Overview

In some cases, the standard up.time service monitors may not fully enable you to monitor all of the systems, applications, and proprietary devices in your environment; in some cases, you may need to capture unique metrics. To do this, you can configure advanced service monitors, or download and install plugin monitors.

These advanced monitors can be simple scripts that run service checks on a host. You can write a shell script, or use a higher-level scripting language like Perl, Python, or Ruby. Or, the advanced monitors can be binary programs that interact with more sophisticated applications. On top of that, advanced monitors do not require an agent to be installed on the system that you are monitoring.

Regardless of how you develop your advanced monitor scripts or programs, those scripts or programs should return the following codes:

  • 0 - OK
    The services are functioning properly.
  • 1 - Warning
    There is a potential problem with one of more of the services being monitored.
  • 2 - Critical
    There is a critical problem with one or more of the services being monitored.
  • 3 - Unknown
    There is an error in the configuration of the monitor itself, or up.time cannot execute the service check.

up.time captures the output from the script or program, usually from standard output ( stdout ). The output appears in the service status section of the Global Scan dashboard (see Understanding the Status of Services). The up.time monitoring framework picks up any error codes and triggers the appropriate monitoring action.

If you have already written scripts or programs for other monitoring tools, you can re-use those scripts or programs with up.time . You simply point your advanced monitor to where your scripts or programs are located and up.time will run them.

The uptime user account on the up.time Monitoring Station must be able to execute the script or program that you use.

Contact uptime software Client Support Services for help with creating custom monitor scripts.

Before You Begin

When creating a script or an executable for an advanced monitor, you should ensure that:

  • the necessary interpreter for the scripting language that you are using is installed on the Monitoring Station
  • you have determined the arguments that the script or program requires, and the parameters that you want your script or program to return
  • you use forward slashes when specifying directory paths in your scripts, regardless of the operating system (e.g., C:/ on Windows, or
    /opt on Solaris or Linux)

Many of the fields that you use to define an advanced monitor are the same as those used with agent and agentless monitors. You can find more information about those fields in the following sections.

Custom Monitors

A Custom monitor runs a script that captures information which is related to a situation that may be unique to your environment. When the script is run, the system being monitored returns a single line of information to standard output ( stdout ). The script reads stdout , which may contain an error or return value. This error or return value is then displayed in the up.time Monitoring Station.

As well, you can specify that the monitor writes the data that the script returns to the up.time DataStore. You can use the retained data to later generate a Service Metrics report (see Service Monitor Metrics Report) or a Service Metrics graph (see ).

Configuring Custom Monitors

To configure Custom monitors, do the following:
  1. In the Custom monitor template, complete the monitor information fields.
    To learn about monitor information fields, see Monitor Identification.
  2. Complete following fields:

    • Script Name
      The name of, and path to, the script or program on the Monitoring Station that will collect metrics.

      The uptime user account on the up.time Monitoring Station must be able to execute the script or program that you use. Ensure that the permissions for the uptime user account are set correctly.
    • Arguments (Optional)
      Specify any arguments that are required by the script or program.
    • Output (Optional)
      Specify a comparison method to override the settings of an Alert Profile, or to return only the most severe errors.
      Do this by selecting an option from the Comparison Method dropdown lists beside the Warning and Critical fields. Then, enter a value in the field. For example, to return only unknown errors you can select Exactly Matches from the dropdown list, and type UNKNOWN in the field.
      For more information on comparison methods, see Comparison Methods.
    • Response Time
      Optionally, enter the Warning and Critical Response Time thresholds. For more information, see Configuring Warning and Critical Thresholds.
  3. Click the Save for Graphing option to save the output in the DataStore. You can later use the retained data to generate a report or a graph.
  4. Complete the following settings:

Custom with Retained Data

Custom monitors with Retained Data return the following information:

  • up to 10 values that you can save and evaluate
  • a return status of 0 to 3 (see Overview for more information)

You can specify whether the monitor writes any returned data to the up.time DataStore. You can use the retained data to later generate a Service Metrics report (see Service Monitor Metrics Report) or a Service Metrics graph (see Viewing System and Service Information).

You can also specify whether the monitor will use retained values as arguments in the custom monitor script. The values used are from the last instance the monitor was run. This most recent data sample can be used in cases where you would like to set alerts based on value comparisons.

When you wish to refer to retained values in a script, use the following environment variable as an argument:

%UPTIME_PREV_CUSTOM#%

Replace “ # ” with the ordered value the custom monitor has been configured to save (i.e., 1 - 10 ).

