Pinger
Version 2.3
http://www.digitaldaze.com/estrella/index.html
for the program's home page
Note that a mailing
list can be joined from the WWW site to be informed of updates.
Changes to this
document since last release are in RED.
Index -
Read
First -
If you obtained
the program from the http://www.ibt.com/~estrella/Program/index.html web
page, note that the program now is being supported through a separate web
page at http://www.digitaldaze.com/estrella/index.html or
through www.eaglenet.com/pinger/index.html..
The www.ibt.com pages will be disabled shortly so please use the new pages.
Overview
-
The pinger program
is designed to ping a user provided list of systems and warn you if a system
goes down. The system has been designed to be easy to use and perform with
the minimal of requirements. I personally use it to monitor over 200 addresses
(routers, router interfaces, hubs, servers, etc) from my regular NT workstation
system with no impact on its performance.
Information about
the latest version of the program is available at http://www.digitaldaze.com/estrella/index.html
and from http://www.eaglenet.com/pinger/index.html.
New
Features in this version -
-
Fix bug that would not update the last down system
in the Down pane once the system would return to normal. This has been
a recurring bug since version 2.1
-
Ability to save ping responses to user selected
file. BETA FEATURE NOT WELL TESTED
-
New ping option available through right click
menu.
-
Users are able to select file names through standard
windows filename box.
-
Detail window position and size are maintained
between sessions.
-
Improved split bar option
-
Cosmetic changes to the system configuration
screen.
-
Fixed periodic runtime error with code 103 or
104.
-
Cosmetic fix to History label being overlapped
by split bar.
Key
Features -
-
Able to automatically
maintain HTML pages showing systems that are currently down and also the
history of systems that came down and back up.
-
Ability to have
different polling delays for groups of systems.
-
Ability to include
additional information when defining systems such as location and system
type (router, hub, etc).
-
Ability to monitor host response times.
-
Ability to save ping response times to user selected
file.
-
Ability to save
outages into a user selected file.
-
Ability to execute
a BAT file each time a system goes down.
-
Ability to play
a WAV file when a system goes down.
-
TraceRoute
and ping utility fully integrated.
-
Fully threaded
application for quicker response.
-
System designed
to run in background at all times.
Requirements
-
-
Windows 95 or
Windows NT 4.0. When performing
tests with the program running on Windows 95 and NT, the NT version is
much more effective due to its better architecture and control of threads.
Tests show on similar systems, pinger utilizing 100 % on windows 95 while
barely using up 3 % on an NT box! If you will run this in production,
recommended you use NT with over 20 megs of memory.
-
Microsoft TCP/IP
stack.
How
to install the program -
-
Unzip the files
into a directory.
-
Run the setup
to install the program.
-
To uninstall,
execute the uninstall routine through the normal windows Program Add/Remove
option.
How
to run the program -
-
Execute the
pinger from the start menu.
-
We recommend
that you place this file in the startup folder so that it start automatically.
-
To see the detail
screen showing the status of the systems being monitored, double click
on the icon for the program at the icon tray area (usually lower right
corner - next to clock).
-
During program
execution, if an error occur, the error screen will pop-up so you can see
it.
-
You can enable
an option to have the display screen pop-up if changes occur (a system
goes down or a downed system returns to normal).
-
As a system
fail and then come back up, they will be placed on the History pane of
the detail screen. If you need to clear this screen, just right click on
it and select the clear screen option.
-
You have many options by selecting a system in
either the down or history pane and then clicking the right mouse button.
These include -
-
Traceroute
- A window will
come up and show the trace to that system. Note that you
can configure if you want a traceroute to resolve the name of systems or
not (See General Configuration screen).
-
Ping - You have the ability to
ping to a system and see the response time from it. This is useful
to check systems that are running slow.
-
Detail - This screen shows a detail
of the system in question. It includes information like last time
there was an error, how many checks have been done to the system, last
response time of the system, etc.
-
Telnet - You can invoke the telnet
program of your choice so that you can easily connect to the given system.
-
Some of the options noted above can also be used
without selecting a system. In this case, pinger will ask you what
system you are referring to. This is useful when doing traceroutes
to systems not defined to pinger. To check
this, on the Down or History pane, just right click on an area of the screen
outside of any entry. Select the option (ping, traceroute, etc).
Another screen will pop up and ask for the system name or IP address.
-
On the History pane, you have an additional option
when right clicking - Clear window. This allow you to delete all
of the systems in the history window. If you
do this and you are using the HTML option, then the HTML history page will
show all empty.
-
On the Down pane, you also have an additional
option when right clicking - See All Systems. Selecting this option
will allow you to see on this pane all of the systems being monitored by
pinger. This is useful if you want to check how they are being polled
(double click on the system). To just see the systems with problems,
right click again on this pane and select the same entry again.
