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How-To: Monitor a basic web server.
One of the primary (most popular) uses for IPSentry is to simply monitor the availability of a web server. This is also the best starting point for understanding the various aspects of network device monitoring available in IPSentry by providing you with information related to each configuration option available.
In this document we will create an entry to do the following. (Alert configurations are covered elsewhere)
Connect to the web server.
Simulate a request for the default document.
Check for an HTTP response from the server.
The configuration options used here do not guarantee that the server will actually deliver the default page or that scripts are running properly, or anything more than the above three checks. Information on how to check for page and script delivery is available elsewhere in the how-to index.
The only information we must know prior to beginning the configuration is the URL of the web server we are monitoring, in this case it will be http://internal.serverx.com .
From the IPSentry active display console,
select Options from the Edit menu.
Select the Server/Machine Monitoring tab.
Hit the Add button to begin configuring a
new entry.
Under the --Type-- section, select Network.
Enter a unique identifiable name in the Name
field.
Enter a meaningful description about this
entry in the Description field.
Enter internal.serverx.com in the IP Address
field.
Note: When you leave this field, you will be asked if you want to convert
the name to an IP Address. We recommend answering yes and using the IP
Address. The reason for this is that if your access to DNS name
resolution is failing, you will receive an alert that this device is down
even though the problem exists with DNS and not with the web server.
You can always configure a DNS monitoring entry to check your DNS servers.
Enter HTTP in the Port field.
Click on the Auto Config button to have
IPSentry fill in the Data to Send and Data To Recv fields with basic
information used to monitor HTTP entries. (Not all ports are supported by
the Auto Config function.)
The Data To Send field should now contain:
GET / HTTP/1.0^^
This is a standard HTTP request for the root path of a web server. In
normal operation, the server will deliver the default document specified
such as index.html or default.htm and etc. if one is supplied.
The GET request mentioned above can just as easily be set to:
GET /mydoc.htm HTTP/1.0^^
This setting would of course override the server configuration for default
document and request the document named mydoc.htm explicitly.
The Data To Recv field should now contain:
HTTP/1.
This data is the beginning of an HTTP response header from a server.
After this will come the miner HTTP version information, request result, header information,
and hopefully all the content associated to that get requests.
As stated before, this configuration simply checks to make sure the server
is sending "something". The characters following the HTTP/1.
could be either a successful request status followed by headers and HTML
code, or it could be an error status code. In either case, the server
is sending a response.
At this point, all of the entries specific to configuring an entry to monitor connectivity to a web server are complete. Additional alert options, timing, dependencies, and etc. can be configured at this point.
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