows access Specify how long this sensor wil wait for the retur of ts WMI query unti it quits with a timeout error Leave empty if you want to use the Please choose a protocol for access to the VMware server Depending on the target device you can use
137. is group Please note Every user already is member of a primary group by default Here you can add all marked users to the current group additionally In the object settings access rights are defined on group level only not on user level e Primary Users Shows a list of all users that have assigned the current group as Primary Group 13 6 System Information and Optional Downloads There are three buttons you can choose for system information or optional downloads View System Status On this page you can view exhaustive information about your system s status You can find information about the software version you are using about hardware and system resources licensing information and an overview of your settings to name a few When contacting the Paessler support team they will need these vital information to help you View Activation Status Your PRTG Network Monitor license must be activated by the Paessler Licensing System You can view your license s activation status or start an activation via email See section Activating the Product for more details Download Add Ons This is the starting point for you to get additional software you might need to set up your network monitoring You can download the Windows GUI or the Remote Probe Installer buy the iPhone App or visit the Paessler website 13 7 PRTG Server Administrator The PRTG Server Administrator can be started from the PRTG Network Monitor program group in the St
138. iscrete percentile may not necessarily be the median if the value does not belong to an odd number of measurements Discrete percentiles as such should not be used for billing applications Continuous percentile basically means that the measurements are treated as a statistical population and the value is determined by interpolating a value when it isn t present This means that values are interpolated between actual measurements that are varying around the perfect center of the measurements More A good source for more information regarding these percentiles can be found on this page http www servicelevel net rating matters newsletters issuel3 htm 14 10 Legal notices Build using Indy Internet Direct http www indyproject org This product includes cryptographic software O 2010 Paessler AG 154 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual written by Eric Young eay cryptsoft com Uses the net SNMP library see netsnmp license txt Uses the DelphiZip library distributed under the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE http www delphizip net Uses the Info Zip library license info in the provided info zip license txt Uses FastMM http sourceforge net projects fastmm and TPLockBox http sourceforge net projects tplockbox under the Mozilla Public License 1 1 MPL 1 1 available from http www mozilla org MPL MPL 1 1 html Soundfiles from www soundsnap com Legal notice All trademarks mentioned herein bel
139. kness warning error limits etc can be edited on the Channels tab after creating the sensor This works like with any other sensor You can also use triggers to send notifications See section Edit Sensor and Channel Settings for more details Tips and Infos The data is always calculated on the fly using the Historic Data of the sensors if available The display of live data for Sensor Factory sensors can be delayed since it has to wait for data in all used channels You can use channels from sensors with different scanning intervals to create a new channel but it 1s recommended to use the same interval for the source sensors and the Sensor Factory There is no uptime downtime totals calculation for Factory Sensors The coverage of the Sensor Factory is defined as the minimum coverage of all Sensor Factory channels The coverage of a Sensor Factory channel is the weighted average coverage of the sensors used in the calculation The downtime channel of Sensor Factory sensors is defined as the average of the downtime of all used channels 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Part Notifications 94 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 8 Notifications Notifications are used to send alerts to the user whenever PRTG discovers a defined state such as slow or failing sensors or when thresholds are reached You can define an unlimited number of notifications allowing to use one or mo
140. l always be displayed in graphs and overviews It can also be used to trigger notifications e Please note Warning and Error Limits are based on the sensor s channels and can be changed in the Channels tab Notifications Tab You can use a sensor to trigger many different notifications Please see section Notifications for more details on creating notification triggers Channels Tab In the Channels tab you can specify the settings for every single channel of a sensor First choose the desired channel in the Select Channel area The channels available in this selection box depend on the sensor you are editing You can only choose one channel at a time The settings below the Edit Channel header are channel specific and vary slightly depending on the selected channel You can change the channel s name in the Name field The ID is used as an internal channel identifier and cannot be changed 2010 Paessler AG 62 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual With the check boxes available at Display you can select whether this channel should be displayed in charts in tables or both This way you can make your charts and tables clearer by hiding the data of channels that do not interest you With the settings Line Color Line Width Decimal Places and Vertical Axis Scaling you can specify how the graphs for this channel are to be displayed If you don t like the automatic settings please ch
141. larms aes 3 Response Time Index anyta 8 Home Devices Sensors Alarms Maps Reports Logs ToDos Sensor PING 12 Home gt Devices gt gt CloudClimate co gt vpsland cioudcl gt PING 12 Overview Live Data 2 days 30 days 365 days Historic Data log settings A Notifications ul Channels 9 m Review or Download Historic Sensor Data Start 2010 01 12 E 00 00 f End 2010 01 12 eH 24 00 v Average Interval 60 Minutes 1 Hour nA File Format HTML web page XML file CSV file Include Percentiles Percentile Results Off On Start gt Cancel You can select the following options e Start Enter the start date and time of the data you want to review e End Enter the end date and time of the data you want to review 2010 Paessler AG User Interfaces 45 Average Interval With this option you can activate and set up averaging Select an interval for which the average value should be calculated You can choose between No Interval no averaging will be performed a few seconds minutes hours or a whole day A smaller interval will result in a more detailed report for this sensor The best settings for you vary depending on the Scanning Interval of the sensor the selected date period and of course the intended use for the report It might be useful to try different settings to see what the results look like e File
142. license key must be requested from Paessler s website e Trial period limited to 30 days automatically reverts to Freeware Edition afterwards As default after installation the Trial Edition runs with the functionality of the Freeware Edition only when no license key is entered Free trial license keys are available on our website at http www paessler com prtg trial 2010 Paessler AG PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 1 3 Commercial Editions There are several licenses of PRTG Network Monitor available to suit the demands of smaller as well as larger customers and organizations e Maximum number of sensors 100 or more xFlow NetFlow sensors 1 or more and probes 4 or more depend on the license e Supports all available sensor types including NetFlow xFlow e Shortest available monitoring interval is one second Editions overview PRTG Network Monitor Version Sensors Probes xFlow NetFlow Sensors Freeware Edition Starter Edition 10 20 4 30 Days Trial 500 4 2 Professional 100 100 4 2 Enterprise 500 500 10 28 Enterprise 1 000 1 000 20 2 Enterprise Unlimited unlimited 30 pu Enterprise Unlimited Site unlimited unlimited ar Additional xFlow NetFlow sensors can be purchased as add on The Enterprise Unlimited Site License allows multiple installations of the core server within one network To learn more about pricing or to order licenses please visit http www paessler com orde
143. list type and the total number of bytes for this entry during the Toplist period The last column displays the bandwidth of each entry as a percentage of the total bandwidth Configuring Toplists In order to edit an existing Toplist or to add a new Toplist click the respective buttons next to the list of Toplists 2010 Paessler AG 142 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Add toplist Name Type o Top Talkers Which IPs use most bandwidth C Top Connections Which connections use most bandwidth C Top Protocols Which protocols use most bandwidth C Custom Create your own toplist Period minutes 15 1 Top Count 100 1 Probe Core Data Transfer e According to sensor interval default C wait until toplist period ends less cpu amp bandwidth usage Memory limit MB 10 Save Cancel For the Toplist type you have 4 options Top Talkers Which IPs use most bandwidth Top Protocols Which protocols use most bandwidth Top Connections Which connections use most bandwidth Custom Create your own Toplist For the Custom option you can select the parameters used while creating the Toplists The fields available depend on the sensor type and include Source IP Source Port Destination IP Destination Port Source MAC Destination MAC Protocol Ether Type ToS Channel IP combined Port combined MAC combined Apart from the list type you can also set the period and number of ent
144. lly causing trouble and loss of sales no matter what mitigation efforts have been made up front Network administrators need to take three key steps to maintain network uptime reliability and speed 1 Set up a well planned network with reliable components 2 Create recovery plans for the event of device failure 3 Monitor their network to know about failures as they build up or actually happen PRTG Network Monitor the software described in this document is a complete solution for monitoring small medium and large networks Monitoring Networks with PRTG Network Monitor PRTG Network Monitor is a powerful network monitoring application for Windows based systems It is suitable for small medium and large networks and capable of LAN WAN WLAN and VPN monitoring It monitors network availability and bandwidth usage as well as various other network parameters such as quality of service memory load and CPU usages It provides system administrators with live readings and periodical usage trends to optimize the efficiency layout and setup of leased lines routers firewalls servers and other network components The software 1s easy to set up and use and monitors a network using SNMP WMI packet sniffer Cisco NetFlow as well as many other industry standard protocols It runs on a Windows based machine in your network for 24 hours every day PRTG Network Monitor constantly records the network usage parameters and the availability of network
145. lt unit gt lt formula gt For each channel one section is used A section begins with the sign Here is an example with two channels 1 Sample Channel 1000 0 2 Response Time ms Channel 1001 1 2010 Paessler AG 90 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual The parameters are e id must be a unique number 1 or greater e lt name gt is the name of the channel displayed in graphs and tables e lt unit gt is optional e g bytes If it is not provided a fitting unit string is automatically selected recommended e formula contains the formula to calculate the channel In the formula the following elements are allowed Basic operations Example 3 5 2 Brackets Example 3 2 6 Compare equal lt gt not equal gt greater less gt greater or equal lt less or equal If the compare is true the value is 1 otherwise 0 for delta sensors the speed is compared Functions channel min max avg percent channel Function The channel function allows to read the data from a channel of a different sensor The syntax is channel lt SensorId gt ChannelId e The Sensorld is displayed on the sensor details page in the Overview tab behind the sensor name e The ChannelID is displayed on the sensor details page in the Channels tab for each channel behind the channel name Example Read the data of sensor ID 20
146. mages 121 128 IMAP 75 Import Data Inherit 30 Inherit Rights Inheritance Install 21 Install Remote Probe Installation 10 15 16 Instant Messenger 94 Internet Explorer 10 Internet Message Access Protocol IMAP Internet Page 65 Internet Provider 153 Internetserver 65 Internetworking Operating System IOS Introduction 6 7 lOS 85 87 IP 129 135 IPCheck Server Monitor 5 150 IPCheck Server Monitor V5 Upgrade iPhone 10 35 50 iPRTG 35 50 IP SLA 80 ae on Japanese Jitter 80 Journal 32 115 64 150 61 30 54 61 21 129 143 75 85 87 15 129 135 K Key 18 Em Language Settings LED 37 License 7 18 129 Licenses 7 Limit User Access Limits Settings 61 Lineup 32 Lists 37 Live Graphs Local IP 135 Local Probe 24 143 Log 32 129 135 Log File 32 Logbook 32 Login Name Mail 75 Mail Server 75 Main Menu 37 Management Information Base Manual Device Creation 56 Manual Sensor Creation 56 Map 31 Map Concept Maps 100 Mean Opinion Score Memory Usage 129 Merge Sensors 88 Messenger 94 123 125 MIB 68 MIB Import 68 Microsoft Exchange Microsoft SQL 77 Microsoft Windows Mobile 50 Monitor Bandwidth Monitor Cisco Switch Monitor Disk Share 129 135 31 117 129 37 45 121 128 129 68 31 80 75 71 64 68 78 2010 Paessler AG Index 159 Monitor Disk Space 78 Monitor Disk Volume 78 Monitor File 78 Monitor Folder 78 Monitor
147. matic schedule to run the report on a regular basis Step 4 Accessing Historic Reports On the Stored Reports tab you can access former reports that are stored on the disk Editing Report Settings In the Settings tab you can configure the following settings for the current report Report Name Please choose a descriptive name Template You can choose from the list of available templates There are templates that offer graphs data tables or both and there are Top x reports You also specify the graph calculation intervals by selecting a template Note In this PRTG version we do not officially support customizing report templates However dit th late htm files in the website Weporttemplates subfolder of your PRTG Installation iv Graph with Data Table 31 Graph 1 min interval Table 1 min interval Graph 5 min interval Table 5 min interval Graph 15 min interval Table 15 min interval Graph 30 min interval Table 30 min interval 5 Graph 1h interval Table 1h interval 7 Graph 1h interval Table 24h interval Graph 24h interval Table 24h interval Data Table Only Data Table 1 min interval Data Table 5 min interval Data Table 15 min interval Data Table 30 min interval Data Table 1h interval Data Table 24h interval only Graph Only 1 min interval Graph Only 5 min interval Graph Only 15 min interval e Timezone Paper size Orientation Please select the appropriate settin