For example, running a sample script called application.exe with the following arguments would make use of retained values for Variable 1 and Variable 5 as retained by the monitor:

%UPTIME_PREV_CUSTOM1% %UPTIME_PREV_CUSTOM5%

Configuring Custom Monitors with Retained Data

To configure Custom monitors with Retained Data, do the following:
  1. In the Custom with Retained Data monitor template, complete the monitor information fields.
    To learn how to configure monitor information fields, see Monitor Identification.
  2. Complete the following fields:

    • Script Name
      The name of, and path to, the script or program on the Monitoring Station that will collect metrics on the system.

      The script or program that you specify must be executable by the uptime user account on the up.time Monitoring Station. Ensure that the permissions are set correctly.
    • Arguments (Optional)
      Specify any arguments required by the script or program.
    • Pass retained variables from previous collection as environment variables
      Select this checkbox if you would like the monitor to be able to use the most recently collected variables as arguments in the script.
    • Variable 1 to Variable 10 (Optional)
      Specify up to 10 variables that your custom script will return to the up.time Monitoring Station. If you click the Save for Graphing checkbox, these variables will be saved to the DataStore.
    • Response Time
      Enter the Warning and Critical Response Time thresholds. For more information, see Configuring Warning and Critical Thresholds.
  3. Complete the following settings:
  4. Click Finish.

External Check

The External Check monitor captures asynchronous events. up.time does not actively monitor these events by polling or initiating service checks; instead, External Check monitors rely on an external event to generate the information that the monitors capture. External Check monitors enable you to determine when to collect service data for the event that you specify.

After you define an External Check monitor, it will have a status of UNKNOWN until the it is updated with a URI similar to the following template:

http://$UPTIME_HOST:9996/command?command=externalcheck&name=$ELEMENT_NAME&status=$STATUS&message=$MESSAGE&hostname=$MONITOR_NAME

$UPTIME_HOST: the hostname of the up.time Monitoring Station

$ELEMENT_NAME: the hostname (not display name) of the system the External Check is assigned to

$STATUS: an integer indicating the status of the monitor: 0 = OK, 1 = WARN, 2 = CRIT

$MESSAGE: the message explaining the status

$MONITOR_NAME: the name of the External Check monitor

A sample script, extevent.pl, is included with up.time in the /scripts subdirectory, and serves as an example of how to automate the receiving of asynchronous events, and update the External Check monitor accordingly. When the script is called with the appropriate arguments, it connects to up.time command port (9996), and updates the status, triggering the appropriate Alert Profiles and Action Profiles.

Before using an External Check monitor, contact uptime software Customer Support for assistance. You will need specific detailed instructions for configuring this monitor depending on the nature of the applications that will be generating asynchronous events for up.time.

 

Configuring External Check Monitors

To configure External Check monitors, do the following:
  1. In the External Check monitor template, complete the monitor information fields.
    To learn how to configure monitor information fields, see Monitor Identification.
  2. Complete the following settings:
  3. Click Finish.

Plugin Monitors

Plugins are custom service monitors that are not part of the standard up.time distribution, but can be integrated with it to augment the type of metrics collected. They are typically created by uptime software's Client Support Engineers or Solutions Architects to address specific customer needs. Whether created by uptime or other customers, plugins are hosted on the Grid, the community repository for custom monitors, gadgets, dashboards, and other enhancements. Each plugin on the Grid includes the main distributable archive, any applicable auxiliary files, and essential installation steps.

Installing and maintaining plugins can also be managed from within up.time. Users can browse, install, and update plugins using the Extension Manager if their User Role permits plugin management (see Working with User Roles for more information).

Users who are allowed to manage plugins can access this option by clicking the Search for monitors link at the top of the Add Service Monitor pop-up window (accessed by clicking Services > Add Service Monitor). Clicking this link opens the Extension Manager, and displays the following:

  • INSTALL: the plugin is available on the Grid, but has not been installed on your up.time deployment
  • INSTALLED: the plugin has been installed, and is available to be configured and linked to monitored Elements
  • UPGRADE: the plugin has been installed, but there is an update available on the Grid

Installing and Upgrading Plugins

When you install a plugin through the Extension Manager, the plugin will be downloaded from the Grid and installed automatically. A confirmation dialog will indicate that the plugin has been installed and is now available to be selected in the Add Service Monitor pop-up window. (The categories the plugin appears in depend on its service monitor definition; see Plugin Guide for more information.) The confirmation dialog will also instruct you on follow-up steps, if applicable:

  • requires additional steps: some manual installation steps need to be performed
  • requires agent-side scripts: the plugin interfaces with an agent-side script, which will need to be installed on monitored Elements
  • restart the Data Collector service: the plugin introduces changes that require the up.time Core (or Data Collector service) to be restarted

When upgrading a plugin, typically, all the necessary follow-up steps will have already been performed.

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