Setting up a task:
- Task name This is for display purposes only. Each task must have a unique name.
- Server Address This can be a DNS name or an IP address. However if you are going to be verifying a DNS server it makes sense to use an IP address. If your DNS server goes down then all your other tasks will fail to connect, so it would be best to use IP addresses where possible.
- Connect To Server Every is more or less self explanitary I hope.
- Task is always active is the default setting. The task will check as long as it is turned on.
- Task is active during shift shows an alternative use for the Shift system. If you have a server system that is only active during certain times, or on certain days you can set up a shift to reflect that and select this option.
- Task is NOT active during shift This could be useful if you have regular restarts or other regular downtime of a server. Use this to block out these times so that Whistle blower will not report failures during this.
- Server Type This is a scrolling pane of the supported server types. The web server is the only one that currently requires more than just a port number setup.
- HTTP Request: The file to be requested from the web server. You can include GET parameters on the end of this line. like: /myfolder/some.cgi?myparam=whatever
- UserID and Password: If these are filled in then WB will add Basic authentication to the request being sent.
- Send Post Data: You can add post (regular form) parameters to be sent to the web server. This way you can test the proper working of a CGI or database as well as just checking it for a connection.
- Use default proxy: If you need to connect through a proxy server for web sites fill out the default proxy information in the preferences dialog and check this box.
- What Other Tasks Do: Wherever possible WB tries to actually have a conversation with the server. In the case of the mail servers WB waits for the HELO message from the server before logging a success or failure.
if your server is setup in the default, then the Ports that the tasks default to should work. If you have setup your servers in a non-standard way you may have to change the port numbers for the servers you want to check.
- Radius Server: Radius is a validation server used by many Mac ISP's. The radius support in WB is different that the other server checks in a number of ways. The Radius server requires a UDP packet interface which uses a totally different core networking system that the other server checks. You must register the WB box as a server in your Radius server setup. Then WB will send a request packet to the server for a user called "Whistle blower", the request will log an error on the Radius server with a "Bad PAP password" message. But this failure packet sent back to WB will let it know that the Radius server is operating properly.
If you do not setup Radius to accept requests from the WB box then no return packet will be sent and the connection will timeout.
- GenericTCP: The generic TCP setting allows you to check most servers that are not directly supports by WB. Using the "check line by line" in the next tab also allows you to do complex validation of servers and even check unterminated streams of data. If a server you wish to check is not directly support please try using the GenericTCP task and also submit a feature request to whistleblower@sentman.com so that I can add it to the fully supported list.
- 4D Servers: 4D changed the port that their servers operate with the 6.x versions. Previous to 6.x you will need to enter 14566 into the port field. For newer servers the default of 19813 should work. I have also had reports that for some installations the 4D Server task does not work, but if you plug the correct port number into the GenericTCP task then it will check the 4D server fine. If you have trouble with the 4D connection, please try this and please let me know the results.
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