148. ministrator program To start the PRTG Server Administrator select or double click the respective icon PRTG Server Administrator Select the License tab and enter your license key To avoid typos please copy and paste the name and the key from the license key email that you have received from Paessler AG 2010 Paessler AG 20 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 3 5 PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log About Software License License Name License Key 000014 ZP55 34TI Licensed Edition Additional NetFlow xFlow Probe licenses License Keys Netflow Sensors Probes Check Key s To make sure your key has been entered correctly please click on Check Key s In the field Licensed Edition you will able to see the accepted licence key Entering an xFlow License Key for NetFlow sFlow NetFlow xFlow keys only consist of the code 70 characters and numbers and are not specific to your company name If you have purchased a NetFlow xFlow license key you must also start the Server Administrator tool to enter the key Select the License tab and paste the key s into the Additional NetFlow Licenses box To make sure your key has been entered correctly please click on Check Key s Activating the Product After installing the PRTG software and entering a license key
149. monitoring for However there are several situations that make it necessary to work with multiple probes or remote probes If you have more than one location and you need to make sure that services are available from all locations If your network is separated in several LANs by firewalls and the local probe can not monitor specific services across the firewalls If you need to monitor systems in VPNs across public or in secure data lines If you want to sniff packets on another computer If you want to monitor NetFlow data on another computer If you experience performance issues with CPU intensive sensors like packet sniffer or NetFlow sensors and need to distribute the load onto more than one PC The following chart shows an example The PRTG Core Server inside the Corporate LAN bottom right is 2010 Paessler AG 144 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual able to monitor Services inside the Corporate LAN using the Local Probe e Services behind a firewall in the Corporate LAN using Remote Probe 1 Secured services inside the Branch Office top left using a Remote Probe 2 installed on a dedicated probe server e Secured services on Mail Server and Web Server using Remote Probe 3 and Remote Probe 4 installed directly on these servers Public services on the Internet using any of the probes Automatic Probe Updating Whenever a new version of PRTG is installed on the Core Serve
150. mple the following settings will be inherited by all sensors from the Root group e Default monitoring interval of one minute e SNMP version 1 with public community string default values for most devices 2010 Paessler AG Basic Concepts of PRTG Network Monitor 31 4 4 4 5 4 6 4 7 e No entry in object Schedules and Dependencies no Windows authentication account e A set of schedules in Setup e Various data purging settings You may need to change some of these default entries as you become used to the interface however these settings should initially suffice for most situations Tip Before sensor setup go to the root group and set the defaults to values that suit your setup including necessary credentials This will make things easier later User Access Rights The default administrator can use the PRTG installation as the only user or can create an unlimited number of users Users are organized using an unlimited number of groups which also control their security settings There are Administrator users Read Write Users and Read Only Users With these tools you can create a rights management that allows you to specify exactly what users will be able to see and edit All the security settings as well as further rights management are conducted via the user groups This means that group membership controls what a user may do and which objects he sees when logged in The actual rights for e
151. n Add new notification to create a new one Edit Notification Home gt notifications gt new object Basic Notification Setti Notification Name Notification The name of the notification Status started J paused Schedule None ba Postpone F No 9 Yes Access Rights User Group Access User Group Rights Set user group for this object You cannot remove rights defined for a parent node PRTG Users Group None All rights are inherited to child nodes readonly user None testusers None X Send Email Add Entry to Event Log Send Network Broadcast NET SEND Send Syslog Message C Send SNMP Trap C Send ICQ Message T Send MSN Message C Send Yahoo Message C Send SMS Pager Message Execute HTTP Action You can enable one or more communication types by checking the respective checkboxes Then fill out the specific settings for each type Refer to the help messages next to the form fields for more information Be sure to enter a meaningful name for the notification to make it easier for you to find it later in the notification trigger settings 2010 Paessler AG 96 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual How To Trigger Notifications A notification is sent by a trigger These connect sensors and notifications PRTG supports five different trigger types e State Triggers T
152. n a browser window on the machine you want to install the probe on and go to the PRTG web interface of the Core Server installation In the interface go to Setup Download download the Remote Probe Installer and run it Note You cannot install a remote probe on a system where a PRTG Core Server is installed At the end of the installation the Probe Administrator will be started or you can start it manually from the Windows Start Menu later and you can enter the settings 2010 Paessler AG Advanced Topics 147 PRTG Network Monitor Probe Administration Tool Probe control Service Control Files Directories About Probe details Name of the probe Reconnect Time Local probe 300 Server connection G Connect to local core server via 127 0 0 1 and port specified below Connect to remote core server via settings specified below Port M 23560 4 standard 23560 Probe GID 1D847DF41 4834 4F23 BFDD 175B21FC6105 Edit GID Outgoing IP For monitoring requests Probe Administration Tool Language auto English The important settings are see PRTG Probe Administrator for more details e Name of the probe A name of your choice that will be visible in the sensor tree later e Server Connection Please choose Connect to remote core server e Server IP or DNS name Please enter the server s IP address or DNS name the one that you
153. n by some users Using the checkboxes you can activate various methods of notification For each method you must enter the receiver address Optionally you can also change the notification texts the available placeholders are explained on the right Note For notifications with instant messengers it is important to understand that in order to use instant messaging for notifications you always need two accounts One account that sends the messages and another one that receives the messages Important For some notification methods you must enter the sender information in the Notification Delivery Settings see section System Administration Edit System Setup System Administration Edit System Setup System Website and Web Server Settings Select Setup System Setup in the main menu In the System Website and Web Server Settings tab you can define following specifics System Website and Web Server Settings Notification Delivery Settings Probe Management Site Information Site Name PRTG Network Monitor XP PRO DNS Name Language Selection Please use the PRTG Server Administrator program to select the user interface language Scanning Intervals Available Intervals 30s im 5m L 10m 15m 30m ih 4h Uptime Threshold Minimum Allowed Uptime 99 99 96 Eel Threshold E Mail Options Email Footer Text n This email was sent to toaddress at systemdatetime it
154. n individual PC to the outside world and you as the administrator must make sure that it is legal for you to configure PRTG like this O 2010 Paessler AG Advanced Topics 143 e Note 2 Keep in mind that Toplists can be viewed through the web interface You may not want to show lists of domains used in your network to others So you should restrict access to sensors having Toplists 14 2 Multiple Probes and Remote Probes PRTG has two system modules The Core Server which handles data storage web server and a lot more as well as one or more Probes which perform the actual monitoring How Probes Work As soon as a probe is started it automatically connects to its Core Server downloads the sensor configuration and begins its monitoring tasks The Core Server sends new configuration data to a probe as soon as the monitoring configuration is changed by the user Probes monitor autonomously and send the monitoring results back to the Core Server for each check they have performed If the connections between Core and probe fails for any reason e g a reboot of the Core the probe continues its monitoring and stores the results The connection between probe and Core is initiated by the probe secured using Secure Sockets Layer SSL This means that the data sent back and forth between Core and probe is not visible to someone capturing data packets The Core Server provides an open TCP IP port and waits for connection attempts
155. ned 151 User Defined Program 82 User Interface 37 45 50 117 User interfaces 35 User Login Timeout 125 User Management 31 117 Users 31 elas View Activation Status 129 View System Status 129 Virtual Machine 10 79 Virtual Server 79 Virtualization 79 VM 10 79 Voice over IP 80 VoIP Quality 80 Volume Disk 78 VPN 143 W Warning 32 94 Warning Settings 61 Web browser 10 Web Interface 35 37 150 Web Interface Credentials 117 Web Server 65 125 129 Webinterface 37 Website 65 Website Settings 125 What Do I Need 10 Windows 71 78 Windows Graphical User Interface 35 45 Windows GUI 35 45 Windows Live Messenger 94 125 Windows Management Instrumentation 64 71 78 82 87 Windows Management Instrumentation Sensor 64 Windows Server 71 Windows System Tray 45 Windows GUI 21 WMI 64 71 78 82 87 WMI Sensor 64 WMI Troubleshooting 71 WMware 79 WQL 82 151 Write Code 151 2010 Paessler AG 162 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual WWW 65 X xFlow 85 87 140 XML 151 Y Yellow Sensor 37 2010 Paessler AG
156. need to open any ports for monitoring requests to the instance VoIP and QoS Sensors The sensors in this section can monitor Quality of Service using PRTG s own QoS sensor as well as Cisco IP SLA Slight variations of network parameters like jitter packet loss or packet delay variation PDV usually have only little effect on TCP based services e g HTTP SMTP etc But for UDP based services like VoIP and video streaming a steady stream of data packets is crucial The sound quality of a VoIP call drops dramatically when UDP packets are not received in a timely fashion if packets are lost or out of order As a rule of thumb for good quality of service in a VoIP perspective you would want low measurements for jitter 20 50 ms and PDV 100 ms and zero measurements for packet loss duplicated and out of order packets Two sensors are available e QoS Quality of Service Monitors VoIP relevant network parameters by testing network connection quality between two probes e Cisco IP SLA Monitors VoIP relevant network parameters through IP SLA results from Cisco devices via SNMP QoS Quality of Service Sensor The QoS Sensor is used to monitor the quality of a network connection by measuring the following quality of service parameters Jitter in ms according to RFC 3550 Packet delay variation PDV in ms according to RFC 3393 Lost packets in Out of order packets in 96 e Duplicated packets in 96 The measurement
157. ng Devices by Cloning or Using Device Templates eee 149 Importing Data from PRTG Traffic Grapher 6 or IPCheck Server Linie ice 150 Installing an SSL Certificate for the Web Server nennen 150 Customizing the Web Interface eese eren ennt nnn nenne nnn nnne tenni nnn nennen 150 Using the PRTG API Application Programming Interface eee 151 Interface Definition for Custom EXE Sensors eese nnne nnns 151 Calculating Percentiles rnana Danen ERRA trente trier eren RASA npn trer nnns 153 Legal Notite S airera ana ae aa aaa KAN A EAE AAA ESAERA KS VEALE AAE LANO ASAE AA RENERE 153 Index 155 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Part Introduction PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 1 1 Introduction Today most businesses rely on a computer and network infrastructure for Internet internal management telephone and email A complex set of servers and network equipment is required to ensure that business data flows seamlessly between employees offices and customers The economical success of an organization is tightly connected with the flow of data Why Network Monitoring is Important The computer network s reliability speed and efficiency are crucial for businesses to be successful But like all other technical objects network devices may fail from time to time potentia
158. nistrator can be started from the PRTG Network Monitor program group in the Start menu and allows configuring a probe running on the local PC This can be the Local Probe for a PC running a full PRTG installation or one of the remote probes when only the probe installer was used on a PC The PRTG Probe Administrator is divided into four tabs 2010 Paessler AG 136 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Probe Control PRTG Network Monitor Probe Administration Tool Probe control Service Control Files Directories About Probe details Name of the probe Reconnect Time Local probe 300 Server connection G Connect to local core server via 127 0 0 1 and port specified below Connect to remote core server via settings specified below Port 23560 Standard 23560 i Probe GID D847DF41 4834 4F23 BFDD 175B21FC6105 Edit GID Outgoing IP for monitoring requests Probe Administration Tool Language auto English Cancel Under the Probe Control tab you can define e Name of the probe the name will be shown in the web interface e Reconnect Time in seconds which is the time between two connection attempts when the Core can t be reached e Server Connection The server s IP address or DNS name as well as the server s port and the probe s access key these settings must match the settings in the PRTG Server Administrator see also section Multiple Probes an
159. nitor large networks with several hundred or thousands of sensors we recommend you start with SNMP Besides network usage monitoring another well known feature of SNMP is the ability to also watch other network parameters such as CPU loads disk usage temperatures as well monitoring many other readings depending on the device Important information about network issues In order to use SNMP for monitoring purposes it is imperative that UDP packets are allowed to travel from the machine running PRTG to the device you want to monitor and back which is usually the case in LANs and Intranets This is not usually the case for Internet connections DMZ and WAN connections Here some changes to the traversed firewalls may be necessary Keep in mind that SNMP V1 and V2c are not secure protocols and should not be used across the Internet or insecure data connections Only SNMP version 3 supports encryption SNMP Sensors To better understand and set up SNMP sensors you may want to learn more about the principle of Object Identifiers OID and Management Information Base MIB For more information about this please refer to the Knowledge Base article linked below section See also The following sensors use the Simple Network Management Protocol supports SNMP V1 V2c and V3 e SNMP Traffic Supports monitoring bandwidth bits s and volume bytes as well as the number of packets and errors via SNMP for a port or a network card on PCs server
