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Sentry-go®
3Ds (UK) Limited
© 2000-2011 |
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Recent Updates to Sentry-go Software
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At 3Ds, we are constantly adding to our product range, enhancing existing
solutions and, if required, correcting issues that have arisen. The table below
shows the most recent versions & updates to the Sentry-go product range.
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Thank you! Many enhancements and new features outlined below are based on the feedback we
receive from our customers and we thank all those who have contributed in order to help us improve
our products. ific requirements or would like to see a new
feature added, please get in touch!
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Earlier versions of monitoring software have now been replaced & superseded by the Sentry-go
Monitoring System v6.x. Built on the successes & strengths of the older
monitors, the new solution enhances previous features, adds new ones & is also extendible through
additional Plus! components.
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Latest Software Versions |
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For information on the latest versions of Sentry-go software, please select one
of the following links. See below for more information on the recent changes &
updates made ...
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January '12 (v6.1.3) |
- Fix: Monitoring Service
Continual access ti the recent errors web report, including the publishing of
the report to an external web server caused the monitoring service to use
additional memory. Over time, excessive memory load could be observed. This
issue has been corrected in v6.1.3, which is available free to all v5.x & v6.x
customers.
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December '11 (v6.1.1 & 6.1.2) |
- Enhancement: Monitoring service
The monitor now verifies access to key directories at startup, reporting any
errors in the log and shutting down automatically.
- Fix: Enterprise Option
In cases where logged errors are larger than normal (e.g. long file monitoring
lists), the monitor could fail to log enterprise information. This issue has
been corrected in v6.1.1.
- Enhancement: Client Console
When synchronizing settings across servers, the Console
now allows any configuration values to be copied. Previously, only those
available to all selected monitors could be copied.
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November '11 (v6.1) |
- Enhancement: File Monitor
The file monitor has been enhanced to provide the otpion of triggering alerts
when the monitor is first started. The default behaviour is to only trigger
alerts at the shceduled monitoring time or interval.
- Enhancement: Alert Correction Monitor
From v6.1 introduces a new Alert Correction Mechanism (ACM). With it youm can
configure a check so that if it should fail, only a single alert will be
triggered. From then on, the check continues to run but the monitor waits until
it is resolved before re-enabling the alert. With the ACM, the monitor can also
notify the alert group when the problem is fixed.
- New: Remote Update Wizard
A new Update Wizard is now available which allows Sentry-go monitors to be
remotely updated across the network. Simply upgrade a single copy locally and
let the Wizard use this installation to remotely update others monitors
automatically.
- Fix: Client Tools
Under some conditions, particularly when the local PC uses proxy settings,
Sentry-go client tools may fail to connect to the internet (e.g. for when
accessing Sentry-goSolutions & 'ShowMe' help). The client reports no connection
is available even though a browser can connect. This issue has been corrected.
- Enhancement: Configuration Client Tools
Configured lists are now displayed sorted, in ascending sequence for ease of
use.
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October '11 (v6.0) |
- Fix: Disk Monitor
In version 5.x, larger disk space as incorrectly shown in alerts & web reports.
This has now been corrected.
- Enhancement: Server Configuration
It is now possible to configured whether scheduled checks are run/not run at
startup when the specified time has already past.
- Enhancement: E-mail Alerts & Send/Receive Monitor
You can now include environment variables within the sending e-mail address m-
e.g. to sepcify the machine name automatically.
- Fix: WMI memory leak
In version 5.x, poorly performing WMI providers could cause an error within WMI
itself, leading to a failure of the Sentry-go monitoring service. In version
6.x, this issue has been corrected in two ways. Components (such as Shadow
Events) detect WMI errors and re-request information automatically if issues are
detected. For installations with numerous WMI errors, you can now enable/disable
the use of WMI information from within Sentry-go.
- Enhancement: goNetMail.exe
By default, the utility now continues, even if SSL/TLS connections fail due to a
certificate error. This behaviour is now the default when sending
autrhentication/secure e-mails using .NET from within Sentry-go.
New command line parameters SSL-CERT & TLS-CERT operate in addition to the
previous SSL & TLS. These new parameters re-enable certificate checking and
cause the utility to fail with an error if the SSL certificate is found to be in
error or expired.
