Question about notification (for everyone)

[Defiant]

Hello everyone,
I have a question about the way you get notified when a test goes bad, specifically, I am interested in how you get notified when Internet connectivity is down.

Our network is made of 3 zones: LAN, DMZ, and Internet. The firewall sits in the middle, and controls the traffic.

I put HM in the LAN, and it tests all the servers there, and on the DMZ.
It also tries to connect to the Internet, and check that we can get to google, cnn, and amazon. After it fails the 3 tests one after the other, it sends a message.

In the past, I used HM v3.x. There, I used a free SMTP server (PostCast Server), and a dial-up connection.

Everytime a test failed, HM contacted the SMTP, and sent a message to it.
PostCast is very smart, and you can tell it to always dial-up when it needs to send something.

So, I got all of my messages through an SMTP that connected over dial-up to the Internet. This way, even if our Internet router was down, or if the Firewall crashed, we got the message.

I already have to SMTP servers in my company, put I can't use them to send e-mail out when the Internet connection is down. I can get notified about everything else failing, just not when the Internet conenction is down

I'm wondering what the rest of you are doing, because I want to change this in v4.x (new HM server).

-Defiant

[Mogge]

Hi!

I use a ping test to the top DNS server in Denmark (that's where I'm living). If that fails about 80% of the Danish Internet servers are down
Sure I dosn't make a 100% sure test if MY Internet connection is down or if the ISP is missing a connection to the Danish top DNS (or DIX) but it gives me a pretty good idea in a simple way.

Greetings!

Mogge

[Defiant]

[KS-Soft]

May be I missed something. But it looks like you answered your own question.

[Mogge]

Oh - that's the question!

Agree with Alex - or get a sms box that can send you an SMS based on an action. I use a cmd line util to send a SMS throu my SMS box connected to a serial port.

Greetings!

/Mogge

[Defiant]

Thank you both.
The reason I don't want to use a mode is twofold:

1) It's much slower. It may take a minute or two before I get notified.
2) The current server that I have crashes every time I try to dial through the modem.

Can you give me more details about the SMS application that you use?

Thanks

-RoNNY

[Wooltown]

I use a SMS program from www.way-x.de/smsmaker, Host Monitor writes the message as a file in aan ut-Directory and SMS-maker scans the directory every x Second, I am using a Siemens TC35 SMS-modem.

[Mogge]

Hi!

I use a similar program to send commands to a Siemens MC-35i GSM box.

Regards
/Mogge

[Mogge]

Wooltown!

What script are you using for writing the SMS files? (to the SMS\Out dir.)

/Mogge

[Mogge]

Hi Wooltown!

Do you mind sharing the script you are using to write to the SMS dir.?

It should be kind of easy but I look for the naming of the text (SMS) files when an alert occures. I suspect you are using date/time as the filename but what if 2 alerts occures at the same time (same second) - sure you can use the TestID as part of the filename but what if the same alert occures twice during the same second - e.i. a SNMP alert that runs bad and the good...

Have you solved that problem, Wooltown?? Anyone??

/Mogge

[KS-Soft]

[Mogge]

Hi Alex!

That´s what I figured out

Well, to solve the problem I could use a filename name as Date/Time + TestID + a random number - or make sure that my SNMP alerts don't return a good alert within the same second and only name the file Date/Time + TestID.

Right?

/Mogge

[KS-Soft]

If you need unique string for SNMP Trap test item, you may use combination %DateTime% + %TestID% + %TotalTests%

Regards
Alex

[Mogge]

Good idea!

Thanx!

/Mogge