160. nsors groups or devices They are computed by using statistical computations and by comparing the values to the highest and lowest readings ever recorded For example a CPU Load Index value of 90 means that the average CPU load for all CPU sensors of your current configuration lies at 90 of the highest ever measured CPU usage value Website Header Area Search Box and Main Menu Home Devices Sensors Alarms Maps Reports Logs ToDos Setup Help Logout Navigating through the web interface is performed using the main menu Please take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with all menu items and sub items Menu item Alarms is highlighted with red color whenever there is an alarm Logs and ToDos are highlighted with blue color if new messages or new ToDos are available To search for any monitoring object simply enter the name part of the name an IP address a DNS name or a tag in the search box on the right and hit the enter key A web page with all items that fit the search term will be returned even displaying online help articles Page Header and Tabs Probe PRTG Edit Pause Delete Add Group Add Device Refresh Menu Home gt Devices gt PRTG Help Probe This is the probe details page Using the tab control you can view various data of this object as well as edit the objects s settings E Overview 2days 30days 365 days Alarms Log Settings A Notifications emu 2010 Paessler AG
161. ntime Percent Available Memory and Available Memory for a WMI Memory sensor Downtime Average for a PING sensor Downtime Loading time Bytes received Download Bandwidth and Time of first Byte for a HTTP advanced sensor Data for SMTP HTTP FTP PING etc for Packet Sniffer and xFlow sensor etc 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor 28 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Groups and Probes Each device is part of a Group You can arrange your devices in different nested groups to reflect the structure of your network Each group is part of a Probe This is the platform on which the monitoring takes place All objects configured below a probe will be monitored via that probe Every PRTG Core installation automatically installs a local probe service You can add additional DEVICE probes and remote probes to your configuration to include remote devices from outside your network into the monitoring see section Multiple Probes and Remote Probes Finally the Root group is the topmost instance in PRTG which contains all other objects The hierarchical order described is also used to define common settings for larger groups of objects e g settings of the root group usually apply to all other objects below it see section Inheritance of Settings Here is a sample configuration with one probe several groups devices and their sensors 2010 Paessler AG
162. ny days historic data remains accessible Enter the number of days to retain historic data for each of the available entries e Unusual Detection Here you can define the sensitivity of the unusual state detection mechanism e User Login Timeout Specify the time after which a user is automatically logged out the web interface when idle e Settings from the PRTG Server Administrator program These entries are for your information only These entries can be edited from the PRTG Server Administrator applet under Start PRTG program group see PRTG Server Administrator Notification Delivery Settings Select Setup System Setup in the main menu Under the Notification Delivery Settings tab you can define specifics relevant to notifications see Notifications System Website and Web Server Settings Notification Delivery Settings Probe Management SMTP Delivery SMTP Delivery Mechanism Automatic uses MX records for direct delivery recommended Via SMTP Relay Server recommended inside LANs NATs Two SMTP Relay Servers Primary and fallback server Sender E Mail support paessler com Sender Name System Admin HELO Ident XP PRO Merge notifications if more 3 than Maximum number of merged 50 notifications SMS Delivery Select SMS provider list or Select a SMS provider from a list of providers custom SMS provider Enter a custom URL for a provider not listed Note It is important to understand that in or
163. o Create Devices Automatically 149 How to Create Interactive Maps of Your Network 100 How to Create Reports From Your Monitoring Data 109 How to Customize the Web Interface 150 How to Define How Notifications are Being Sent 125 How to Define Settings for the Root Group 54 How to Determine System Requirements 10 How to determine the Quality of Service of your network 80 How to Download Software 15 How to Edit a User s Account Settings Admins only 128 How to Edit Basic Probe System Settings 135 How to Edit Basic System Settings 129 How to Edit Notification Delivery Settings 125 How to Edit System Website and Web Server Settings 125 How to Edit Your Account Settings 121 How to Enter a License Key 18 How to Import Data From Older Program Versions 150 How to Install 15 How to Install a PRTG Remote Probe 21 How to Install a Validated SSL Certificate for Your Web Server Connection 150 How to Install PRTG Core Server 16 How to Install Windows GUI 21 How to Manage a Probe Connection 125 How to Manage Users and Define Access Rights 117 How to Obtain Additional Software 129 How to Set Up a Remote Probe 143 How to Set Up Devices and Sensors 54 How to Set Up New Notifications 123 How to Understand Basic PRTG Concepts 24 How to Understand Schedules 32 How to Uninstall PRTG 22 How to Upgrade From Previous Versions 15 How to Use Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors 64 How to Use Common Sens
164. oadcom Netktreme Gigabit Ethemet 365 days E m drk prigtestserver net si Eichen Ske Probe Device Sum volume Sum speed Tri f 10 0 0 1 100 ai 44 Pac Ham 10 4 000 B 4 ES 1000 101 254 500 48 600 KByte 34kbit s 5 5 Dell SCSI switch 2 10 0 0 8 7 3 250 05g d 03 09 2009 00 00 00 00 00 00 338KByte 11 kbit s G 10 0 0 102 P icd 02 09 2009 00 00 00 00 00 00 3 911 119 KByte 4 470 kbit s h D oo bo GH 10 0 0 103 m1 EEG GE Sa er ea ae 01 09 2009 00 00 00 00 00 00 15 683 109 KByte 1 487kbit s 1 Emm ProCurve Switch 2810 246 E 17 2222828888 8 amp m En Core Switch 1 10 0 0 127 E 30 3s822522 i225842 a E E mm GigabitSwitch BSX Server E 20 S uRHmHESSSSS3S cu r Wi Downtime T Sum kbit s E Traffic in kbit s IE Traffic out kbit s I Packets s Refresh in 24 seconds a E V72 04474 Read more about it in section Windows GUI iPhone Interfaces If you have an iPhone you can access a built in web browser based user interface that is optimized for the iphone or you can purchase the iPRTG app for PRTG ul T Mobile 3 ur T Mobile T Mobile 3 16 11 v3 Ko Wi http prtg paessler comiphone ed LOWE http prig paessler com iphone Je Refresh 16 11 16 12 n 9 Wl htip prta paessler com iphone Probe Probe Nuremberg Germany IP Sensor Homepage Welcome to PRTG Worldwide Demo Exchange com on PIP e ires Type HTTP Advancod Group Paessler Servers via Nuremberg
165. of the currently displayed object e g a sensor on the device page These five navigation paths put PRTG s complete functionality at your fingertips Quite likely you are already familiar with these techniques from many other websites and web based user interfaces Let s have a detailed look at PRTG s web interface building blocks Global Status Bar and Sensor Colors 0 Hz 3 mios Ea 40 HEBE Response Time Index 8 CPUloadindex 23 Traffiiindec Tose 2010 Paessler AG User Interfaces 39 This bar is always shown above all pages It shows the aggregated status of all sensors you have configured for monitoring Depending on the sensors status you will see colored squares with numbers which symbolize the sensors in the screenshot above 23 sensors are red 3 are yellow 95 sensors are green 129 sensors are blue and 40 are orange The color of a sensor always shows it s current status Sensor Status Meaning wd Red Down M Red confirmed Down this status is additionally verified d Yellow Warning Green OK 4 Blue Paused Orange Unusual ml Black Unknown sensor has not been checked yet The four graphs in the global status bar show the number of alarms as well as three Index graphs for response time CPU load and bandwidth traffic usage over the last 24 hours These graphs are index graphs similar to a stock index The values are based on the readings of all se
166. og and the Core Server system logs or directly open the core s log file directory 2010 Paessler AG System Settings and Administration 135 About PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log About PRTG Network Monitor V7 1996 2009 Paessler AG Burgschmietstrasse 10 D 90419 Nuernberg Germany Installed versions Server Service V7 2 5 5101 Probe Service V7 2 5 5101 Server Administration Tool V7 2 5 5101 Probe Administration Tool V7 2 5 5101 Import Tool V7 2 5 5101 Open Support Ticket opens browser window The information written under this tab contains details about the installed program versions This tab also offers an option to directly open a ticket for our technical support See also e f you are using a HTTPS connection to the PRTG Web Interface and want to get rid of the browser security warning you can install a trusted certificate Please see our Knowledge Base article Installing a Trusted SSL Certificate for PRTG for Free http www paessler com support kb categories prtg7 install ss certificate for free e Fora general introduction of the PRTG security options see our Knowledge Base article Secure PRTG Web Interface Connection http www paessler com support kb categories prtg secure prtg7 web interface connection 13 8 PRTG Probe Administrator The PRTG Probe Admi
167. ong to their respective owners Last change DD MM Y Y Y Y 03 03 2010 2010 Paessler AG Index 155 Index A Access Concept 31 117 Access Key 129 135 Access Keys 125 Access Rights 117 Account 121 Account Settings 120 121 123 128 Account Setup 120 Activate Product 20 Activation Status 20 Adda User 128 Add Devices 54 Add Notification 123 Add Schedule 121 Add Sensors 54 Add On 129 Administration 120 Administrator 129 Advanced Topics 140 Aggregate Sensor Values 88 Aggregation Sensor 88 Alarm 31 Alarm Concept 31 Alert 32 94 123 Alert Box 37 Allow IP 125 Amazon 79 Amazon Web Services 79 Analyse Network Usage 140 Analysis 32 Analyze Data 140 Analyze Monitoring Data 109 API 82 151 Apple iPhone 50 Application programming interface 82 151 Approved Certificate 150 Architecture 24 Auto Discovery 59 Auto Folding 121 128 Auto Refresh 121 128 Autocreate 59 Automatic Device Creation 59 149 Automatic Sensor Creation 59 AWS 79 B Bandwidth Monitoring 64 87 Bandwidth Usage Analysis 140 Basic Concepts of PRTG 24 Basic Principle 24 Basic Sensor Settings 61 Basics 6 BAT 82 151 Black Sensor 37 Blue Sensor 37 Board 31 Browser 10 Browser Type 10 zc Calculated Planning Impairment Factor 80 Change Channel Settings 61 Change Language 135 Change Logins 117 Change Password 117 121 128 Change Sensor Settings 61 C
168. ork Monitor Probe Administration Tool Probe control Service Control Files Directories About PRTG Network Monitor V7 1996 2009 Paessler AG Burgschmietstrasse 10 D 90419 Nuernberg Germany Installed versions Server Service V7 2 5 5101 Probe Service V7 2 5 5101 Server Administration Tool V7 2 5 5101 Probe Administration Tool V7 2 5 5101 pot Tool V7 2 5 5101 Open Support Ticket opens browser window The information written under this tab contains details about the installed program versions This tab also offers an option to directly open a ticket for our technical support 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Advanced Topics 140 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 14 14 1 Advanced Topics The chapter covers various advanced topics for PRTG Network Monitor Toplists Multiple Probes and Remote Probes Copying Devices by Cloning or Using Device Templates Importing Data from PRTG Traffic Grapher 6 or IPCheck Server Monitor 5 Installing an SSL Certificate for the Web Server Using the PRTG API Application Programming Interface Interface Definition for Custom EXE Sensors Calculating Percentiles Toplists Packet Sniffer and xFlow sensor types can not only measure the total bandwidth usage they can also break down the traffic by IP address port protocol and other parameters The result
169. ork Monitor includes an API that enables access to internal data for external programs This means that you can create your own programs or scripts that have access to information from the monitoring database and are able to manipulate the object database of PRTG The API is HTTP based and uses a set of URLs to access the data Please see the menu item PRTG RESTful API in the Help menu for details 14 8 Interface Definition for Custom EXE Sensors Note Please read the general introduction to Custom Sensors first This section will give you an overview of the usage of Custom EXE Script sensors Every time the sensor is run the selected EXE script or DLL file is executed The EXE Script sensor supports following file types e EXE e DLL e VBScript e Powershell script e CMD BAT script EXE Sensors The string entered in the parameter field of the sensor s settings is placed in the command line The EXE file must send the results to the Standard OUT The data must be in the following format value message Value has to be a 32 bit integer and will be used as the resulting value for this sensor e g bytes milliseconds etc message can be any string and will be stored in the database The EXE s exit code has to be one of the following values 0 ok 1 warning system error e g a network socket error 3 protocol error e g web server returns a 404 4 content error e g a web page does not contain a required word
170. ork segments from one central core installation The software 1s based on Paessler s proven monitoring technology which has been constantly improved since 1997 and is already used by more than 150 000 users around the world every day Attractive licensing packages from freeware up to 10 sensors to enterprise level with thousands of sensors make sure that every user finds the proper solution 1 2 A Available Licenses There are four different PRTG flavors available Freeware Edition The Freeware Edition is a good solution to get started with PRTG or for private use e May be used for free for personal and commercial use e Can monitor up to 10 sensors with up to 4 probes e Supports all available sensor types except NetFlow sFlow xFlow e Shortest available monitoring interval is one minute Starter Edition The Starter Edition has all the features of the Freeware Edition but it supports up to 20 sensors By entering a Starter Edition key you can extend your Freeware Edition Information on how to apply for a Starter Edition license key can be found on our website at http www paessler com prtg download Trial Edition The Trial Edition is intended for evaluation purposes for customers who are interested in purchasing commercial licenses e Can monitor up to 500 sensors with up to 4 probes e Supports all available sensor types including NetFlow sFlow e Shortest available monitoring interval is one second e Temporary