-
A useful feature on the Down and History pane
is that by clicking on any column header (Ex. problem, Location, etc.)
the window is sorted in ascending order in that field. Click a second
time so that the sort is in descending order.
How
to configure the program -
-
To get to the
configuration screen, place cursor under the icon for the program on the
Icon Tray area (usually lower right corner - next to clock). Right click
to see the options menu.
-
Select configure
option, and a sub menu will show additional options.
-
Key screens
to note are:
-
Systems -Allows
you to define the systems to be monitored. When selected a new window will
come up and show the name of the system, its location and type (first time
is empty as no systems have been defined). Click on ADD to add a new system.
Another screen comes up that allows you define the information about the
system. Key field is the active field, which if checked off means the system
remains in the DB but will not be monitored. Also, note that the system
name can be anything and can contain spaces (ex "Router for Accountants").
The address field must contain the numeric ip address or DNS name of the
system to be monitored. Remember to also select how often to monitor the
system. Some fields are defined for future use such as the polling type
and Comm. Name. Also note that if you want to monitor if a system is responding
slow, you have the option to put in the number of milliseconds the system
should respond to. Pinger will average all responses, and if it is higher
than the number provided, and error will occur.
You also have the option of saving the ping responses to a file (format
is date, average response, shortest response, longest response, packets
sent, packets received). When
modifying a system, you can just double click from the list or select the
modify button after highlighting the system to be changed.
-
Polling:
Options to determine how often to check systems. Increase the Checks
done before notifying down and Seconds to wait for response
if you get too many false alarms. The checks done before
notifying as down option is used also to calculate the response time of
the system. So if this option is set to 10, pinger will send 10 packets
and average its response time to determine if the system is running slow.
-
Logging:
Enable this option to save the record of systems going down. Note that
a record is comma delimited and will only get written after the system
comes back up. The system will log an entry in the log file at the beginning
and the end of the pinger program. Also, logging will occur for both
slow responses or unavailable. The format of
the logged file is Problem description,System,address,location and type.
-
Notification:
Options for dealing with notifying operator when error occur. Note that
if you select the option to Continue to beep until acknowledged
once an error occurs the system will beep every 5 seconds. To acknowledge
it, a new button will appear on the Details screen (lower left corner).
If you select the option to execute a BAT file when an error occur, you
should note that the system doesn't check to see if the file is executed
successfully. Also, the BAT file is called with the system being down as
the only option. (See demo.bat as an example of how to utilize this).
You also have the ability to play a WAV file when a system goes down.
The format of the calling parameters is %1=Name, %2=Address,%3=Problem
Type,%4=Location and %5=Type. Also, note that for all of the passed
values, each space is replaced by a _ character.
-
HTML:
Enable the creation of HTML files automatically. With this option you can
have the system automatically create HTML files, and place them on a directory
where the WWW server can serve them (ex. Do a net use to the file system
where the server is at). Options Unavailable and History filename
are the file names of the HTML files to be created by the program. The
header and footer filename are file names for a header and
footer HTML file that allows you to customize the presentation of the files
with backgrounds, Company logos, etc. See files header.htm and footer.htm
for examples.
-
General - This screen allows you configure
if you want to resolve names when performing traceroutes. It also
allows you to select which telnet client you could use to directly telnet
to a device from the software.
Notes
-
-
If the system
fails to work, ensure that TCP/IP is working OK by using the DOS ping command.
-
Every time you
exit the configuration screen, those options are loaded into the program
and saved on the registry.
History
-
-
Version 2.3 released on March 2, 1997.
-
Fix bug that would not update the last down system
in the Down pane once the system would return to normal. This has been
a recurring bug since version 2.1
-
Ability to save ping responses to user selected
file. BETA FEATURE NOT WELL TESTED
-
New ping option available through right click
menu.
-
Users are able to select file names through standard
windows filename box.
-
Detail window position and size are maintained
between sessions.
-
Improved split bar option
-
Cosmetic changes to the system configuration
screen.
-
Fixed periodic runtime error with code 103 or
104.
-
Cosmetic fix to History label being overlapped
by split bar.
-
Version 2.2 released on February 22, 1997.
-
Fix bug that would not update the last down system
in the Down pane once the system would return to normal.
-
Added a confirm dialog box before exiting.
-
Added 5 and 15 second polling options.
-
New format for logged entries (Problem description,System,address,location
and type)
-
New format for BAT executable( %1=Name, %2=Address,%3=Problem
Type,%4=Location and %5=Type).
-
When calling BAT executable, for all values passed
each space is converted to an _ character.
-
Ability to start telnet session from the system.
Select a system on the Down or History pane, and right click. There is
a new option under General configuration screen to select your telnet client
(defaults to telnet.exe).
