Recent Updates to Sentry-go Software

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.  

Thank you to all our customers who have given feedback or requested enhancements to our software. We greatly appreciate your assistance. If you have any specific requirements or would like to see a new feature added to one of our monitors or tools, please get in touch
 

For details of the most recent changes that affect Sentry-go monitor, please see below. To download the latest version or for more information on upgrading, please select one of the following links ...

• Fix: File monitoring
   
  In earlier v6.3 versions, selecting an override time (minutes/seconds) could prevent the associated check from being run as expected, or cause it not to be run at all. This error has been corrected in this release.
   
• Fix: E-mail send/receive verification monitoring
   
  In previous versions, performance could be slow if the target mailbox contains larger numbers of messages. In v6.36, the monitor takes into account the message size, prior to checking the content.

• Fix: Configuring e-mail verification & alerting
   
  Auto-detect option reports inability to access any SMTP server/option even though "Test" indicates that access is available.
   
  The auto-detect feature failed to pass all values and so some options were reported as being unavailable, even though access could be achieved from the monitoring server. This has been corrected in the Configuration Utility & Server, v6.35.

• Fix: Configuring Event Logs & Log Files
  
  When using individual alerts, the configuration window would fail to save enabled alerts for the above checks. This has been corrected in v6.33. Group-based alerting is not affected.

• Fix: Quick Monitor & individual component licencing
  
  In some cases, a valid licence key was interpreted for the wrong monitoring component. This has now been corrected.
   
• Enhancement: File monitoring
   
  File monitoring alerts additionally contain the path of the file (for folders & sub-directories) that triggered the alert.

• New: Sentry-go Runtime Installer
   
  To ensure the runtime files required by Sentry-go are installed, the Setup Wizard now includes a runtime installer. This is automatically initiated the first time the Setup Wizard is run. The required Visual C++ Runtime files (VCRT) are also installed if not found on the target server.
   
• New: Direct alerting
   
  In previous versions, all alerts were assinged an "alert group" which determined when they would be triggered. In version 6.3 and above, you can now choose between group alerts (as used previously) and direct alerts - which allow you to specify which individual alerts are triggered per check. From v6.3 onwards, direct alerting is the default method configured by the Setup Wizard.
   
• Fix: Heartbeat licencing
  
  In some installations, an incorrect configuration key was created causing heartbeat monitoring to remain disabled, even though licenced & configured.
   
• Fix: Firewall monitoring
   
  If port monitoring is disabled, firewall monitoring also remains inactive, even though configured. This has been resolved.
   
•  Fix: Service monitoring
   
  In v6.2, if the server is unable to restart a service, alert notification may not be sent. This is corrected in v6.3.
   
• Fix: E-mail send/receive monitoring
   
  When accessing Microsoft Exchange 2010, the e-mail send/receive monitor may appear to hang. Upon timeout, it triggers an alert indicating e-mails cannot be received, even though they appear to be working correctly. This was caused by a formatting issue in the e-mail message received from Exchange 2010 and has been corrected in this version.

• New: Heartbeat monitoring
   
  In version 6.2 and above, all monitors now come with heartbeat monitoring built-in, free of charge. Heartbeat monitoring allows monitors to actively ensure other Sentry-go monitos are (i) running and (ii) responding as expected. Any failures can be alerted, just like any other monitoring check.
   
• New: Mobile Web Reports
   
  New "mobile" versions of the "Current Status", "Recent Errors" & "System Summary" can be accessed using the integrated web server, for improved access from mobile phones & tablet PCs. You can also toggle these between the full & mobile versions of the reports. 
     
• Enhancement: Current Status Web Report
   
  It is now possible to re-run monitoring checks directly from the "current status" web report, in order to see the latest value returned.
     
• Enhancement: E-mail alerting & e-mail send/receive monitor
   
  In version 6.2 and above, the configuration now contains an "auto-detect" feature, which enable the monitor to determine which of the SMTP e-mail options can and should be used. 
   
• Enhancement: Setup Wizard
   
  The Setup Wizard now checks for VC9 runtime libraries (CRT) for both standard and shareware installations. 
   
• Fix: Alerting
   
  When an e-mail alert is verified from the configuration utility, and the sender's address references an environment variable, (.g. %COMPUTERNAME%), the environment setting is now correctly sent & translated. 

• Enhancement: Setup Wizard
   
  New Quick Configuration options are now included within the Setup Wizard. Based on the options being installed, the wizard now (i) auto-configures standard settings and (ii) prompts for other Quick Config. options. This allows you to quickly configure standard settings in order to get up and monitoring immediately following installation.
     
• Fix: Monitoring Service
   
  Continual access to 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.

• 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.

• 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
   
  Version 6.1 introduces a new Alert Correction Mechanism (ACM). With it you 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.