171. ors Sensor 64 How to Use Custom Sensors 82 How to Use Dependencies 33 How to Use File Server Sensors 78 How to Use Mail Server Sensors 75 How to Use Multiple Probes in Your Network 143 How to Use NetFlow Sensors 85 How to Use Notifications 94 How to Use Packet Sniffer Sensors 83 How to Use PRTG on the iPhone 50 How to Use Quality of Service QoS Sensors 80 How to Use sFlow Sensors 85 How to Use Simple Network Management Protocol SNMP Sensors 68 How to Use SQL Database Server Sensors 77 How to Use the Application Programming Interface API 151 How to Use the Different Program Interfaces 24 How to Use the Inheritance of Settings 30 How to Use the PRTG Probe Administrator 135 How to Use the PRTG Server Administrator 129 How to Use the Web Interface 37 How to Use the Windows GUI 45 How to Use This Document 8 How to Use Toplists f r xFlow and Packet Sniffer Sensors 140 How to Use Various Protocol Sensors 74 How to Use Virtual Server Sensors 79 How to Use Voice over IP VoIP Sensors 80 How to Use Web Server Sensors 65 2010 Paessler AG 158 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual How to Use Windows Management Instrumentation WMI Sensors 71 How to Use xFlow Sensors 85 How to Work With the ToDos List HTTP 65 HTTP Request 94 123 HTTP Sensor 64 HTTPS 65 150 Hypertext Transfer Protocol 65 Hypertext Transfer Protocol Sensor HyperV 79 ICPIF 80 ICQ 94 123 ICQ Delivery 125 I
172. ors to monitor Hyper V Servers e Hyper V Host Server Monitors vital parameters of Hyper V host servers e Hyper V Virtual Machine Monitors vital parameters of a single virtual machine on Hyper V Amazon CloudWatch Sensor If you are using Amazon EC2 Elastic Compute Cloud to host one or more servers then this new sensor is for you Amazon offers the Cloud Watch service for EC2 instances since May 2009 and it provides performance data for individual instances on EC2 usage of this service costs a little extra 1 Please use the Amazon AWS Management Console http aws amazon com console to enable Cloud Watch for the instance s that you want to monitor with PRTG 2 In PRTG create a new device for your EC2 instance if you don t have one already and then add a new CloudWatch sensor to it All you need to enter are your AWS Access Key ID AWS Secret Access Key and the Instance ID Click OK and your sensor will start automatically 3 The Amazon CloudWatch sensors monitors CPU Utilization Disk Read Ops Disk Write Ops Network In Network Out 2010 Paessler AG 80 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual T 11 You could also monitor the values from the inside by monitoring from the guest operating system itself But using CloudWatch has two advantages e Operating system independence You can monitor the vital system parameters regardless of the OS running on the instance e More security You don t
173. ory Pool Nonpaged Bytes Memory Pool Paged Bytes Memory Cache Bytes Memory Committed Bytes Disk Percent Disk Time Windows 2000 XP Server 2003 only Disk Current Disk Queue Length Disk Bytes sec Windows 2000 XP Server 2003 only Disk Reads sec Windows 2000 XP Server 2003 only Disk Writes sec Windows 2000 XP Server 2003 only Network Bytes Total sec Network Bytes Received sec Network Bytes Sent sec Network Packets Outbound Errors Server Bytes Total sec Server Bytes Received sec Server Bytes Sent sec CLR Memory Time in GC CLR Memory Bytes in all Heaps CLR Exceptions of Excepts Thrown sec Limitations of WMI on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 R1 You should be aware that performance of WMI based monitoring is drastically limited when the monitoring station or the monitored client runs on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 R1 When it comes to network monitoring via WMI Windows XP and Windows 2003 are up to 70 times faster than Windows 2008 or Vista These limitations are not limitations of PRTG these limitations are coming from the WMI functionality built into the Windows operating systems Here are some detailed results of our WMI tests on selected Windows versions 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 73 Maximum Number of WMI Requests per Second Between Selected Windows Versions 250 200 m Client XP 150 m Client XP virt m Client 2003
174. ous internal system parameters of the probe system hardware and the probe s internal processes and then computes a resulting value Frequent or repeated values below 100 should be investigated please check the sensor s channels for details 4 2 Object Hierarchy Probes Groups Devices Sensors Channels All objects in PRTG are arranged in a tree like hierarchy to create an easy to navigate list and to give the user the possibility to arrange them in groups that monitor similar devices locations or services Devices Sensors Channels In PRTG Network Monitor you can add Devices that you want to monitor These devices can be for example e A web or file server e A router or a network switch e A so called Probe Device which is a PRTG internal system device This device has access to the computer on which the probe is running on e Almost every device in your network that has its own IP address Each device has a number of Sensors where the actual monitoring is performed Each of these sensors monitors one single aspect of a network device For example e One network service like SMTP FTP HTTP etc e The traffic of one port of a network switch e The CPU or memory load of a device e One network card s traffic e One NetFlow device etc Each sensor has a number of Channels through which it receives the different data streams Channels can contain for example Downtime and Total for a WMI CPU Load sensor Dow
175. overy group go to the devices list Devices in the main menu and locate either a probe or group that is intended to contain the new group Right click on the object and select Add Auto Discovery Group from the context menu Enter a name for the group and optionally Tags and choose the desired option for the Sensor Management setting 2010 Paessler AG 60 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Group Type Sensor Management 9 Automatic device identification standard recommended Automatic device identification detailed may create many sensors Automatic sensor creation using specific device template s Discovery Schedule Once IP Base IP Range Start 1 IP Range End 254 Name Resolution Use DNS WMI SNMP names recommended Use IP addresses You have three options e Automatic Device Identification Standard recommended This recommended option should work fine for most installations e Automatic Device Identification Detailed may create many sensors This option is only suitable for small network segments and whenever you want to monitor the maximum number of sensors available e Automatic Sensor Creation using specific Device Template s Choose this option if you do not want automatic device identification and would rather select the device templates manually e g if you want to use a device template that you have created yourself You will see a list of device t
176. own with 1 star for the lowest priority to 5 stars for the highest priority By default PRTG sensors are sorted first by priority and then alphabetically by name in lists like Alarms or Sensors The default priority is three stars so you can prioritize objects in your configuration quickly Simply left click an object and select the desired setting from the context menu Priority Priority Priority kk kk i Priority Priority 2010 Paessler AG 30 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 4 3 You can also click on the stars directly in an object s detail view Favorite Sensors Another method to highlight important sensors is to mark them as Favorite Sensors also accessible through a sensor s context menu A list of the favorite sensors can be found in the Sensors menu Sensors Favorite Sensors Inheritance of Settings The hierarchical list is not only used to group sensors to organize them there is also an important aspect involved that we call inheritance To ensure administration is quick and easy especially for large monitoring setups certain settings are inherited from the overlying level For example you can change the monitoring interval for all sensors by editing the interval setting of the topmost root group unless no other setting is defined below You can override this inheritance on any level of the hierarchy by setting a di
177. p PRTG Network Monitor E 2EGI Welcome to the PRTG Network Monitor Setup Wizard This will install PRTG Network Monitor Commercial Edition on your computer It is recommended that you close all other applications before continuing Click Next to continue or Cancel to exit Setup Please click Next to walk through the wizard After accepting the license agreement you can choose the folder you wish to install the software in As soon as you click Next the necessary files will be copied to your disk and a dialog asking for your license type will appear 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Installation EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor Welcome to PRTG Network Monitor This easy to use bandwidth and asset monitoring application for computer networks is available in three editions please choose the one that best fits your needs Use the Freeware Edition This edition may be used for free for personal or commercial use It is limited to monitoring only up to ten 10 sensors and a minimum interval of one minute Run the Free Trial Edition or the Starter Edition LN ee neis dag sushi Note If you have a Starter Edition key please choose this option Purchase or Register a Commercial Edition MX MER Rr tpe ric key that you have received upon your es Caen Please select the proper option and enter the necessary data Afterward
178. p this step In the configuration page of this device object locate the DNS Name property Enter the IP address DNS name from the first step If you already have a device object with the correct address information you can use it and skip this step Open the context menu of the device object from above and select Add Sensor Select the appropriate SQL Sensor type Microsoft SQL Oracle SQL MySQL and click on Continue Common Settings for all SQL Sensors Configuring the sensor consists of two steps e Setting connection relevant properties This is mandatory to get a working sensor e Optional configuration of a SQL expression which the sensor should execute over the existing connection to the database server The following fields are particular to all of these sensors there are others that appear with certain SQL Sensor types only see below e Database In this field the name of the database or the path of the database can be entered in order to access the database information Do not confuse this with the name of the database server which is set in the corresponding device setting in PRTG Network Monitor e User Password Please enter your SQL server s credentials needed to log into the database SQL Expression Provide an expression for querying or modifying database objects like tables views roles When a cursor is returned 1 e with a SELECT statement only the first row of data will be fetched Result Set Select t
179. portant features PRTG iPhone interfaces Section iPhone Interfaces Monitor your network on the go with the iPhone App for PRTG Network Monitor or the iPhone web interface PRTG Core Administrator Section PRTG Server Used to configure very basic PRTG Core Server settings Administrator such as administrator login web server IPs and port probe Basic connection settings system language and more administration interfaces PRTG Probe Administrator Section PRTG Probe Used to configure very basic settings such as name of the Administrator probe IP and server connection settings and more PRTG Core Server The Core Server is the heart of your PRTG system and performs the following processes Configuration management for object monitoring Management and configuration of the connected probes Database for monitoring results Notification management including a mail server for email delivery Report generator and scheduler User account management Data purging culling data that is older than 365 days for example Web server and API server The built in fast and secure web server no IIS or Apache is required supports HTTP as well as secure HTTPS via SSL It serves the web interface when accessed with a browser and also answers PRTG API calls e g for the Windows GUI Note Core server and probe s are running as Windows services which are permanently run by the Windows system without the requirement for a logged in use
180. r PRTG Probes On a probe the sensors for a device perform the actual monitoring The probe receives its configuration from the Core Server runs the monitoring processes and delivers monitoring results back to the Core Server A Core Server always has a local probe running on the same server Additionally a Core Server can manage an unlimited number of remote probes in order to achieve multiple location monitoring The actual monitoring is performed by PRTG Probe processes which run on one or more computers During installation the so called local probe is automatically created by the system In a single probe installation which is the default setup all monitoring is performed by the local probe Additional so called remote probes must be created by the user They are using SSL secured connections to the core and allow to securely monitor services and systems inside remote networks which are not openly accessible or secured by firewalls The 2010 Paessler AG 26 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual following chart shows an example To see a video of this please go to http www paessler com support video tutorials The PRTG Core Server inside the corporate LAN bottom right is able to monitor services and servers in remote offices data centers and behind firewalls using remote probes See Multiple Probes and Remote Probes for more information on remote probes After receiving their configuration
181. r About This Document This document introduces the reader to the system concepts of PRTG Network Monitor and explains how to set up the software to achieve the best results You will learn how to plan your monitoring setup how to set up your sensors reports notifications maps and user accounts This document does not explain each and every edit field or button of the user interface Detailed information is included in PRTG s web interface itself in the form of short contextual help texts and hints Also this document is not a technical in depth documentation of file formats APIs and other background information This information is available online on the Paessler knowledge base at http www paessler com 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor System Requirements 10 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 2 1 System Requirements In order to install and work with PRTG Network Monitor you need A PC server or virtual machine with roughly the performance of an average PC built in the year 2007 or later e Operating system Microsoft Windows XP Windows 2003 Windows Vista Windows 7 or Windows 2008 32 bit or 64 bit e Web browser to access the web interface Google Chrome 3 is recommended Firefox 3 5 Safari 4 and Internet Explorer 8 were also tested For more detailed information and if you plan a larger installation see Detailed System Requirements Planing an Installation Wit
182. r AG 98 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Value The value you want to compare with Scale The scale for the value entered e Period The time after which the counter is reset e g Hour Day Week Month Together with Scale you can enter notations like KByte per Hour or GByte per Month etc On Notification This notification will be sent when the trigger becomes active e g a sensor goes above a specified volume Threshold Trigger s When editing threshold triggers you will see the following settings e Channel Select a channel which is used to compare the given values with e g Primary Sum e Condition Select the condition under which a notification is triggered e g Above Below Equal Not Equal e Value The value you want to compare with e Latency Latency is used to defer a notification for a specified time e g to give a server or service the chance to recover from failure or to avoid being spammed with notifications just because a data line was low for three seconds For example if you set the latency for a trigger to 60 seconds the notification will only be sent if the failure situation remains active for 61 seconds e On Notification This notification will be sent when the trigger becomes active e g a sensor goes over a specified threshold with condition Above e Off Notification This notification will be sent when the trigger becomes inactive e g a sensor goes below a sp