- Enhancement: TCP/IP Port Monitor
The port monitor has been enhanced to become the Windows Firewall & TCP/IP
Port monitor. With it you can additionally monitor the status of the
Windows firewall, allowing users to autoamtically re-enable the firewall if
found to be disabled. Exisitng v5.x users of this component can upgrade for
free.
- Fix: All Monitors
When a specific user is configured to run a monitoring check or send an alert
etc., the user's Windows profile is now correctly loaded. Previously this could
fail, or fail to load a roaming profile if available.
- Fix: File Monitor
If a remote resource was access but a connection could not be established (e.g.
incorrect user information), the monitor could fail & restart. This issue has
now been resolved.
- Fix: Process Monitor
If Shadow Events are being used and the monitor is reconfigured, shadow events
are disabled, with an error indicating an initialization failure. This issue has
been corrected in this release.
- Fix: Script Monitor
If multiple script-based checks were run in quick succession, the 2nd could fail
to run with a "could not execute" error. When manually verifying the check,
however, it would work successfully. This issue has now been resolved in v6.0.
- Enhancement: Client Console
This issue has now been resolved in v6.0.ity & web connection verification when launching web reports &
accessing web resources.
- Fix: Performance Optimiser
The Performance Optimiser now correctly records information to the log file
during each cycle. Previously information was intermittently not logged.
- Fix: Web Publishing
When the Sentry-go Summary report is published, the report is now correctly
formatted.
- Fix: Client Console
The Script Monitor configuration page now correctly assigns & saves the "Current
Directory" when specified. In addition, result strings with multiple lines are
now correctly saved & displayed.
- New: Sentry-go Easy Access Utility
This new client tool works alongside the existing Client Console and provides a
quick & easy way of accessing a monitor directly from your desktop. From the
Easy Access utility, you can view the monitor's current status, access web
reports, configure & export/import settings.
- New: Sentry-go Enterprise Option
The new Enterprise Option is an optional, self-contained system which uses a
central SQL Server database to collect & collate monitored information from
around the Sentry-go environment. It can be used in conjunction with & alongside
the Sentry-go Monitoring System v5.6 and above and requires no additional
hardware or software above the database itself.
With it, each Sentry-go Server subscribes to the Enterprise Option by way of a
licence key. Once activated, the monitor feeds information to the system in
order to indicate the current status of each monitor, indicate when alerts have
been triggered and indicate the current value of all monitored checks.
Monitors continue to work as before and can be accessed in the normal way.
However, with the Sentry-go Enterprise Option, monitoring information can
additionally be accessed in a more global or "enterprise" way.
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February '11 (v5.5) |
- Enhancement: Client Console, Setup Wizard & Web Site
New
"Show Me" links are now available from within the above client tools, giving users direct
access to on-line
demonstrations & videos via Sentry-go.com. These in turn show how a particular aspect of the
Client Console, Setup Wizard & Sentry-go concepts work.
- Enhancement: Client Console & Alert Engine
Alert Engine scripts can now be compiled directly from within the Client
Console so you can see how place-markers will be expanded at runtime.
- Enhancement: Client Console
- Alert Groups can now be named & customised - e.g. Critical Errors, SQL Errors
etc.
- Alert contacts (e-mail, network message, scripts) can now be named instead of
simply showing the filename or e-mail address etc.
- When configuring custom services, the service list is now presented in
alphabetical order
for easier navigation.
- When saving, the Console now sorts the list of servers alphabetically.
- Enhancement: Sentry-go Service & Process Monitoring Components
When shown in their respective web report, the service & process list is now
shown in alphabetical order for better navigation.
- Enhancement: Alert & Auto-Response Engines
In this release, the monitor has been enhanced to give additional diagnostic
information when verifying alert e-mails, network messages, scripts and response
scripts.
- Fix: Sentry-go Alert Engine
- Fix: Sentry-go goNetMail Utility (v1.7)
If the utility cannot connect to the SMTP server
or the mail cannot be sent, the error message now includes additional
diagnostics to indicate the nature of the fault.e the nature of the fault.
