HTTP Advanced Sensor

This sensor is an extended version of the HTTP sensor (see above) and should be the preferred sensor for website monitoring.

It adds content checking, authentication, and proxy settings or can even notify the user when a webpage is changed. Using this sensor a website/webpage can be monitored for many more aspects than by only using the basic HTTP sensor.

For example it is a good idea to monitor the content of a webpage for error messages that could show up on a webpage in case the database or script engine has problems (e.g. enter "error" in the Response may not include field).

Another good idea for scripted webpages is to monitor that the "</html>" tag is always a part of the result. Many script languages stop processing a scripted webpage upon errors and thus this HTML code is not delivered to the client. Or put a special code in your footers (e.g. "<!—PAGEEND-->") and monitor for this string to make sure the webpages are delivered completely. There are many more options of course…

All additional parameters of this sensor are optional (see the HTTP sensor for the other parameters):

·      Response must include—If the resulting HTML does not contain this string, this is considered an error and can trigger a notification.

·      Response may not include—If this string is found in the resulting HTML, this is considered an error and can trigger a notification.

·      Monitor content change—Check this option if you want to monitor any content changes (checksum based). This can be combined with an 'On Change' notification to notify the user when the resulting webpage changes.

·      Limit download (kb)—Enter a maximum amount of data transferred per request. Attention: The content check option is maybe inaccurate when you use a download limit

·      User—Enter a login name here if the monitored URL is protected with basic authentication

·      Password—Enter a password here if the monitored URL is protected with basic authentication

·      Proxy—If your network requires a proxy to be used for HTTP requests (Note: it is recommended NOT to use proxies for monitoring because when a request fails IPCheck Server Monitor does not know whether the proxy failed or the monitored server)

·      Name—IP-address or DNS name of the proxy server

·      Port—the port of the proxy server

·      User—optional username needed to access the proxy

·      Password—optional password needed to access the proxy

·      On Change—Select a notification that should be triggered when the HTTP result of the URL changes (enable monitor content change above!)

Note 2: You can set the useragent string by setting the following registry key (you may need to create a new string value “useragent”):

Localmachine\Software\Paessler\IPCheck\useragent

More:

What it means when the HTTP Advanced Sensor is up

What it means when the HTTP Advanced Sensor is down