183. r IP address of your PRTG Core Server along with the web server port and your account credentials Server IP DNS name Port 80 Cluse ssi Login Name Password m As soon as you click on Start it will contact the PRTG Core Server and the main window will show up Note If you change one of these settings in PRTG Server Administrator later on you will see an error message when starting the Windows GUI In this case you have to enter the new settings for the Core Server In the Windows GUI click on File Options amp Server Settings entry PRTG Server Connection and change the server settings to the new values Working with the Windows User Interface Start the Windows GUI by clicking on the according entry in the Windows Start Menu 2010 Paessler AG User Interfaces Ele Edit View Help G 47 Devices Sensors Alarms Maps Reports Logs Todos Setup Root Status Last Result Overview Live Graph 2 days 30 days 365 days Log Settings History 7 i PRTG Monitoring Station Name PING 4 ID 2080 Probe Device m4 Group 1 Type Interval PING 30 s Hcs Group la Priority 5 EF Web Server 1 Parent Probe PRTG Moriitoring St
184. r Knowledge Base at http www paessler com support kb prtg7 how_prtg computes index graphs Note Time frames can be changed in the PRTG Server Administrator Memory Usage tab Box with Alerts Every time a new event occurs while you are logged into the web interface of PRTG Network Monitor a box with alerts will show up in the lower right corner of your browser window 2010 Paessler AG 42 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 1 New Alarm s x 96 New Message s x Please keep an eye on these important messages which PRTG will display as it discovers changes in the network or requires your attention for other reasons Simply click the text inside the colored bar to navigate to the detailed information page or click one of the x symbols to dismiss and hide the alert In the user account settings you can control which events actually display the popup There you can also disable this feature Context Menus Although context menus may seem unusual for a web based application they are the key to user interface s ease of use Almost all objects that appear as links in the user interface will show a context menu when your right click them Using it you can access every relevant function of an object Here are three sample context menus for group device and sensor Device Menu Details Details Settings Settings Add Group Add Sensor Add Auto Discovery Group Run Auto Discovery
185. r Users Only members of the PRTG Administrators group can create and edit user accounts and they can see and edit all monitoring objects and system settings e Read Write Users These users can see all menus and links needed to edit the monitoring configuration regardless of whether they are allowed to change it e Read Only Users These users will not see any editing links or menus and thus will not be able to edit anything in the configuration All the security settings as well as further rights management are conducted via the user groups This means that group membership controls what a user may do and which objects he sees when logged in The actual rights for each object can be defined in an object s settings There you can define different rights for each probe group device sensor and other objects Managing Users and Access Rights To manage users and access rights there a basically three steps to follow 1 Create new users and set the user account s rights 2 Create user groups and define users as members of this group 3 For each object in your device tree define access rights inheritance applies see section Inheritance of Settings Create New Users and Groups Step 1 and 2 are done in the System Administration Settings See section System Administration Edit User Accounts and User Groups for more details Controlling User Rights Step 3 Throughout the web interface of PRTG you can control access to the monitor
186. r all remote probes will automatically download and install the updated version of the probe as soon as they reconnect to the updated Core Here is a screenshot of the Devices page of a PRTG installation shortly after the restart of a Core Server that has been updated to the latest PRTG version 2010 Paessler AG Advanced Topics 145 Root i Local probe Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 3 sub groups with 9 ta 20 Sensors m SMTP 10 il 9 Sensors devices o 9 Sending update E 3 sub groups with 23 i 12 Sensor i Probe Health a HTTP 33 DX ae e e O m Sending update Eg sub groups with 4 im 6 Sensors iM Probe Health i Sample Senso ae o em Sending update The Local probe has already been updated during the Core installation All other probes are automatically downloading the new binaries of the PRTG probe using the SSL secured probe Core connection The download of the 4 MB file takes between a few seconds in LANs and a few minutes over WAN connections depending on the available bandwidth As soon as the update has been downloaded the probe disconnects installs the update and reconnects to the Core Server This takes between 20 and 100 seconds Please note that during the update phase the monitoring of the Local probe can be affected due to the bandwidth required for the downloads Step 1 Preparing a Core Server for Remote Probes Before remote probes can connect to a Core Server you must edit
187. r based sniffing is much faster but the accounting is less reliable e g HTTP packets on non standard ports are not accounted as HTTP traffic Content based sniffing is quite accurate but creates more CPU load Tools Paessler Card Packet Counter Shows short term statistics about the network data packets passing a local network card http www paessler com tools See also e Comparison of Bandwidth Monitoring Sensors e Toplists 7 14 xFlow NetFlow and sFlow Sensors Some routers and switches can capture and export bandwidth usage data using the NetFlow and sFlow protocols Both options are specially suited for bandwidth monitoring in high traffic networks Both technologies are quite similar and are commonly referred as xFlows in PRTG e NetFlow is a network protocol developed by Cisco Systems for collecting IP traffic information Many of the larger Cisco IOS enabled routers and switches support this feature Besides Cisco devices also some routers from other vendors support NetFlow export e g Juniper jFlow can export NetFlow data e sFlow is a cross vendor standard and alternative to Netflow xFlow sensors support Toplists Top Talkers Top Connections etc see Toplists How xFlow Monitoring works You can measure bandwidth usage by IP address or by application in a network by using one of the xFlow protocols They are the best choice especially for networks with high traffic connections with 100s of megabit or gig
188. r license A few seconds later you should see Activation OK in the License Activation Status Activation via Email In the PRTG Web Interface choose Setup Activation Status from the main menu If there is no Internet connection available you can activate PRTG via email To do so first click on the Start Activation Now button You will then see Last message about activation Activation failed in the License Activation Status Once the activation via Internet fails the activation via email is available Click on the Start Activation per EMail tab You will see an Activation Request Code Copy it and send it to the email address shown Within two business days you will receive an email reply from Paessler containing an activation code Once you ve received this email go the Finalize Activation per EMail tab and copy the activation code into the according field e Click on Confirm Activation A few seconds later you should see Activation OK in the License Activation Status 3 6 Installation of a PRTG Remote Probe PRTG has two modules that perform the monitoring The core server which handles data storage web server and a lot more plus one or more probes which perform the actual monitoring Please see Multiple Probes and Remote Probes for details and installation instructions 3 7 Installation of the Windows GUI The Windows GUI is a native Windows application that communicates with the core server using the PRTG
189. r some sensor types e g WMI and SNMP V3 sensors These limitations can be overcome by distributing the sensors across multiple remote probes If you plan installations with more than 500 to 1 000 sensors or more than 10 Packet Sniffer xFlow NetFlow sFlow sensors please consult the Knowledge Base article linked at the end of this section 2010 Paessler AG System Requirements 11 Sample Configurations The sample configurations in the table below will give you an overview of the hardware requirements for PRTG based on your configuration System CPU RAM Operating System Sensors Installation Corresponds to Scanning interval Number of Probes Average CPU Load While Monitoring Average CPU Load While Generating Reports Average Memory Used Average Data Written to Disk Per Year Average Network Load Large Installation A DELL Alienware Intel Core2 Quad Core 2 6 GHz 8 GB Windows 7 64 Bit 20 000 SNMP 100 Other 400 switches 48 ports minute 4 3 20 3 GB 800 GB 80 kbit s Large Installation B DELL PowerEdge 2900 Il Intel Xeon Quad Core 1 87 GHz 16 GB Windows 2003 64 Bit 20 000 SNMP 400 switches a 48 ports 1 minute 1 20 30 3 5 GB 800 GB 550 kbit s Netbook Installation DELL Inspiron Mini 10 Intel Atom Z520 1 33 GHz 1 GB Windows XP 32 Bit 600 SNMP 750 WMI 24 switches a 25 ports 30 Windows server 5 minutes 1
190. r the account settings menu via Setup Schedules See Account Settings Schedules for more details 4 12 Dependencies Concept Using dependencies you can pause sensor monitoring based on the status of another sensor in order to avoid false alarms and incorrect downtime recording A dependency stops the monitoring of one sensor or a set of sensors as soon as a specific sensor is down This means for example you can stop monitoring remote network services when the corresponding firewall is down due to connection problems You can edit dependencies in the Inherit Schedules and Dependencies entry in an object s Settings menu There are three options for dependencies Use parent By default all objects depend on their parent object This means that if you specify a dependency for a group and the dependency sensor goes down all sensors in the group will be paused e Select object With this option you can select from a list the object from which your object shall be dependent on Dependency Type Use parent 9 Select object Master object for parent Dependency m None s Root 3 PRTG Monitoring Station Probe Device _ Probe Health Disk Free m 9 Intei R PRO 1000 MT Network Connection cy Group 1 cj Group la Web Server 1 rene a As soon as the object you have chosen from the list enters a red state goes down the monitoring for the dependent object and all its child objects will be paused and
191. rcent calculation This value is multiplied with the maximum value Unit is optional and is the unit the maximum is provided in You can use constants with this function see below for a list This can be used for gauge e g PING sensors and delta e g Traffic Sensors The following example shows how to display a traffic sensor as of maximum bandwidth 100 kilobit second 1 Usage IN percent channel 2001 0 100 kilobit 2 Usage OUT percent channel 2001 1 100 kilobit Another example shows how to display the values of a sensor as percentage of 200ms 1 Ping percent channel 2002 0 200 Horizontal Lines You can add lines to the graph using a formula without a channel function returning a fixed value In this case you have to provide the unit of the axis the line is used for You can use constants here Examples 1 Line at 100ms ms 100 2 Line at 50 kbit kbit s 50 3 2 Mbit s kbit s 2000 Constants The following constants are defined and can be used in calculations one 1 kilo 1000 mega 1000 kilo giga 1000 mega tera 1000 giga byte 1 kilobyte 1024 megabyte 1024 kilobyte gigabyte 1024 megabyte terabyte 1024 gigabyte bit 1 8 kilobit kilo 8 megabit mega 8 gigabit giga 8 2010 Paessler AG 92 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual terabit tera 8 Channel Settings The color line thic
192. re of several communication channels like email pager SMS messaging and many more To see a video of this please go to http www paessler com support video tutorials Overview Notifications can be triggered by e Sensor status changes a sensor goes down or up responses are slow or the sensors show an unusual status e When the measured value reaches a specific threshold e g higher than 1 000 ms request time for more than 30 minutes e Reaching a specific speed threshold e g more than 1 Mbit s for more than 5 minutes Traffic sensors only e Reaching a specific data volume threshold e g more than 1 Gbyte transferred in 24 hours Traffic sensors only Notifications can be sent by e Send Email PRTG provides a built in mail server uses MX records to deliver emails or can use an available SMTP relay Please see Check Notification Delivery Settings in this section Add Entry to Event Log Write an entry into the local system event log Send Network Broadcast NET SEND Send a message using Windows NET SEND command Note NetSend is no longer supported on computers running Windows Vista Windows Server 2008 or Windows 7 Send Syslog Message Send a message to a Syslog server e Send SNMP Trap Send a message to a computer running a trap receiver Send ICQ or MSN Message Send a message via instant messenger Please see Check Notification Delivery Settings in this section Send SMS Pager Message Send SMS or pager mess
193. read only web browser based user interface that is optimized for the Apple iPhone This feature enables the user to quickly check the status of the servers and sensors remotely It looks like this 2010 Paessler AG 52 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual T Mobile B 1612 1 1 1 T Mobih 16 12 PRTG Login Welcome to PRTG Worldwide Demo Username username Password eeeeeeee PRTG Network Monitor V7 0 8 1279 expires 9 15 2008 2008 Pacesiar AG E a T Moble G 1611 _ http prto paessler com iphone lprtg paessler com iphone http prtg paessler comiphone Med 16 11 Log Out Refresh iPRTG Sens Probe Probe Nuremberg Germany IP Exchange com on PIP Group via Nuremberg Group Paessler Servers via Nuremberg Device www paessier com PING Homepage Shop OK 143 ms Avere OK 740 ms Loadi OK 1922 ms Loa Downloads USA Downloads EU OK 294 ms Load OK 35 ms Loain Device Firewall 1 PING OK 1 ms Average Device Firewall 2 PI OK 23 ms Averag Device www photomelster com PING Website OK 8 ms Average OK 197 ms Load Device bello monitors the net ING Pi Website Website SSL OK 184 ms Avere 1 hour interval ave OK 1140 ms Loa REESE Re E T Mobile 16 11 gt T Mobile 16 12 Graphs History Date Time Status Message Sensor Homepage Live Graph 2 hours Paessler Servers via Nuremberg www paessler com 1