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January '11 (v5.4.6) |
- New: Sentry-go Monitor
By default, when an automatic response is initiated, it is monitored and timed
out if the command, application or script takes longer to complete than the
configured value. In this version, it is now possible to override this, and
ignore the timeout check if required.
- New: Sentry-go Setup Wizard
In previous versions, the application data folder was located in the Windows
defined "ProgramData" directory. From this release, you can now override both
the program files & data location.
- New: Client Console
In this release, you can now access & control the running status of the
Sentry-go monitoring service from within the Console, either locally or
remotely. The monitor's diagnostic log file can also be accesed directly,
lcoally or remotely from within the Console.
You can now verify command & script-based responses direct from within the
Client Console.
- Fix: Sentry-go Available Disk Space Monitor
Support is now provided for larger disk sizes.
- Fix: Sentry-go Process Monitor
In previous versions, if a response was specified, it was always actioned as a
direct command, despite other options being selected (e.g. Run as VBScript) in
the configuration settings. This has been resolved in this version.
- Fix: Sentry-go Monitor
If the PDH.DLL and/or PSAPI.DLL (depending on Windows version) cannot be
loaded during the startup sequence, the monitor could stop. Although this
indicates a configuration error within Windows, in many cases the information is
not required.
From v5.4.6, if these DLLs cannot be accessed a warning is logged, but the
monitor will continue its start-up sequence.
- Fix: Sentry-go Setup Wizard
When primary Performance Counters are verified, the Setup Wizard now checks both
direct & Virtual Machine (VM) based counters. When requried, the VM-equivalent
counter is automatically used instead of the default.
The Setup Wizard also now verifies that directories can be written to after
creation and warns if permissions do not allow this.
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November '10 (v5.4.5) |
- New: Sentry-goSolutions v2 web site
Updated Sentry-goSolutions web site is now easier & quicker to use. It provides
access to more details automatically from within the monitor, with direct links
to search Microsoft.com, MSDN, Microsoft Support, Google & Yahoo web resources
as well as a new custom search features.
See it for yourself at
http://www.Sentry-goSolutions.com.
- Critical Update: Monitoring Event Logs on Windows Vista, 7, 2008 or later
When monitoring Event Log records on Windows Vista, 7, 2008 or later, the monitor could fail to read
larger messages and report insufficient memory messages in the error log. In extreme cases, the monitor may also appear off
line to connected Consoles and need to be restarted. The problem was corrected in v5.4.5.
If you are monitoring Event Logs on these versions of
Windows (or later), we strongly recommend upgrading to v5.4.5 to resolve this issue.
- Fix: Network Access Monitoring (PING)
When the Network
Access monitor attempted to access a server, PC or device via TCP/IP, the
PING request could intermittently fail, causing a "not responding" alert to be
triggered. Although more likely to occur on slower networks, this could seeminly
happen randomly to any network connection.
The issue wasn't in fact an error, in that technically the PING issued wasn't
receiving a response within the timeout (1 second) period. However, issuing a
check immediately after would normally indicate that the device was available
and responding normally.
In previous versions, the PING request would not be retried and the timeout was
set to 1 second. In v5.42 and above, the defaults have now been changed. The
default timeout is now 5 seconds and the monitor will now retry the PING a
second time, if it fails to receive a valid response.
These default values can also be overidden using the Sentry-go Client Console -
e.g. to allow for slower networks or devices etc.
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October '10 (v5.4) |
- Critical Update: File/Directory Monitoring with User
Access information being recorded
If you save user access information with any
file/directory monitoring check and "Configure windows auduting for this check
during start-up" isenabled, it is possible that auditing will be enabled each
time the monitor is started, even if it is already enabled. This is not detected
by Windows and not shown when auditing options are viewed in Windows Explorer.
Over time, this can cause the monitor to fail due to insufficient resources
being available.
To correct this, please upgrade the Sentry-go Monitoring Service to v5.4 or
above.
- New: HTML Content Monitor now implements replacement HTTP client
In previous versions, the Sentry-go HTML Content Monitor used Internet
Explorer to verify URL access & content. From v5.4, a new service-based HTTP
client is implemented, giving improved performance.
