Use the Columns page to select columns (test parameters) to display in the Test Detail Area. To select/deselect a column, toggle the check mark next to it. To change a column's display order, highlight the column and then use the Up and Down arrow buttons to the right of the list of columns to display.

The Sort by list defines the order in which tests will be arranged. To add a column to the sort order, highlight a column in the left-hand list and then click the Right arrow button. The column will show up in the Sort by list. To remove a column from the search order, select a column in the Sort by list and then click the Left arrow button.

To change the display name of a column, highlight the column and click the little button to the right of the list box.

Here is a list of test parameters supported by HostMonitor with a brief description of each parameter.

Column name	Field description
Test name	The name of the test
Status	The current status of the test
Recurrences	The number of consecutive tests resulting in the same status as the current one
Reply	The value last returned by the test (the meaning of the Reply parameter is test specific)
Last test time	The time when the test was last performed
Last status	The status of the previous test
Last reply	The value returned by the previous test (test-specific)
Interval	The time between two consecutive runs defined for the test
Test method	The type of the test
Comment	Any arbitrary comments
Related URL	Test-related URL
Master test	The name of the Master test (for more information on test dependencies see Common test properties)
Schedule	The name of the associated schedule
Alert profile	Alert profile name
Private log	The specified private log file name
Created at	The time when the test was created
Modified at	The time when the test was last modified

In addition to the static test parameters (test name, interval, status, etc.), and current status related (status, reply, etc.) a number of dynamic statistics data fields are maintained and can be viewed (and reset) in real time.

Column name	Field description
Alive %	"Good" to overall tests ratio, in percent
Dead %	"Bad" to overall tests ratio, in percent
Unknown %	"Unknown" to overall tests ratio, in percent
Total time	The time the test has been in monitoring
Alive time	The overall time the test has had a "Good" status
Dead time	The overall time the test has had a "Bad" status
Unknown time	The overall time the test has had an "Unknown" status
Total tests	Overall tests performed
Passed tests	The number of "Good" tests
Failed tests	The number of "Bad" tests
Unknown result tests	The number of "Unknown" tests
Average reply	The average value of the results obtained
Min reply	The minimum value of the results obtained
Max reply	The maximum value of the results obtained
Status changed at	The time when the status last changed
Status changes count	The number of times the status has changed

 

Store statistics in HML file
This option tells HostMonitor to write all statistical information into a file, so that the statistics build up across multiple program sessions. If the option is turned off, when an HML file closes down, the statistics pertaining to its tests get reset. Please note that statistics for any or all of the tests can be nullified at any time using the "Reset ..." menu command.

Store "Recurrences" in HML file
This is an important option, because it is the "Recurrences" field that the program looks at to determine what actions and when to fire off. Therefore, if the option is deselected, upon closing an HML file or shutting down HostMonitor, the counter will be reset, so that when the program is restarted, actions will be triggered as tests are first performed. With the option turned on, recurrence counters will be saved on shutdown, and at the next startup the program will pick up where it left off, as if the program execution was not interrupted.

Remember current folder
If this option is turned on, HostMonitor will remember current folder and display it on the next load of the file with tests.
 

HostMonitor can display a popup window when a test changes its status (as long as you specify the "Show message" option in the alert profile for the test). On this page of the Options dialog window you can define the parameters for this popup window.

Position
You can choose "Predefined position" option and define the coordinates for the top left corner of the window. Or choose "Show in the last remembered position" option and HostMonitor will remember the window position on the screen and will display the popup window in the same location.

Time live

HostMonitor uses settings located on this page only when starts as Win32 interactive service (how to install HostMonitor as a service you can read here).

Log on as
Specify user account (login and password) to impersonate the security context of the user.
When HostMonitor starts as a service, it uses the system account (as all interactive services). But this account may not have all the necessary permissions, so some tests will not work correctly (UNC test, "disk free space" test for shared drives, "CPU Usage" test for remote machines, etc). If you need these tests, you will need to assign a special user account. In this case HostMonitor will impersonate the security context of the user.
Note: Do not change the account using the system utility "Services". If you do so, HostMonitor will not be able to interact with the desktop.