194. reen The Tray Tool will now contact your Core server every 60 seconds and it will alert you in various ways when new events occur sensors go down etc depending on your settings For example a popup showing the latest events looks like this PRTG Network Monitor CO 09 09 2009 10 11 29 Date Time Parent Object Status Message lal 9 9 2009 10 07 54 AM SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net PING 24 Up 283 msec 9 9 2009 10 07 54 AM SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net HTTP 24 Resuming Resumed by Dependency 9 9 2009 10 06 29 AM prtgtestserver net SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net Paused Paused by Dependency 9 9 2009 10 06 29 AM SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net PING 24 Down Request timed out ICMP error 11010 9 9 2009 10 06 29 AM SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net HTTP 24 Paused Paused by Dependency 9 9 2009 10 06 26 AM SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net PING 24 Warning Request timed out ICMP error 11010 9 9 2009 10 05 54 AM prtgtestserver net SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net Resuming Resumed by Dependency 9 9 2009 10 05 54 AM prtgtestserver net SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net Active 9 9 2009 10 05 54AM SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net PING 24 Up 286 msec 9 9 2009 10 05 54AM SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net HTTP 24 Resuming Resumed by Dependency 9 9 2009 10 01 28 AM prtgtestserver net SNMP 1000 sg prtgtestserver net Paused Paused by Dependency 9 9 20
195. report cover Reported Period P Current Specify which period is to be reported Please cho en daily weekly monthly or yearly Previous report imples Current is toi for daily reports current month for m thly reports Report Period Type 5 Day Previous means yesten for daily reports last Q Week month for monthly reports D Month Year Week Period Monday Sunday Click on Save when you are done with the settings Please see Editing Report Settings further down for more detailed information Step 2 Select Sensors Manually In the Select Manuals Manually tab you can then edit the list of probes groups devices sensors and channels which are included in the report Adding a probe group or device will include all associated sensors and their channels too 2010 Paessler AG Reports Run Now Stored Reports Settings Select Sensors Manually Sensors Selected by Tag Comments E 11012 of 12 el Probe Group Device Object Sensor Channel Selection Actions Root p Root Delete 3 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 Memory Free IV Percent Av V Available MY Downtime Delete Probe Device 3 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 Broadcom Vv icin M i lv Vv Vv i Delete oe Dae BCMS708C Traffic in Traffic out Packets Sum Downtime NetXtreme II Gi 3 Local Probe on 127 0 0 1 127 0 0 24 MS TCP Loopback IV Trafficin IV Trafficout IV packets M sum Downtim
196. ries in the list Toplists for Connections With a Lot of Traffic If you create Toplists for data lines with considerable usage e g steady bandwidth over 10 Mbit s or if the traffic is very diverse i e many IPs ports with only little traffic each please consider the following aspects The probe gathers all information needed for the Toplist in RAM memory during each period Only the top 100 entries are transferred to the core Depending on the Toplist type and traffic patterns the required memory can grow into many megabytes Choose periods as short as desirable especially important when traffic has a high level of diversity to minimize memory usage Memory requirements can grow almost exponentially with each field used in the Toplists definition depending on traffic pattern Avoid complex Toplists for high and diverse traffic e g Top Connections 5 fields needs a lot more memory than Top Talkers 1 field If you experience high bandwidth usage between core and probe try to choose Wait until Toplist period ends data is only transferred to the core once per period If you experience Data incomplete memory limit was exceeded messages try to increase the memory limit in the Toplist s settings but keep an eye on the probe process memory usage Notes Note 1 When working with Toplists be aware that privacy issues can come up for certain configurations of this feature Using Toplists you can track all single connections of a
197. rigger a notification when a sensor enters an UP DOWN WARNING or UNUSUAL state For state triggers there are also escalation notifications available see below e Speed Triggers Trigger a notifications when a traffic sensor reaches a certain bandwidth limit for a specified time e Volume Triggers Trigger a notification when a traffic sensor has reached a certain volume limit in a specified time e Threshold Triggers Trigger out notifications when certain values are measured by a sensor e Change Triggers Change triggers are triggered by some sensors whenever the content of a file or the event log has changed It is recommended to define triggers for notifications on a group or device level Sensors will then inherit these settings see Inheritance of Settings The advantage is that you can change notifications for multiple sensors by merely editing the notification settings on the group level Editing of the notification triggers takes place under the Notifications tabs in the detail view of probes groups devices or sensors Overview 48 Hours 30 Days 365 Days Alarms Log Settings Notifications Comments History State Trigger s State Triggers are triggered when a sensor enter or leaves a DOWN WARNING or UNUSAL state This is the most common reason to send out notifications Condition latency sec On Notification Off Notification Esc Lateng sec Esc Notification Repeat every imin Down
198. rms C Blink Tray Icon C Balloon Info in Tray Popup Message Play Sound C Open Gut Test does not open GUI iPhone Interfaces If you have an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch you have the choice between two user interfaces optimized for your mobile device iPRTG The iPhone App for PRTG Network Monitor Don t let monitoring your network tie you to your desk With iPRTG your network monitor is where your iPhone is IPRTG is the iPhone App for network administrators using the PRTG Network Monitor software to monitor 2010 Paessler AG User Interfaces 51 and administrate their network iPRTG is the one and only clear and simple viewer for the entire network monitoring environment Your iPhone requests the monitoring data directly from your PRTG server and displays it in an iPhonic way It looks like this mil Carrier 10 34PM il Carrier 10 38 PM beyond content EJ PAESSLER Alarm Details Graph host prig paessler com user beyond content IPRTG version 0 9 5097 Request timed out ICMP error 11010 nyx net Germany Request timed out ICMP error 11010 IP Exchange de on PIP a3 webl OB al DB 8011 2 688 MB DB Size is above the warning limit of 2 6 Nuremb genedat 011 1 687 MB Mountpoin Size 1 iPRTG must be purchased separately please see http www beyond content com products iphone apps Web based iPhone Interface PRTG offers also a
199. robe Process 365 Days Graph Small Fonts TJ WMI Vital System Data 1 TI PRTG Server Process HTML Before TJ Broadcom BCMS708C NetXtreme II GigE NDIS VBD Ci TJ FW1 Header Sniffer HTML After HI FW1 Content Sniffer Top Height 201 Width 456 L Traffic Comparison OK Cancel Please note that you cannot do the following in the Map Editor e You cannot draw any lines between items or put any additional pictures or graphics except for a background image e You cannot insert customized icons from outside PRTG However if you want to create a scheme that shows the devices of your network and how they are connected to each other or if you want a world map please use your own images and insert them as background image for your map As second step you can then spread the map items across your image as described above Step 4 Edit Map Settings Click on the Settings tab to edit the general settings of a map You can edit the following settings e Map Name Enter the name of the map e Timezone Select the timezone for a user who views the map via the public URL e Tag Filter You can enter one or more Tag Filters separated by spaces If filters are entered here only sensors carrying one of the tags themselves or inherited will appear in the table map views and others will be hidden This filter takes effect immediately after saving the settings and has only effect on table view elements not on status icons graphs or tr
200. rt e Domain Enter the domain name to look up e g www yourcompany com e P Address Optionally enter an IP address to compare the result with 7 7 Mail Server Sensors Using a number of sensors for mail servers you can ensure that your mail systems are working Standard Email Sensors e SMTP Monitors availability of SMTP based email servers Simple Mail Transfer Protocol e POP3 Monitors availability of POP3 based email servers Post Office Protocol V3 e IMAP Monitors availability of IMAP based email servers Internet Message Access Protocol e Exchange 2003 Monitors a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 e Exchange 2007 Monitors a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Email Round Trip Sensors Email round trip sensors ensure the end to end delivery of emails and make it possible to monitor availability and performance of a complete email delivery process There are two sensor types for this task e SMTP amp POP3 Round Trip Sensor e SMTP amp IMAP Round Trip Sensor Both initially deliver an email to a mail server using SMTP Afterwards the receiving mailbox is scanned using POP3 or IMAP until the email arrives The test email contains a unique code in the topic which is used to identify the email e g PRTG7 Roundtrip Mail 6D136420 5A3E 46CF 871A 1DAFOC4F3D5D The graph shows a sample configuration e Step 1 PRTG delivers an email via the SMTP protocol to a mail server just like an email client e Step 2 The SMTP server d
201. s In the script s results which are sent back each value must be enclosed in square brackets The sensor then handles each value in a separate channel this can be one or more You can use this with a script running on a web server Usually your script won t give back a whole HTML page but rather one line containing result values However this sensor parses the results and uses anything written between square brackets as a value for one sensor channel Numbers are expected as values Anything else will lead to a zero 0 value for the channel The most common use is to monitor a particular value inside a web server for validity For example if you have a script or CGI running on the web server that merely publishes the free disk space of the server s hard disk and the current processor usage e g 10222 12 as result you can actually monitor these values in two different channels of the sensor Of course many other usage concepts are possible For general settings please refer to Common Settings HTTP Sensors above Additionally you can enter the following settings e Script Url Enter the URL of the script you want to request the results from Value Type Enter the type of values that your script sends back as results You can choose between Integer and Float values Number of channels Enter the number of values your script will send back Remember Each value must be enclosed in square brackets and each value is handled
202. s switches firewalls printers e SNMP Custom Monitors one specific OID supplied by the user e SNMP Library SNMP libraries make it easy to create system specific sensors based on MIBs some are 2010 Paessler AG 70 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual included and new ones can be created from standard SNMP MIB files using the free MIB importer tool see below SNMP Uptime Monitors the uptime of a device time since last reboot SNMP Custom Monitors a specific OID SNMP Custom String Monitors a string specified by an OID SNMP Trap Receiver Opens a UDP port on a probe and waits for SNMP Traps then processes the information SNMP Version 1 2c and 3 PRTG supports three versions of the SNMP protocol SNMP Version 1 The oldest and most basic version of SNMP e Pros Supported by most SNMP compatible devices simple to set up e Cons Limited security as it only uses a simple password community string and data is sent in clear text unencrypted It should therefore only be used inside LANs behind firewalls not in WANs only supports 32 bit counters which is not enough for high load gigabits second bandwidth monitoring SNMP Version 2c Adds 64 bit counters e Pros Supports 64 bit counters to monitor bandwidth usage in networks with gigabits second loads e Cons Limited security same as with SNMP V1 SNMP Version 3 Adds authentication and encryption e Pros Offers user accounts an
203. s are shown in so called Toplists This way PRTG is able to tell which IP address connection or protocol uses the most bandwidth PRTG looks at all network packets or streams and collects the bandwidth information for all IPs ports and protocols At the end of the Toplist period PRTG stores only the top entries of each in its database Why Are Only the Top Entries Stored Storing all the data in a database that becomes available during the analysis process would create a huge amount of data which would be very slow to transfer between probe and core and also retrieving data would be too slow By storing only the top 100 entries for short periods of time it is possible to reduce the amount of data to a minimum while still being able to find bandwidth hogs Accessing Toplists To access the Toplists for a Packet Sniffer or NetFlow sensor click the Toplists tab on the sensor s detail page 2010 Paessler AG Advanced Topics 141 Sensor Header Packet ASA Edit Pause CheckNow Delete Refresh Menu Home Devices Local probe Probe Device Header Packet ASA ovemiew Live Data 2days 30days 365 days Toplists Log Settings Notifications Channels Comments History Please select a toplist Top Protocols Ue as Top Talkers Edit Z Delete Toplist Top Connections Available Periods 27 02 2009 14 45 00 15 00 00
204. s are taken by sending UDP packets between two remote probes This means that you can test any network connection in your network by simply placing a remote probe on or near each end of the connection and measuring the connection quality between them This is the perfect tool to find network issues that can affect VoIP sound quality or video streaming hiccups As mentioned before measurement takes place between two probes So the first step 1s to place two PCs running a remote probe on or near both ends of the connection that you want to monitor the local probe on the PC running the PRTG Core can also be used as one end If any firewalls packet filters or NAT systems are en route you must configure them as necessary so that the UDP packets can reach the target probe In PRTG new QoS sensors must be created with a probe device as the parent device The UDP packets will be sent from this probe to the target probe During the creation of the sensor you are going to choose the target probe that the UDP packets shall be sent to for measurement To get started right click a probe device choose Add Sensor and then choose QoS Quality of Service from the VoIP and QoS group On the next web page you can configure the sensor Please choose a probe from the Target probe drop down The list shows the probes with the IP address that is currently used by each probe to connect to the core Nevertheless you must enter the IP address manually because the