- New: Improved suppoort for native Event Logs (Windows Vista, 7 and 2008
Server)
With the introduction of Windows Vista & 2008 Server, Microsoft changed the
way in which Event Log entries are resolved. Although previous versions of
Sentry-go worked on these O/S's, they would often fail to load the message DLL,
displaying only the parameters recorded. From v5.4, when run on supporting Windows versions (Vista, 7, 2008 and above),
the later Event Log resolution is used, providing full access to messages. This
is automatically used, when available for HTML Content monitoring & User Access
tracking within File/Directory monitoring.
- New: Improved diagnostics & configuration verification
From v5.4, more diagnostic information is provided when verifying configuration
entries from the Client Console.
- New: Improved support for remote file monitoring
In previous versions, remote file resources were always accessed using the user ID
configured to run the Sentry-go monitoring service. From v5.4, the Console
provides the option of configuring a specific user ID on a per-check basis,
allowing alternate IDs with appropriate permissions to be configured.
- New: Client Console now offers removal of audit settings when checks
deleted
In this release, the Client Console verifies
whether auditing is configured for a check before the check is removed. If
auditing is configured, it offers the user the options of removing the audit
settings automatically prior top the check being deleted from the list.
- New: The external Web Browser can now be defined in the Sentry-go
Client Console
Web reports accessed by the Console use either the Sentry-go Desktop Browser or the
PCs own web browser to display information. Previously, the PC's "default"
browser was always used when accessing web reports external to the Sentry-go
Desktop Browser. From v5.4, you can choose to use the default browser, or enter
another own application to override this.
- New: Additional support for non Internet Explorer Browsers
Although we recommend using Microsoft's Internet Explorer v6.x or above when
accessing integrated Sentry-go web reports, additional support is now provided
for alternate solutions such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple's Safari
and the Opera web browse.
- New: Test database connection and SQL queries from the Console
From v5.4, it is now possible to verify not only the database connection,
but also any defined SQL query when definining or editing a SQL Connection/Query
check from within the Console.
- New: Additional support for e-mail alerting
In this release, additional support & examples are given to show e-mail
based alerting using different methods (i.e. which can be modified to meet your
needs). these include ...
- Sending a standard SMTP email (message) - Sending an authenticated SMTP message - Sending an encrypted SMTP message - Sending a message to Windows Live (HotMail) - Sending a message to Google's G-Mail system (using SSL/TLS)
- Fix: HTML Content Monitoring
When issuing a POST request with parameters specified, the monitor could
incorrectly send the parameters to the target server. This has been resolved in
v5.4.
- Fix: Searching for named text within a web page
When verifying an HTML or equivalent web page for available or missing text,
the monitor could fail to trigger an alert. This issue has now been corrected in
v5.4.
- Fix: Verifying E-mail Send/Receive
Under some conditions, such as some configurations of Exchange 2011, it was
possible for the monitor to fail to retrieve e-mail using POP3 or IMAP4. This
was due to changes to the originalk message format and hence the message,
although accessed, was not considered to be correct. From v5.4, the monitor's test message format is different and hence, thus
avoiding such problems.
- Fix: Process Monitoring GPFs when alert raised
Under some conditions, previous v5.x versions of the Process Monitoring
component could cause the monitoring service to fail when an alert is triggered
- either for the running, or non running of a monitored executable. This has
been corrected in v5.4.
- Fix: Event Log Monitor GPFs when certain messages are retrieved
Under some specific conditions, the Event Log monitoring component could
fail when attempting to allcoate memory for retrieved messages - particularly
larger messages or where the message DLL on the host server was missing. This
issue has been resolved in v5.4.
- Fix: Performance Optimiser fails to save cumulative values
In previous versions, if a performance counter was marked as "cumulative",
the full value would still be saved by the performance optimiser & appear on
associated web reports. This has now been corrected - the correct value (i.e.
the difference between the latest and previous value) is now stored and shown.
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May '10 (v5.3) |
- New: Additional support for secure e-mails
In this version, you can now send authenticated e-mails alerts & verify SMTP
e-mail access using secure (SSL/TLS) with either authentication, or no
authentication.
