What's the best "Test Mode" for remote agents

rtech · Post by **rtech** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:59 am

I accidentally reset all tests for one server and it caused "Unknown" - "RMA cannot read data" errors.

What's the recommended Test Mode setting when you're checking remote agents? Does it really matter?

Thanks,
Andrew

KS-Soft · Post by **KS-Soft** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 12:19 pm

What is "test mode"? There is no such option for "generic" test.
May be you are asking about some specific test method like Performance Counter or UNC?

Regards
Alex

rtech · Post by **rtech** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 1:02 pm

You're right - I was looking at the settings for "Performance Counter tests".

I thought that applied to all tests...

I'm using HM 7.52 on Windows 2003 R2 Standard Server - monitoring a couple of servers remotely using RMA.

The remote servers are Windows 2003 R2 Standards Server.

The problem is when I reboot the server, most tests error out - RMA connection error or RMA cannot read data.

Most being performance counter tests.

-a

KS-Soft · Post by **KS-Soft** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 1:46 pm

"RMA connection error" means HostMonitor cannot connect to the agent. It has nothing to do with Performance Counter technology.
Why HostMonitor cannot connect to the agent? Probably because agent was not started yet.
You may setup some Master test to check agent status (e.g. simple TCP test) and setup other test items performed by this agent as dependant items
http://www.ks-soft.net/hostmon.eng/mfra ... htm#Master
Or you may simply ignore "Unknown" statuses, just unmark "Tread Unknown status as Bad" test option.

"RMA cannot read data" means either
- some network error occured after connection was established (e.g. your router went down)
- some 3rd party software (e.g. antivirus monitor) dropped connection
- or agent could not perform test within specified timeout. You may try to increase timeout specified for the agent

Regards
Alex

rtech · Post by **rtech** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 2:53 pm

The problem only happens if I restart HostMonitor.

So, basically, the remote server is running. I stop and start HostMonitor. The problem occurs.

It seems like remote agent cannot accept over 5 perfmon requests at once.

rtech · Post by **rtech** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:06 pm

Ok - well I've only been able to replicate this on one of two servers... I'll investigate more and see if I can figure this out and post my error or mistake.

KS-Soft · Post by **KS-Soft** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:34 pm

It seems like remote agent cannot accept over 5 perfmon requests at once

It has nothing to do with Performance Counter monitoring. This problem relates to basic TCP communication so it does not matter what exactly test do you use.

Regarding 5 simultaneous requests.. that's true in some cases
1) RMA is installed on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT Workstation,
Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP (not sure about Vista). Windows Server edition (NT, 2000, 2003) do not have such limitation.
2) You are using Passive RMA version 3.80 or 3.82. Older and newer versions of the agent (e.g. version 2.00, 3.00, 3.70 or 3.83) does not have such limitation.
Do you use RMA 3.80 or 3.82?

Quote from the manual
=================
Known problems:

Windows 95, 98, ME, NT Workstation, 2000/XP Professional has a serious limitation: maximum length of the queue for pending TCP connections is limited to 5 items.
This limitation creates problems when you want to perform lots of tests by a single remote agent (e.g. monitoring many systems by a single agent that is installed on the system in the remote network).

Suggested solution:
To avoid possible rejections of requests caused by the queue overflow you should:

Install a Remote Monitoring Agent on the system with Windows NT/2000/XP Server edition.
Or you may set parameter "Do not start more then [N] tests per second" to 5 or less. This option is located on Behavior page in the HostMonitors` options dialog.
=================

Regards
Alex

rtech · Post by **rtech** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:08 am

It's a Windows Server 2003 server (both remote and host). Using freshly downloaded version - 3.83.

I think it's the server... As I'm setting up other servers, I'm not having that problem.

Thanks!

KS-Soft · Post by **KS-Soft** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:03 am

May be problem caused by some 3rd party software.. do you have installed some antivirus monitors, personal firewall, content monitoring software? Non stanard winsock components?

Regards
Alex

rtech · Post by **rtech** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 2:28 pm

Yes, content monitoring that I'm having serious problems with. I'm scheduled to uninstall this week. Thanks for the tip!