205. s feature is only available in the more expensive boxes from Cisco If you don t have IP SLA capable routers switches you can still get similar information with PRTG s QoS sensor see above which does not require any special hardware just two PCs running Windows If you do own hardware which supports IP SLA then PRTG brings you probably the least cost monitoring solution for IP SLA Most vendors charge extra for IP SLA support a thousand bucks and more Following Paessler s long term policy we simply include this as one of our sensor types With PRTG you can even use the Freeware Edition to monitor IP SLA PRTG monitors the following parameters Calculated Planning Impairment Factor ICPIF Mean Opinion Score MOS Average Jitter Packets Lost Packets Out Of Sequence Packets Late Average Round Trip Time RTT DNS RTT TCP RTT Transaction RTT Especially two of these parameters are interesting for VoIP Mean Opinion Score MOS and Calculated Planning Impairment Factor ICPIF For MOS Cisco conducted a panel test where a wide range of listeners have judged the quality of voice samples sent using particular codecs on a scale of 1 poor quality to 5 excellent quality The Cisco device calculated the corresponding value for the current network connection based on the network parameter measurements like jitter and packet loss The values and their meanings are MOS Quality Expected Quality Impairment I Excellent Imperceptible 4 Good Percep
206. s you will see a dialog with some base settings 17 2010 Paessler AG 18 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 3 4 Essential Settings for PRTG Network Monitor Administrator Account Login Name prtgadmin Password zxxxzzxxx Email Address Confirm Password Teee Web Server IPs Web Server Port Localhost only 127 0 0 1 no external access Standard Web Server Port 80 recommended setting Specify IPs V 192 168 2 212 D HTTPS SSL on port 443 gt Specify Port Site Info Site Name PRTG Network Monitor Usually the only edit field that you need to look at 1s the Email Address field Please enter your email address here You may also want to review and edit the following settings you can change all of these settings in the PRTG Server Administrator later e Optionally you can provide a Login Name and Password of your choice the default is username prtgadmin and password prtgadmin Selecting a private password is especially important if you plan to make your PRTG website available on the Internet Please review the Web Server IPs and Web Server Ports settings In most cases the default values should be fine e Optionally you can enter a custom Site Name for your PRTG website e g My Company Monitoring Please click Next one more time to finish the installation When the installation is complete the computer may ask you to restart the machine to prop
207. se one or more groups devices or sensors from the device tree on the left and select a map item template from the template list on the right You can optionally specify the size im pixels and add your own HTML code before and after the map element too PRTG will try to arrange the objects on the map automatically There are over 50 different map item templates available the basic types are Status Icons and Web Server 1 HTTP 2 Minigraphs Root HE 1 89 167 5 6 Loading time 91 msec Traffic in 833 kbit s Graphs Firewall 1 Firewall 2 Mgr 1 331 kbit s Mins 22 kbit s de 2010 Paessler AG EJ PAESSLER PRTG Network Monitor 104 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Sensor Packet Sniffer 1 2 days Group Ret 2 dys Local probe Probe Device 08 18 16 00 08 19 00 00 08 19 04 00 08 19 12 00 08 19 16 00 08 20 12 00 08 19 08 00 W Downtime 96 E Sum kbit s E Other kbit s 58 WWW kbit s W FTP P2P kbit s m Mail kbit s W Chat kbit s B Infrastructure kbit s W NetBIOS kbit s B Various kbit s Sensor Top 10 Highest Bandwidth Usage PRTG Monitoring Station last Value Sensor Probe Group Device El os SR ome TUm LINIEN 77 485 kbit s Zener 2010 Paessler AG Maps 105 i ar e Tree Views 5 PRTG Monitoring Station i Probe Device r Group 1 r Group la fu W
208. sor Creation with specific Device Template s Discovery Schedule Once Enter a name and IP address or DNS name for the device and choose one of the options for Sensor Management described above As soon as you click Continue the device assessment will begin and create the sensors that suit the device 6 4 Edit Sensor and Channel Settings In PRTG it s the sensors which perform the monitoring Each sensor has one or more channels through which it gets the actual data For each sensor you can configure general settings notifications and the different channels All of these settings are available in the tabs of a sensor s detail view To enter the sensor detail view first click on Sensors in the main menu to view the sensor list and then click a sensor or right click a sensor and select Details from its context menu or select a sensor from the tree Settings Tab In the Settings tab you can enter edit the following information e Basic settings such as Name Tags Priority e Settings that configure the behavior of the sensor and that depend on the sensor type e g the URL for an HTTP sensor e Various settings that can optionally be inherited from the parent object e g SNMP settings interval authentication settings See Inheritance of Settings for more details e Here you can also select the Primary Channel from the channels available to this sensor The primary channel for this sensor wil
209. specific settings plus there are a number of common settings for all sensors Please refer to the help text in the web interface for a detailed description of all settings Overview of Sensors When creating new sensors you will see the following groups of sensor types Note that some sensor types will show up several times in this list because they fit into more than one category e Common Sensors The most common sensor types for network monitoring Bandwidth Monitoring Monitoring of bandwidth usage using WMI SNMP Packet Sniffer or xFlow NetFlow sFlow e Web Server HTTP HTTPS Sensors based on the HTTP protocol e SNMP Sensors based on the Simple Network Management Protocol SNMP e Windows Systems WMI Monitoring of Windows systems through Windows Management Instrumentation WMI Various Protocols Various sensor types for services used on the Internet and others PING PORT FTP DNS RDP HDD Health etc e Mail Servers Sensors for mail servers SMTP POP3 IMAP SMTP amp IMAP Round Trip SMTP amp POP3 Round Trip etc SQL Servers Monitoring of SQL Servers MySQL MS SQL and Oracle File Servers Monitoring of File Servers NASS etc Virtual Servers Sensors for VMware Servers Hyper V and Amazon CloudWatch VoIP and QoS Quality of service monitoring and Cisco IP SLA monitoring via SNMP Custom Sensors Various sensor types that enable you to define your own sensor scripts including Sensor Factory Sensors for comb
210. strator 2010 Paessler AG 128 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 13 5 More For an overview of allowed placeholders see our Knowledge Base article PRTG 7 Placeholder Overview http www paessler com stage bsx support kb prtg7 placeholder_overview System Administration Edit User Accounts and User Groups This section shows how user accounts can be managed For a general introduction see section User Management Note Only for a PRTG Administrator User all settings are visible If you re logged in as another user you may not see all options described in this manual Creating New Users For each new user the administrator user must specify a login name and an email address New users can be created by selecting Setup User Accounts from the main menu and clicking on Add new user Please see next section User Account Settings for details about the options Tip If you want to control the rights of each user individually you must create a user group for each user This can be automated by choosing Create new user group for this user from the Primary Group drop down when creating a new user account This will create a new user and a new user group with the same name In turn you can use this user group to control the user s rights individually User Account Settings Each user account has a number of settings that can be changed by the user choose Setup My Account from the web interfac
211. systems The recorded data is stored in an internal database for later analysis Key Features PRTG Network Monitor can be used to Monitor and alert for uptimes downtimes or slow servers Monitor and account bandwidth and network device usage Monitor system usage CPU loads free memory free disk space etc Classify network traffic by source destination and content Discover unusual suspicious or malicious activity with devices or users Measure QoS and VoIP parameters and control service level agreements SLA Discover and assess network devices The PRTG installer contains all modules and software necessary to run the monitoring system without the need for third party modules including e Paessler s own fast and efficient database system to store the raw monitoring results outperforms SQL servers 2010 Paessler AG Introduction 7 for monitoring data Built in web server with HTTP and HTTPS support for the user interface Mail server for automatic email delivery SQLite SQL Server for storage of events toplists and ToDos Report generator to create PDF reports Graphics engine for user friendly charts Network analysis module to auto discover devices and sensors An application programming interface APT allows users to program their own features PRTG Network Monitor can support thousands of sensors and can optionally work with multiple remote probes agents to monitor multiple sites or netw
212. t Administrator User Login Name prtgadmin Password aoto Confirm Password Email Address info paessler com Under the Administrator tab you can define the login name the password and the email address of the administrator user We stronglyr recommend to use a save password especially when the web interface is accessible from the Internet 2010 Paessler AG System Settings and Administration 133 License PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log About Software License License Name License Key 000014 B sad alui s ZPSS 34TI Licensed Edition Additional NetFlow xFlow Probe licenses License Keys Netflow Sensors Probes Check Kev s Under the License tab you can enter your program license information name and key which will return a license edition value as well as Netflow xFlow add on licenses Once the licensing information has been entered click on the Check Key s button to check and activate them See section Entering A License Key for more detailed instructions Service Control PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log About PRTG Core Server Service Instal Uninstall Star 2010 Paessler A
213. t to the core server Step 3 Approving a New Probe When a new probe has connected to the Core Server you must approve it in the web user interface i Probe on 10 0 9 30 10 0 9 30 Approve New Probe Deny New Probe Click on Approve New Probe to fully enable the probe PRTG automatically creates a set of sensors for the probe to ensure that bottle necks on the probe will always be noticed It is recommended to keep these sensors 3 Probe on 10 0 9 30 10 0 9 30 Probe Device jj Probe Health l CPU Load i Disk Free i Memory Free 100 ox 43 62 E Ethernetadap MS TCP Loopt 2 kbit s 0 kbit s Now you can create groups devices and sensors for monitoring via the new probe Debugging Probe Connection Problems If you have trouble with the setup of remote probes please look at the probe s log files which usually reside in the following folder on the probe system 2010 Paessler AG Advanced Topics 149 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 C Documents and Settings All Users MV Application Data Paessler PRTG Network MonitorNV7NLogs System Windows Vista Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 C ProgramData Paessler PRTG Network Monitor V7 Logs System The probe process writes the two log files PRTG Probe Log 1 log and PRTG Probe Log 2 log alternatively Please open the one with the most recent date For a correct connection the probe log should look similar to this PRILGRPKODSRS
214. target probe s IP from the perspective of the sending probe may be different e g due to NAT You also have to choose a UDP port number please use one port number per QoS sensor With the settings for number and for size of the packets you can configure the test data stream 1000 packets of 172 bytes is good for a start but 1f your applications use larger packets you may want to enter other values here Try to configure the 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 81 test streams with parameters similar to that of the UDP services you are using across this connection Cisco IP SLA Sensor Wikipedia describes IP SLA as a feature included in the Cisco IOS Software that can allow administrators the ability to Analyze IP Service Levels for IP applications and services IP SLA uses active traffic monitoring technology to monitor continuous traffic on the network This is a reliable method in measuring over head network performance IP SLA is mostly used to have a look at sound quality for VoIP traffic If you haven t done so already you must create a device for the Cisco device that you want to monitor Remember to enter SNMP credentials because PRTG uses SNMP to get the data from the switch The second step is to create a new sensor on that device choose IP SLA from the VoIP and Infrastructure section and follow the instructions on the screen A few moments later you will see the current measurements in PRTG s user interface Thi
215. te either a probe or group that shall contain the new group Right click the object and then choose Add Group from the context menu As an alternative you can choose Add Group from the Devices menu in the latter case you must then choose a parent group The Add Group dialog appears Add Group to Group Group 1 Group Name and Tags Group Name Group 5 Tags V Inherit Credentials for Windows Systems from parent object Group Domain or Computer Name empty Username empty V Inherit Credentials for SNMP Devices from parent object Group SNMP Version V1 SNMP Port 161 SNMP Timeout s 5s Continue Cancel Enter a name for the new group optionally enter Tags or review the inherited credential settings and then click Continue Creating Devices Manually To create a new device go to the devices list Devices in the main menu and locate either a probe or group 2010 Paessler AG Device and Sensor Setup 57 that is intended to contain the new device Right click the object and then choose Add Device from the context menu As an alternative you can choose Add Device from the Devices menu in the latter case you will be asked to either create a new parent group for the device or to choose an existing group as parent The Add Device dialog appears Device Name and Address Device Name Device 1 Ip Address DNS
216. th SNMP Version 1 2c or 3 i e a SNMP compatible software must be installed on the device SNMP must be enabled on the device and the machine running PRTG must be allowed access to the SNMP interface e WMI monitoring In order to use WMI Windows Management Instrumentation monitoring you will need a Windows network For client PCs monitored with WMI only Windows XP and later are officially supported XP 2003 Vista 2008 etc Windows 2000 is not officially supported NetFlow sFlow monitoring The device must be configured to send NetFlow data packets NetFlow Version 5 or 9 or sFlow packets to the machine running a PRTG Probe Packet Sniffer Only data packets passing the local machine s network card can be analyzed Switches with so called monitoring ports are necessary for network wide monitoring in switched networks Requirements for the Windows GUI The optional PRTG Windows GUI runs under all Windows versions XP or later and requires Internet Explorer 7 or 8 Requirements for the iPhone based User Interfaces The optional iPRTG app for iPhones must be purchased separately requires iPhone firmware 3 0 or later The built in web browser based iPhone interface was created for iPhone firmware 2 0 or later Planing an Installation With Hundreds of Sensors or More As a rule of thumb an average PC server built in the year 2007 or later should be able to monitor 1 000 sensors with ease some exceptions for SNMP V3 WMI and pa
