Another condition that would currently be down but would fit into the category 
of possible down is "method~ of object ~".    Happens occasionally here on the 
new build.  



I have NOT reread the discussion on that from before.  I also have not had time 
to see if there is a newer beta to fix this issue.  Please do not consider this 
reporting the issue as I do not have time to troubleshoot it right now which is 
why I have not yet reported.   Just wanted to throw it into this discussion.





Jason Passow
Mississippi Welders Supply
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ph: (507) 494-5178
fax: (507) 454-8104



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Dirk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thu, 22 May 2008 11:15:21 -0500
Subject: RE: [SA-list] SA possible enhancements



Not that simple. 

 

For example on a URL check 

                what is a down? 

                                                the content doesn't match the 
content you gave? 

                                                a 404 error (page not found) 

                                                a 500 error (server error) 

 

Defining ONE string per checktype that is a timeout seems more logical, and 
then you add a new status "TIMEOUT".  But I suppose you also want to alert on 
that then too?  As a timeout can also be a real problem.  If you get one of 
those timeout errors, that isn't a big deal, but if you're process check gives 
you that timeout all the time, then it might show a real issue with the 
(remote)server. 

So it's not just adding a new status (and having rules for it), but it's also 
changing the alerting engine too…. 

 

                

 

 

Dirk Bulinckx. 

From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[email protected] 
(mailto:[email protected])] On Behalf Of Nathan Groom
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 3:26 PM
To: Servers Alive Discussion List
Subject: RE: [SA-list] SA possible enhancements 

 

Could it be set in a way that you could define a string that it explicitly 
matches for a down, and then everything else could possibly be an error in 
connection? 

 

Example: 

Check is set to make sure that a certain process is running, the server is 
busy, so it returns a “timed out” error, not “0 processes running” (not 
really sure on the verbiage on that one). You set an if [not]-then-else 
statement like the following: if return is “timed out” then place check in 
error (color this orange) else check is down (red). 

 

Thanks! 

Nathan Groom 

Information Services Administrator 

East Central Iowa REC 

Urbana, IA 

Phone: 319-443-4343 

Fax: 319-443-4359 

 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[email protected] 
(mailto:[email protected])] On Behalf Of Dirk
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 8:01 AM
To: Servers Alive Discussion List
Subject: RE: [SA-list] SA possible enhancements 

 

Just trying to understand. 

So it would be an alert that uses the same WHEN part as the current alerts, but 
were the action is that the COLOR of the entry in the GUI changes? 

 

Dirk Bulinckx. 

From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[email protected] 
(mailto:[email protected])] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL 
PROTECTED])
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 1:51 PM
To: Servers Alive Discussion List
Subject: RE: [SA-list] SA possible enhancements 

 


That's a really interesting idea, and has a lot of potential... It goes beyond 
what I was looking for, but might be a lot more flexible. The only danger there 
is that it could complicate things horrendously when setting up new checks - if 
you had to add in alerts to change the status for every check depending on how 
often it had failed. I suppose one could get around that danger by making that 
an optional overide in each check (i.e. a check uses the existing behaviour by 
default, but tick a box and it only changes status according to alert 
settings), OR one could combine this idea with the concept of predefined 
alerts. Or both! 

Hmmm... if it was accepted, these ideas could lead to some radical changes in 
how one sets up checks. That might be a lot of work for Dirk, and probably for 
us as users to reconfigure things, but I could see huge flexibility benefits 
here. 

Ian 
_________________________________
Ian K Gray
OEL IS - European Infrastructure Support
Tel: +44 1236 502661
Mob: +44 7881 518854
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit 

"Vogl, Tom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])> 
Sent by: Servers Alive Discussion List <[email protected] 
(mailto:[email protected])> 

21/05/2008 22:45 

Please respond to
Servers Alive Discussion List <[email protected] 
(mailto:[email protected])> 

To 

Servers Alive Discussion List <[email protected] 
(mailto:[email protected])> 

cc 

 

Subject 

RE: [SA-list] SA possible enhancements 

 

 

 






On item "2" - What I think Ian is asking for is that the display somehow allow 
for [ALERT ISSUED] as a status beyond UP/DOWN. 
 