Startup delay
In some cases, initialization of dependent applications and services on the HostMonitor machine may consume a substantial amount of time. If HostMonitor's tests depend on these applications, false alerts may be generated while they are initialized.
This setting will cause HostMonitor to wait at least (n) minutes before executing the first monitoring cycle thus allowing applications and services to start and initialize properly. A setting of "1" (one minute) should be adequate for most systems.

When service is being stopped
Define HostMonitor's behavior when service is being stopped, choose 1 of 2 options:

On this page define the method to access the net to retrieve URLs.

Type of access to retrieve pages:

Proxy bypass list - list of addresses that don't need to be accessed through your proxy server. This list may include IP addresses, host names, or names of computers from your intranet. Also, wildcards may be used as well to match domains, host names or addresses. For example: www.*.com; 128.*; *man*; and so on. For local addresses use the "<local>" macro. Use semicolons ";" to separate entries.
 

On this page you can set the settings to customize the ODBC Log and System Log files.

ODBC Log parameters:

ODBC data source
Choose one of ODBC data sources available on your system

Login
Specify user identifier, if necessary

Password
Specify password, if necessary

Timeout
Specify the number of seconds to wait for a login request to complete. If value is 0, the timeout is disabled and a connection attempt will wait indefinitely.

SQL Query
Specify SQL query to logging test data. Format of the query is entirely up to you, use the macro variables to put in as much detail as you want. For instance, your log SQL command might look like this:
INSERT INTO HMLOG (DATE1, TIME1, TEST_NAME, STATUS, REPLY) VALUES (%Date%, '%Time%', '%TestName%', '%Status%', '%Reply%')
Of course an appropriate database table has to be created before you start using the ODBC logging.


System Log
HostMonitor uses the system log to record events like start/stop monitoring, as well as information on started and/or failed alert actions. You can select "Record system messages into common log" to record system information into the same file used by the common log, or select "Use different log file" option and specify name of the dedicated system log file.
There are two more options available:

HostMonitor can generate HTML, DBF, WLM, and Text reports with the information about tested hosts (e.g. for publishing on your WEB or WAP site, for sending with E-Mail notification, or for analyzing). On this page you can define a list of up to 6 global reports (reports that apply to all tests in the working HML file). Just select report profile from drop-down list and specify name of a target file (you can use a naming pattern to have HostMonitor switch to a different file every day, month, year, etc., as prescribed by the date macro variables appearing in the pattern).
Also you can bring up Report Manager dialog to configure an existing report or create a new one.

There are two more parameters that can be specified on this page:
Generate reports every N min
Tells HostMonitor how often reports should be generated
Execute action profile when complete
With this option enabled HostMonitor will launch the specified alert profile after reports were generated (for example you may use this option to send reports by e-mail). Note: only "scheduled" actions will be executed, i.e. a condition to start action should be set to "on the schedule" (in Action Properties dialog).

Use "Generate reports now" button to immediately create reports (for testing purposes).

On this page define the settings for the build-in mail client.

Primary SMTP Server

Address
IP address or hostname of your SMTP server.
Port
TCP port number of the mail server (normally all SMTP servers use port #25).
Authentication method
Select one of authentication methods: None, Plain, Login, Cram-MD5, or POP before SMTP
Login
Specify login (if authentication method is not None)
Password
Define password (if authentication method is not None)

The same parameters you can define for the Backup SMTP server. When HostMonitor tries to send e-mail, at first it uses Primary SMTP server. If in consequence of some error this is impossible, HostMonitor tries to send e-mail using Backup SMTP server.

Show status window when sending mail
With this option enabled, HostMonitor will display a window when sending e-mail and show all requests to and answers from the mail server.

Close on disconnect, delay closing for [N] sec
If you enable this option, HostMonitor will close the window after a specified time interval after disconnection. Or, press the [Close] button to close the window immediately or the [Stop] button to continue displaying the window on the screen.

Show in the last stored position
The status window will save its coordinates and restore back to those coordinates when displayed again.
 