-
Double click on system in the Down or History
pane to see a detail screen of its status including some history information.
-
Splitter bar between History and Down pane allows
for dinamic sizing of windows.
-
When configuring systems, double clicking on
system will open modify window.
-
Ability to see all systems in the Down pane by
right-clicking and selecting 'See All Systems'. (Use same key combination
again to just see problem systems).
-
Version 2.1
released on February 21, 1997.
-
Ability to check
if systems are responding too slow or not.
-
Include a "start of logging" and "end
of logging" on log file when the system starts and ends.
-
Upgraded log format to note differences between
event: slow response vs unavailable.
-
Include BAT file demo with the distribution.
-
Include HTML files demo with the distribution.
-
If HTML option enabled, upon start up fresh HTML
pages are created.
-
Fix bug which didn't properly allow for the updating
of fields location and type in detail window.
-
Fix bug which wasn't updating the DOWN html file.
-
Version 2.0
released on January 31, 1997.
-
Option to allow
use of DNS lookup when doing traceroute.
-
Ability to have
different polling delays for groups of systems.
-
Ability to include
additional information when defining systems such as location and system
type (router, hub, etc).
-
Ability to sort
on a field by clicking on the panel's header.
-
New layout for
configuration menus.
-
Limit of only
200 systems eliminated. Limited only by hardware system.
-
Increased the
allowed values for retries before noting a system down (Polling screen)
-
Fixed bug that
executed BAT file regardless of options to execute or not.
-
Version 1.4
released on November 22, 1996.
-
Changes to the
current documentation appear in red.
-
Traceroute utility.
-
Play WAV file
if a system goes down.
-
Ability to clear
the history screen.
-
Fixed bug that
allowed polling to be set at zero tries.
-
Version 1.3
released on October 14, 1996.
-
Support for
HTML.
-
Support for
saving records to a file.
-
Ability to execute
a BAT file when a system fails
-
Continuous notification
until acknowledge by operator.
-
Improved read-me
file.
-
Version 1.2
released on October 1, 1996.
-
Ensures only
one copy of program runs.
-
Improved polling
logic to reduce false alarms.
-
Configuration
changes take effect in session.
-
Version 1.1
released on September 25, 1996.
-
Fixes a problem
in which some errors like host unreachable are not properly detected.
-
Version 1.0
Released on September 21, 1996
Product
Direction -
NOTE: Timeframes
will depend on current work situation. My current activities are
dramatically increasing, but I continue to
have time to work on this after work and during lunch hour. Also, as I
get feedback from users, I will try to incorporate those into the software
(For example, the active notification was a user request).
Below is functionality
I am planning on adding, in no particular order:
-
Ability to send
paging when a system goes down.
-
Ability to monitor
not only IP systems by ping, but also SNMP.
-
Ability to have
different Notifications for different devices.
-
Ability to monitor
non-IP devices such as servers running netbeui or Novell, maybe even DecNet.
-
Ability to monitor
links off devices (FDDI, ethernet, PPP and frame-relay).
-
Ability to send
e-mail when systems goes down.
-
Ability to send
daily reports through email (ex. Last 24 hour activity).
-
Ability to monitor
user selected SNMP attributes.
-
Ability to monitor
applications such as TELNET, SMTP, WWW, etc.
Additional features
that I would like to include but have not determine yet how to fit them
-
-
Run as an NT
service.
-
Ability to define
consistent parameters to be monitored across devices (ex utilization, memory,
etc).
-
Generic application
to monitor links and devices through SNMP.
-
Ability to save
to a DB system such as access or an ODBC system automatically.
Freeware
vs Shareware vs Costware (IMPORTANT) -
So far it seems
like I will be able to maintain the system freeware. If I need to
buy modules like those for SNMP, I will split the program into two separate
versions. I may put up a note of what I need and if someone could
buy it for me, I will incorporate it to the program.
Many folks have
asked about sending some money. I would prefer if you find this program
useful and feel guilty of taking advantage of something useful for free,
the next time you stop by the bookstore buy a book for my son or other
kids in my family and send it to [Gus Estrella - 1422 Fairview AV. - Havertown
PA USA 19083]. He would really love it and I would appreciate it.
Bugs
-
Known Bugs -
-
If user has a traceroute screen up, and tries
another traceroute and/or ping, responses will go to the wrong window.
User reported bugs that I am unable to recreate on
three systems and most users don't experience:
-
Unable to make the BAT executable function work.
-
Unable to make the logging function work.
-
After BAT executes, only first line of BAT file
is processed. Everything else is ignored.
If you have seen any of these or other errors, please
drop me a line.
Last
word -
Enjoy and hope this
is a useful product for you. As always, I enjoy hearing
from how people are using the program and how it can be improved.