User's Guide
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Version 4.1 User's Guide |
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The Status window lists all defined Sentries, provides status information, and details recent activity. In addition to displaying information, the status window gives you control over the operation of each Sentry. Three tabs are provided, each of which provides a different view of the status of each Sentry.
The default view is the "Overview" tab, which displays primary information about all Sentries currently running. The window can be resized vertically to display more or fewer Sentries, or the scroll bar can be used to move through the list. Each line on the display includes the following information:Status - The current high-level status of the Sentry, which may be either "OK", "ERR", "---" or "***". In the case of an "ERR" status, see the Detail tab for a full error message. A status of "---" indicates that the Sentry hasn't run yet, while the "***" status indicates that the test is currently in progress.
Sentry - Displays the name of the currently selected Sentry.
Next Test - The amount of time remaining before the Sentry will next perform a test.
Up Time - "Up Time" provides a close approximation of the percentage of time the server has been functioning correctly, since the Sentry was first put on duty. PageSentry can't detect the actual moment a server returns to service after a failure since, as far as PageSentry is concerned, a server comes "back up" only after a scheduled test succeeds. So the "Up Time" statistic is computed simply by dividing the number of successful tests completed by the total number of tests run (including test failures).
Last Failure - The time elapsed since the Sentry last detected an error when performing it's test.
Group - Displays the name of the Group the Sentry is assigned to, if any.
The list of Sentries can be sorted by any of these fields. To resort the list, simply click on the column heading. The sort order selected will change the Sentry order throughout PageSentry's interface, which will determine listings in the Object Manager, Web reporting, etc.
Detail View
For additional detail abouth the currently selected Sentry, select the Detail tab. The list of Sentries will remain, but will shrink to make room for additional information about each Sentry, as shown in figure 36.
The Sentry Detail box includes information about the current state of the Sentry. Some of the information presented in the Detail box, specifically the Sentry, Next Test, and Up Time fields, are duplicated from the Overview tab, described above. The Status field, however, offers more detail than the simple "OK" or "ERR" message displayed on the Overview. When an error has been detected, the Status will reflect a one or two sentence description of the problem. This is the same description sent in e-mail, PageNow, and other Notifiers.
The Sentry detail information also includes the "Test Time", which is the length of time taken to completely perform the test. Please note that this time is effected by several variables, and is unique to PageSentry tests. In other words, the Test Time reported by PageSentry can not be compared to performing a similar action in a client application or any other 3rd party software. In addition, variations in PageSentry activity can also cause some fluctuation in test time reporting.
The Recent Failures box displays information on up to the five most recent failures detected by the Sentry, as space in the window permits. Each entry in this box represents a single server failure, with the failure period and error message displayed. The box, and the number of past failures shown, grows and shrinks as the window is resized vertically.
Notification View
The primary purpose of PageSentry is to notify an administrator (or take other action) when a server failure is detected, so it is important to be aware of failures in executing Notifiers. Fortunately, notification failures are relatively rare, since server failures themselves are relatively uncommon (hopefully!) and Notifiers should always be set-up to use very reliable systems. Still, it is important that problems running Notifiers be easy to detect and correct.
The "Notification" tab displays recent notification attempts made on behalf of each Sentry. The name of each Notifier that has previously been executed on the part of the Sentry is shown, along with the number of successful and failed attempts. The date and time of the last successful notification is shown, followed by the date and time of the most recent notification failure, and the error description of the problem. As with the Detail View, the Notification box will grow as the window is resized vertically.
Note: For AppleEvent, Open Anything, and other Notifier types that rely on external applications, the Notifier status does not reflect whether or not an external script executed properly. If PageSentry is able to launch a script or contact an external application successfully, the Notifier is considered to have executed properly, regardless of whether the application actually performed it's task as expected.
Status Window Shortcuts
The Status window can be used as a short-cut to open the Sentry edit window, force an immediate Sentry test, or put a Sentry on or off duty. For complete details, see the "Actions And Other Menu Options" chapter, later in this User's Guide.
| Copyright © 1995-2002 Maxum Development Corporation http://www.maxum.com/ Rev. 7/10/02 |
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