PRTG Network Monitor, Part 2
Posted by Aaron on Friday, July 19th 2013
Since my last post on the PRTG monitor, I’ve added some more probes (thanks to their offer of a free upgrade to 30 sensors).
However, before I got started, the monitor showed that the system health had an alert:
I clicked on the red alert box, and the detail page is displayed:
The server that hosts the PRTG Network monitor is intentionally underpowered as to consume as little electricity as possible (it’s a HP ProLiant Micro Tower Server as seen here on Amazon. It’s 64 bit, had has 4 non-hot swappable drive bays. It runs 64 Bit Windows 8 very nicely.) Because it’s underpowered, it often can be utilized heavily by the various routine processes that are always running on it. I logged in to the server (remote desktop), and the new Task Manager app made it clear what was happening:
I’d started a “maintenance” cycle earlier which apparently included a disk defrag.
Back to the sensors – I‘ve got quite a few network connected devices in the house (see details here). So, there are a number of things that can be monitored, etc. One thing in particular is (ironically?), a network monitor , from Synaccess Networks (the NP-02, which can detect the status of our internet connection and automatically toggle the power to the DSL modem if no internet connection is detected).
So, initially, the list of Devices automatically found included the NP-02. I wanted to add a probe, so, next to the name of the device, you can click Add Sensor.
Note that originally, it was just listed by IP Address, but the name is editable:
I clicked Add Sensor:
There are many things that can be monitored. Each click of a filter at the top reduces the options at the bottom.
I selected Ping:
You can then edit more sensor appropriate settings (and override defaults):
Then to the summary screen for the device:
Not much to show right away of course.
Awesomely, it automatically discovered a network connected printer, and selected several probes (I deleted all but one):
It’s a very cool system that works well for my home needs. While I can’t speak to the viability of this in a commercial setting, it’s certainly capable and well worth looking at for home or business.
However, before I got started, the monitor showed that the system health had an alert:
I clicked on the red alert box, and the detail page is displayed:
The server that hosts the PRTG Network monitor is intentionally underpowered as to consume as little electricity as possible (it’s a HP ProLiant Micro Tower Server as seen here on Amazon. It’s 64 bit, had has 4 non-hot swappable drive bays. It runs 64 Bit Windows 8 very nicely.) Because it’s underpowered, it often can be utilized heavily by the various routine processes that are always running on it. I logged in to the server (remote desktop), and the new Task Manager app made it clear what was happening:
I’d started a “maintenance” cycle earlier which apparently included a disk defrag.
Back to the sensors – I‘ve got quite a few network connected devices in the house (see details here). So, there are a number of things that can be monitored, etc. One thing in particular is (ironically?), a network monitor , from Synaccess Networks (the NP-02, which can detect the status of our internet connection and automatically toggle the power to the DSL modem if no internet connection is detected).
So, initially, the list of Devices automatically found included the NP-02. I wanted to add a probe, so, next to the name of the device, you can click Add Sensor.
Note that originally, it was just listed by IP Address, but the name is editable:
I clicked Add Sensor:
There are many things that can be monitored. Each click of a filter at the top reduces the options at the bottom.
I selected Ping:
You can then edit more sensor appropriate settings (and override defaults):
Then to the summary screen for the device:
Not much to show right away of course.
Awesomely, it automatically discovered a network connected printer, and selected several probes (I deleted all but one):
It’s a very cool system that works well for my home needs. While I can’t speak to the viability of this in a commercial setting, it’s certainly capable and well worth looking at for home or business.