That is the fundamental difference in the way the application is designed and 
the way it is used.  A specific CHECK can FAIL - but that does equate to a DOWN 
status.   
 
Currently the GUI only displays the status of the CHECK, and not if an actual 
ALERT was issued. 
 
Maybe the feature requested for item "2"  is a new alert option called "Set GUI 
Color to: " . 
This way a site may reconfigure the defualt DOWN gui color to be Yellow, and on 
a known failure (determined by the alert) then make it RED. 
 
Parameters would be a pallet of specific colors, as well as the system UP,DOWN, 
UNKNOWN, UNAVAILALBE, etc.. settings….. 
this way you could have an alert set it one color on first failure,  a 
different color on third failure, etc….. 
 
-Tom 
 
 
 
 
From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[email protected] 
(mailto:[email protected])] On Behalf Of Dirk
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 12:21 PM
To: Servers Alive Discussion List
Subject: RE: [SA-list] SA possible enhancements 
  
1) Predefined alerts: looks like something usefull (I'll add that to our 
to-look-at list) 
2) Failed check "down": well a DOWN is the status you get when SA can't say for 
sure that it's UP.  If you want to know the reason of the down, then use the 
checkresponse (this can be viewed in the interface, used in the alerts and used 
within the HTML output) 
3) XML output: correct this can't be done each cycle, what I can see as a 
possible option is to add that to the alerts - Execute Command - Internal 
Servers Alive command (something for the TODO list) 
4) On Call: if the On-Call would be enabled by default, then sending the alert 
to that person would not work, as "just" enabling isn't enough you would 
alsoneed to set the dates when that person is on-call. 
 
 
 
Dirk Bulinckx. 
From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[email protected] 
(mailto:[email protected])] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL 
PROTECTED])
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 6:06 PM
To: Servers Alive Discussion List
Subject: [SA-list] SA possible enhancements 
  

Hi Dirk (et al for info), 

We had an internal service review today on our monitoring services (of which SA 
forms the backbone). A number of things came up as a result of that, which I 
would like to pass on as enhancement requests: 

* We need to do some significant restructuring of alerts, and to do this check 
by check is going to be a huge piece of work. What would be really great would 
be to have a number of predefined alerts (e.g. Alert A is an alert set up to 
send SMS to engineer team X immediately; Alert B does the same but to engineer 
team Y; Alert C is set up to send an email to management group Z after 3 downs, 
etc). My idea is that you would then, in each check, be able to say "use 
predefined alerts A, B and D", as well as being able to create additional 
alerts for that specific check. I could imagine this being done with tick boxes 
- i.e. have (say) 10 predefined alert types which you can select within a 
check. The point of all this is that, if I need to make changes such as 
changing who gets the alerts, or what the wording of the alerts are, or when 
they get sent, or even add a new alert to a number of checks, one can simply 
change a single predefined alert, and/or tick an additional box in each check 
that is to be affected. Do you follow me? 
* I can adjust when an alert is sent (e.g. after x downs), and I can adjust how 
often a check is done (e.g. every x cycles). However, what I can't do is 
determine when a failed check should be considered a "down". Example: as 
mentioned in the past, we have a COM check that looks at an SQL db on a server, 
which quite often fails with a timeout. I have adjusted the alert to only go 
out after 2 downs (and in fact not to go out at all if the response includes 
"Timeout", but that doesn't stop that check from going red on our screens. (To 
be absolutely accurate, therefore, the issue is when a failed check should be 
presented as a "down" on the on the HTML outputs, but that's probably getting 
too complicated...) 
* XML output (that favourite topic of the discussion group) - I can manually 
export to XML, but I can't (I don't think) have SA do that automatically every 
check cycle. Hey - I don't understand XML at all, but my colleagues tell me 
that they can do something clever with it... 
* I think I've asked this before, but I'll double check... The on-call schedule 
for people defaults to "Not on call". Would it be possible (as standard or as 
an option) to change this to defaulting to "On call"? 



Thoughts? 

Many thanks as ever, 

Ian 

_________________________________
Ian K Gray
OEL IS - European Infrastructure Support
Tel: +44 1236 502661
Mob: +44 7881 518854
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit 
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