217. the MX records for your domain are correct your mail server can be reached from the outside world your email filtering is working etc e Emails can be retrieved using POP3 or IMAP Conclusion These two sensor types are a great tool to ensure delivery of email from and to your mail servers Compared to the standard SMTP POP3 and IMAP sensors which only check the availability of these services the two roundtrip sensor types actually monitor the complete transaction from accepting the mail on the first email server to delivery of the mail on the final POP3 IMAP server 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 77 7 8 SQL Server Sensors Using the SQL Servers sensors you can natively monitor the most commonly implemented SQL servers MySQL Microsoft SQL and Oracle SQL The sensors monitor if the database server e A accepts connections and e B processes requests and e C returns an expected result when executing a custom SQL command PRTG supports native monitoring for the following SQL Servers e Microsoft SQL Server Checks Microsoft SQL server connections e MySQL Server Checks MySQL server connections e Oracle SQL Server Checks Oracle SQL server connections General steps for setup e Identify the IP address or the DNS name of your database server Create a new device in PRTG Network Monitor You can do this with the context menu of a group If you already have an adequate device object created you can ski
218. the command line switch p or after the login with mysql exe with the command use File Server Sensors In order to monitor file servers you can use the following sensors e WMI Disk Free This sensor monitors free disk space on fixed drives via WMI Monitors all disks of a target system in one sensor each volume in a different channel For more information see Windows Systems WMI Sensors e WMI Volume Monitors free disk space on Volumes via WMI Monitors only one volume one disk per sensor available for Windows Vista or higher Preferred option to WMI Disk Free For more information see Windows Systems WMI Sensors e WMI File Monitors file size and existence as well as changes to a file via WMI For more information see Windows Systems WMI Sensors e Share Disk Space Monitors free disk space of SMB shares Windows Samba e File Monitors a file s existence size and age and also discovers changes to the file via SMB Folder Monitors a folder s existence as well as the number of files and their ages sizes and also discovers changes to the folder s content Note The File Transfer Protocol FTP Sensor can be found in Various Protocol Sensors 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 79 7 10 Virtual Server Sensors With PRTG you can monitor the vital parameters of VMware and Microsoft Hyper V host servers and the virtual machines running on them Also Amazon EC2 instances of Amazon AWS can be monitored via
219. the relevant settings in the PRTG Server Administrator which you can find in PRTG s Start menu group see section PRTG Server Administrator 2010 Paessler AG 146 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual PRTG Network Monitor Server Administration Tool Web Server Core Server Memory Usage Administrator License Service Control Log About IPs for Probe Connections CO Use all IPs for probe connections OO Localhost only 127 0 0 1 no remote probes G Specify IPs for probe connections 127 0 0 1 is automatically active as it is needed For the local probe o STREET Probe Connections Port 23560 Z Standard 23560 Path for data files C Documents and Settings All Users Application Data Paessler PRTG Nel xd Lise compression Note Please copy your PRTG data files to the desired location BEFORE changing the path here Revert to defauk path By default a Core Server only accepts connections via localhost 127 0 0 1 which means that only the Local probe can connect This is the most secure setting In order to allow external probes to connect you must check Use all IPs or Specify IPs and select one of the IPs of the server You can also specify the TCP IP port number When you are done click OK to save your settings The Core Server process will be restarted so that the changes take effect Step 2 Setting up Remote Probes To install a remote probe ope
220. the sensor settings you can enter Sniffer specific settings to specify the traffic that should be monitored specific packets IPs ports etc You can set Include or Exclude Filters and enter Channel Definitions Please see the context help on the settings page for more details Packet sniffing can differentiate between the following protocols in the sensor s Channel Configuration Web WWW Traffic HTTP HTTPS File Transfer FTP Mail Traffic IMAP POP3 SMTP Chat Instant Messaging IRC AIM Remote Control RDP SSH Telnet VNC Network Services DHCP DNS Ident ICMP SNMP NetBIOS NETBIOS Various Socks SSL OtherUDP OtherTCP Header Based vs Content Based Packet Sniffing PRTG provides two base technologies for packet sniffing e Header based PRTG looks at the IPs and ports of source and destination to assess the protocol This is very fast but at times not very accurate For example it is not possible to identify HTTP traffic on ports other than 80 8080 and 443 as HTTP 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 85 Content based PRTG captures the TCP packets reassembles the data streams and then analyzes the content of the data using an internal set of rules to identify the type of traffic This is quite accurate e g HTTP traffic on any port number is accounted for as HTTP but requires much more CPU and memory resources especially when a lot of traffic passes the network card To summarize heade
221. tible but not annoying 3 Fair Slightly annoying 2 Poor Annoying 1 Bad Very annoying The second interesting parameter ICPIF is the sum of measured impairment factors minus a user defined access Advantage Factor that is intended to represent the user s expectations based on how the call was placed for example a mobile call versus a land line call quoted from Cisco s website Upper Limit for ICPIF VoIP Call Communication Quality 5 Very good 2010 Paessler AG 82 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 7 12 10 Good 20 Adequate 30 Limiting case 45 Exceptional limiting case 55 Customers likely to react strongly complaints change of network operator Notes For more information about these measurements see IP SLAs Analyzing Service Levels Using the VoIP Jitter Operation on the Cisco website http www cisco com en US docs ios 12 4 ip sla configuration guide hsvoip html Custom Sensors Custom sensors allow a number of monitoring tasks that go far beyond the standard sensor set to be performed Apart from parameterized versions of SNMP packet sniffer and NetFlow sensors you can create your own sensors using WQL WMI Query Language and by compiling an EXE file using any Windows software development tool PRTG supports four custom sensor types e SNMP Custom Monitors a specific OID you must supply an OID for this sensor See SNMP Sensors SNMP Custom String Monitors a string returned
222. tocol and or IP addresses Note Packet Sniffer Sensors support Toplists Top Talkers Top Connections etc see Toplists How Packet Sniffing works If you need to know what applications or IP addresses are causing the traffic in your network you can use a packet sniffer This will look at every single data packet traveling through your network for accounting purposes avttta EER eae EI RESSESEEIESSL IEEE ALAS REILLITLTTTIIIS PRTG can analyze the packets passing the network card of a PC or it can be connected to the so called monitoring port of a switch In order to calculate bandwidth usage PRTG inspects all network data packets either passing the PC s network card shown on the left side or the data packets sent by a monitoring port of a switch right side with its built in packet sniffer Using remote probes you can set up packet sniffers anywhere in your network see Multiple Probes and Remote Probes 2010 Paessler AG 84 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Comparing the four bandwidth monitoring technologies provided by PRTG SNMP WMI xFlow and packet sniffer this one creates the most CPU and network load and should thus only be used in small to medium networks on dedicated computers for larger networks or for individual computers Reasons To Choose Packet Sniffing It is important to understand that the packet sniffer can only access and inspect data packets that actually flow throu
223. uts Mesue mph E xx pm IW CPUlesdIndexd EE Traffic Indes 04 Up o n EMail Seer 1 mosi Er Moms Buen Boet Sariari int w o nr PES Mess UR Pri rdl vals Wei i potista peel almos sei j ru E ox Tse Mims Smee w u o ma m Group 1b 2 59 B urs up ok m l s portSwitth1 El OSes 5 fi il Ad i mc 5 Firewall mcs FEM Er on te et les ee Urn T Siam nae Eius Maa Mie ES 3 Ze Add Group Add Auto DiscoveryGroup Add Device Add Sensor s E Ae 20 on Edt Pause Check Now Delete Refresh Menu 2s ams 6s ans wsemersm iog A 20 08 2003 280227 h auos 200s 230227 K You can see that all three share a common layout e On the upper left you have the object s name basic settings and sensor status e Below that there is a list of child objects devices for a group sensors for a device and channels for a sensor e On the right there are three or four graphs showing recent history To zoom into a graph simply click on it or choose the appropriate tab For sensors you will see four graphs that show all channels of the sensor for the last 2 days last 30 days and last 365 days plus a live graph For groups and devices there are three graphs that show the alarms CPU load index traffic index and response time index explained above for the last 2 days last 30 days and last 365 days Details about index calculation are available in the Paessle
224. what information you want to display Overview Live Graph 2 days 30 days 365 days Log Settings History The following screenshot shows the graph and data table for 3 sensors In this sample the green line in the graph is shown thicker by hovering the mouse cursor over the respective entry in the legend at the bottom 2010 Paessler AG 48 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual Overview Live Graph 2days 30 365 da Settings Histor 4 Sensors 2 days 1 0 M 0 8 0 6 a E r04 t r 0 2 Mi A 0 0 eo o eo o eo o eo o e o e o e o eo o eo eo eo o eo o eo o o o o o o o o o eo o eo o eo o eo o eo o o o o o o o a Gd Q qa Q d o o O d 0 m Q dq OG d 6 o GS band e1 a o o o o o N a o o o o o s d a e e e a e e e e e e e a e e e e e e e e e e e o o o o o o eo o o o eo o eo o eo o o o o o o o o o momo om om m m dd do od do do dco o o o o o o o o o co co c o o o o o o eo o o o eo o eo o eo o o o o o o o o o PING 4 HTTP 2 IIS Files Sent 2 Date Time Average Downtime Coverage Loading time Downtime Coverage Files Sent volume Files Sent speed Downtime Coverage 09 09 2009 10 40 00 10 45 00 2msec 0 100 74 msec 0 100 09 09 2009 10 35 00 10 40 00 2msec 0 96 100 85 msec 0 95 100 44Files 0 15 Files s 0 100 09 09 2009 10 30 00 10 35 00 3msec 0 100 95 65 msec 0 95 100 7Files 0 02 Files s 0 100 09 09
225. xy 65 PRTG 18 21 PRTG Probe Administrator 135 PRTG Server Administrator 129 PRTG Traffic Grapher6 150 PRTG Traffic Grapher V6 Upgrade 15 PS1 82 151 Public Access 100 117 Public URL 100 2010 Paessler AG 160 PRTG Network Monitor 7 3 User Manual 20 QoS 80 Quality of Service Quick Search 37 vs RDP 74 Re Brand Web Interface Records 32 Red Sensor 37 Remote Desktop Protocol Remote Probe 24 143 Remote Probe Installer Remove PRTG 22 Report 109 Report Concept 31 Reporting 31 109 Reports 153 Requirements 10 Root Group 54 Root Group Settings Round Trip 75 oe SAMBA 78 Sample configuration Scanning Interval 61 Schedule 121 Scheduled Report Schedules Concept Schedules Settings Schematic 100 Search Box 37 Secure Sockets Layer Secure User 117 Security 117 Sensor 56 59 64 65 68 71 74 75 77 78 79 80 82 83 85 87 88 Sensor Chart 100 Sensor Color 37 80 150 74 129 30 10 109 32 61 150 Sensor Meaning 37 Sensor Setup 54 Sensor Status 31 Sensor Types Overview 64 Sensors 27 30 Server 79 Server Administrator 129 Server Message Block 78 Service Control 129 135 Service Level Agreement Set for All 30 Set Probe Access Key SetUp 54 Set Up Devices 54 SetUp Sensor 61 Set Up User accounts 128 Set Up User Groups 128 Settings 33 54 61 129 135 Setup 16 24 120 143 sFlow 64 85 87 140 Share Disk Space Monitoring Sharing Monitoring Dat
226. y Please note Although PRTG has built in APIs of some SMS providers we cannot officially provide support regarding these SMS service providers If you have technical questions about SMS delivery beyond PRTG please contact your SMS provider directly e ICQ Delivery Provide your ICQ number Sender Number and Password for the ICQ account intended to relay not receive ICQ notifications e Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger Delivery Provide your MSN ID Sender Number and Password for the MSN account intended to relay not receive MSN notifications Probe Management Select Setup System Setup in the main menu Under the Probe Management tab you can define specifics relevant to probes System Website and Web Server Settings Notification Delivery Settings Probe Management Probe Connection Settings Access keys EO49FF3F 05B9 48B6 9791 69F4D917F718 Allow IPs any Enter all IPs that are allowed Deny IPs Settings from the PRTG Server Administrator program IPs for Probe Connections 1270 01 Probe Connections Port 23560 e Probe Connection Settings Here you can define access keys as well as allow deny specifics IPs access to the probe s See Multiple Probes and Remote Probes e Settings from the PRTG Server Administrator program These entries are for your information only These entries can be edited from the PRTG Server Administrator applet under Start PRTG program group see PRTG Probe Admini
227. ystem s firewall Paessler supplies two test tools for debugging NetFlow installations as well as tips for the router setup see below sFlow Monitoring PRTG supports flow monitoring using sFlow with the following sensors types e sFlow Monitors switches using sFlow e sFlow custom User configurable version of the sFlow sensor Before you can create sFlow sensors you must configure the sFlow export on your switch router Configure the switch to send the sFlow packets to the computer running a PRTG probe either the local probe or a remote probe The sFlow port port number that the UDP packets are sent to must be set to the same value in the router and in PRTG Finally don t forget to open the sFlow port in the PRTG system s firewall Limitations On a powerful 2008 PC Dual Core 2 5 Ghz you can process about 100 000 flows per second for one xFlow stream Using sampling the number of actual flows can be much higher When using complex filters the value can be much lower For example with a router sending about 2 000 flows second which corresponds to mixed traffic at gigabit sec level without sampling you can expect to configure up to 50 NetFlow sensors operating 2010 Paessler AG Sensor Types 87 properly PRTG internally monitors its own NetFlow processing and you will see a decreased probe health reading as soon as NetFlow packets are not processed due to an overload see Probe Health sensor on the Probe

PRTG Network Monitor 7.3 - User Manual

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