- Fix: File monitor incorrectly verifies files that are "not deleted"
Although the monitor's documentation states that files that are "not
deleted within a given timeframe" could be monitored, this option was
unavailable from the Console & not directly supported by the monitoring service.
This issue has now been rectified and you can now alert when files older than a
given time have not been removed from a directory or subdirectory.
- New: You can now configure the file monitor not to generate an
error if the top-level directory does not exist
In this version, if you specify that the monitor should not generate an
alert if "no matching files are found", or "the directory odes not exist", no
alert will be triggered. Previously this would prevent a configuration error
being sent, but a standard alert would still be triggered.
- New: New <$$FILELIST> added for file monitoring alerts
The <$$FILELIST> variable can be used within alert scripts & files to give
direct access to the list of files affected by the check that triggered the
alert. The list is a comma-separated string of names. Where applicable,
additional information such as user/times accessed etc., will also be included
within this list.
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- New: Additional print monitor checks now available
In this version, it is now possible to check for a print queue being on-line
(as well as off-line). It is also possible to verify the following as individual
checks ...
- Monitor for essential printer errors (errors that prevent printing etc.)
- Monitor for 'out of paper' conditions
- Monitor for 'low on, or out of toner/ink' conditions
- New: Test access to printers & print queues
The Client Console now supports the verification of printer & print queue
access when defining a check.
- Fix: Incorrect Printer Offline Status shown after queue has been brought
back on-line
By default, Windows only reports the status of a printer when the spooler
is actively sending a print job to the queue. The status information is also
dependent on the driver being used. Previously, Sentry-go would verify the
status (& offline status) or a printer using this information only. In this
release, additional checks are also performed to ascertain the true status of
the printer, making it more responsive toe rrors and quicker to pick up a
resolved status.
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April '10 (v5.2) |
- New: Suppress check after response run
For many checks, Sentry-go will repeat the monitoring check after a response
has been run - in order to verify whether or not the original issue is now
resolved. However, not all alerts are errors and there may be times when you may
not wish this check - and any subsequent alert to be run. For example, if the
check for a new file is used to trigger another job such as a file conversion.
In this release, it is now possible to configure the monitor so that the
response action is run, but the subsequent check suppressed.
- New: Support added for authenticated SMTP using Microsoft .NET
In addition to using Microsoft CDO, support is now provided for the sending of
e-mails using authenticated SMTP and Microsoft .NET. This is available within both e-mail send/receive monitoring components & the alert engine,
when sending authenticated SMTP. A new utility, goNetMail is also provided.
Additionally, support is also provided for SMTP servers which require
authentication but with a non-secure connection.
- New: Improved summary e-mails
Summary e-mails now show additional information such as system health &
up-time as well as delayed SMTP, alerting & configruation failures.
- Fix: Incorrect total responses shown by the Sentry-go Monitoring Service
Previously, the incorrect number of total responses could be shown if service monitoring
was enabled (even if auto-responses were disabled for these checks).
This fault has been corrected in v5.2.
- Fix: Sentry-go Client Console & licencing
Under some circumstances the configuring of scripts was not available from within the Console even
though a valid licence had been entered for the component. This has now been corrected.
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January '10 (v5.1) |
- Fix: Sentry-go Plus! HTML Content Monitoring Component
Fix: Sentry-go Quick IIS Web Monitoring Package
In both the above components/monitors, if monitoring the time it takes to
load an entire web page has been selected, the component could fail to access the correct image URL, especially when
using HTTPS. This in turn, could lead to a excessive delay before the check completed.
In addition, no alert would be triggered if any image URLs could ot be accessed or were not
found.
Both of these issues have now been corrected.
- Fix: Sentry-go Plus! Network Monitoring Component
If running on a non-English verson of Windows, the network monitoring component
would not detect or trigger an alert even if connectivity was lost. This fault
has now been corrected.
- New: Sentry-go Plus! File Monitoring Component
New: Sentry-go Quick File Monitoring Package
A new check has been added that allows modifications (new files, file deletions
& updates) to files within a directory to be configured as a single task.
Previously, three independent checks would need to be configured for this.
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