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Q. How does Sentry-go alert me to an error ?
Both Quick Monitors Monitors can alert you in a wide variety of ways including
e-mail, network messaging (NET SEND), SMS or pager (via the appropriate gateway
service), SysLog Server, text file, database log, HTML-based report or any
scriptable interface using 3rd party software - e.g. to export to 3rd party
system etc.
Q. We use authenticated SMTP to send e-mails. Can I use this to send an alert
?
Yes, you can use a scripted response to send an authenticated e-mail. From v5.x,
you can also use the Scripting Wizard to generate the script for you.
Q. Can I alter the text sent in an alert ?
Yes, simply use the Configuration Utility to specify the text & format sent.
Place-markers can be used to include context-sensitive information such as the
error text, server name, time raised etc.
Q. Can I send multiple alerts ?
Yes, you can send a single alert to one user or multiple alerts to many.
Q. I'm in the office during the week, but need to be informed of problems
outside those times as well. Can I send different alerts depending on the time
of day ?
Yes, alerts can be sent (or not) depending on the day and time. So, for example,
you can send a network message during normal office hours, and an e-mail
or SMS outside those hours.
Q. Can I perform a totally custom action in response to an alert ?
Yes, the Quick Monitor allows you to run a batch and/or a script file in
response to an alert. The file is "compiled" automatically at run time in order
to allow you to include context-sensitive information such as the error text,
server name, time raised etc.
Q. I have a SysLog server which holds all our errors. Can I log to that ?
Yes, Sentry-go can easily log the alert to a SysLog server.
Q. Can Sentry-go respond to problems itself ?
Yes, most Quick Monitor checks can trigger an automatic response such as a
command (e.g. to restart a failed service), batch file (e.g. to clear down
temporary files to conserve disk space) or script (to interface with an external
system or database). These can easily be customised & tailored through the
Configuration Utility.
Q. Can I review alerts I may have missed ?
Yes, the embedded web server gives you HTML Reporting access direct from the
monitor, allowing you to review the most recent alerts triggered. Just connect
to the Recent Alerts report.
Q. Can I see the current status of the machine without waiting for an alert
to be triggered ?
Yes, most Sentry-go Monitors provide a Current Status Report, allowing you
access to the current values being monitored direct from your web browser. Most
values are updated in real-time.
Q. If I don't receive any alerts, how do I know all is well ?
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Quick Monitors.
This is a good question. Ideally you don't want to see any alerts because this
means the server & software environment is performing well. But this of course
might indicate a network failure is preventing alerts from being sent! For peace
of mind, one or more Administrators can receive a Summary by e-mail which shows
the total number of errors for each category on that server for the last 24
hours (or since the last restart) whichever is later.
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Lights-On/Lights-On Plus! Monitors.
In addition, you can also run the free "Lights On" Monitor to ensure network
connectivity to each server and/or desktop is available.
Q. Once I've been alerted to a problem, I will need time to resolve it
without being notified again. Do I need to reconfigure Sentry-go or turn it off
during this time ?
No. The Configuration Utilities provides a means by which an alert can be
ignored for a period of time after it has been triggered - thus giving you time
to resolve the issue before the check is made again. This is especially useful
for checks such as free disk space which may take time to resolve.
Q. For some errors, I only wish to be informed if the fault occurs
continually over a longer period of time ? Can I achieve this with Sentry-go ?
Some checks are only really errors if the fault continues for a prolonged period
of time. High CPU usage is a good example. This may well exceed 80% or 90% at
times - e.g. when printing or performing heavy processing and this is fine, but
you may wish to know if it's continually higher than these values for say, 5
consecutive checks, each 30 seconds apart. Using the Configuration Utility,
checks can easily be configured to only alert after X errors in a row have been
triggered.
Q. I think I've corrected the error but wish to ensure the fix has worked.
How can Sentry-go help ?
Yes. Firstly Sentry-go will repeat the check at regular intervals, depending on
configuration values. In addition, Server Monitors provide HTML reports which
gives you real-time status information direct from the server itself, thus
showing if the problem is still occurring.
Q. How can I check that the alerting I've set up will work ?
There are two easy ways. You can either access the "Verify Configuration" web
report and send a test alert from there, which in turn will trigger all
configured alerting methods to be run, or from the Configuration Utility, select
the appropriate option from the "Alerts" tab and click "Test".
Q. What happens if the monitor encounters an error ?
In the event that Sentry-go itself encounters an error it wasn't expecting -
e.g. a configuration error, it will attempt to trigger an alert, identifying the
check that cannot be performed. In addition, internal warnings and errors are
logged to a central log file on the server (by default this is C:\Program
Files\Sentry-go\goQuickMon.log) which can help identify and resolve installation
& configuration faults.
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