Use this page to setup general settings for the subsystem which sends messages to pagers and beepers. Information related to specific pagers may be defined in each action profile.

Device
Specifies your TAPI device (modem) which will be used by the program. Select a modem from the drop-down list or select the "Auto select free TAPI device item.". In this case HostMonitor will search through all the compatible devices on the system and attempt to send the message. If one port is busy, it will try the next port until it has exhausted all the compatible TAPI ports.

Baud rate
Specifies the baud rate that will be used to communicate with your modem. This can be any of the following: "300", "1200", "2400", "4800", "9600", "19200".

Modem init string
This is the initialization string for your modem. The modem must then respond with an "OK". You can leave the default value as "AUTO" in this parameter. HostMonitor will search your Modem's INF file from Windows and prepare a string that will work with most paging carriers. If the default string does not work, you will need to search the modem's manual and figure a string that will work. Any time you need to replace the string use the tilde character (~) (i.e. AT&F~). If you need to pause, the hat character (^) will give you a one second pause. (i.e. AT&F~^^AT~). The maximum length of the modem initialization string is 80 characters.
Specify a termination string by placing a vertical bar (|) after the modem init string. By specifying AUTO, it will use the strings specified in the modems INF settings. Examples: (AT~|ATZ~) (AUTO|AUTO)

Modem dial string
This is the string the program will send to the modem when it is ready to dial. The default value is "ATDT". If only a pulse dialtone is available, "ATDP" must be passed to this parameter. To control how long HostMonitor will wait for a connection before giving up, pass "TO=20" where 20 is the number of seconds desired. For example, the string to use here is: "TO=20,ATDT".

Show status window when dialing
HostMonitor can display a window when sending messages to a pager, displaying how it sends the message and the results of the operation (also, the program writes the result of sending the message into a log file).

Close window on disconnect, delay before close [NN] sec
After a specified time interval, HostMonitor will close the message window after sending the current message. Press the [Close] button to close the window immediately or the [Stop] button to keep the window onscreen indefinitely.

If device(s) busy wait up to [xx] min
Specify how long the program will attempt to resend messages.
 

On this page specify parameters for the Trace utility and for Ping tests.

Packets to Send
Specify the number of ECHO packets.

Packet Size
Specify the size of ECHO packets.

Timeout
Specify a timeout interval in milliseconds.

Time to Live
Specify a TTL value. TTL (Time To Live) - a technique used in best-effort delivery systems to avoid endlessly looping packets. For example, each IP datagram is assigned an integer time to live when it is created. IP gateways decrement the time to live field when they process a datagram and discard the datagram if the time to live counter reaches zero.

Number of Hops
Specify the maximum number of hops to reach the target. This is a measure of the distance between two points on the Internet. A hop count of n means that n gateways separate the source and destination.

Clean old info at start
If selected, Trace utility will clear the output window before perform new test.

Show Host's Description
If option is enabled, the program will display a description of the host beside host name in the Trace utility. Example:
... www.chat.ru        (Russia)
... mainboss.xaxa.BD   (Bangladesh)
... www.gazprom.ru     (Join-stock company GAZPROM, Moscow, Russia)

Stop tracing when a non-responding device is encountered
By default Trace utility stop tracing when some device does not respond. When you disable this option HostMonitor will continue trace until reach destination host.
 

RCI is a feature of the monitor that allows you to check and control HostMonitor remotely (using web browser or telnet client). RCI uses TCP/IP protocol and needs just one TCP port. On this page you may setup different parameters of the interface:

Enable Remote Control Interface
HostMonitor will accept remote control requests and commands only when this option is enabled. This is the main "switch" of all remote control functions of HostMonitor.

Listen for incoming connections on port
Here you may specify the TCP port number which HostMonitor will use to listen for incoming requests and commands from Web Service or Telnet Service. Note that both Web Service and Telnet Service should be configured to use the same TCP port number as the HostMonitor itself.

Timeout
This is the maximum amount of user inactivity time which HostMonitor will hold an established connection with the remote user. If the remote user after establishing the connection with HostMonitor does nothing (i.e. does not sends any control commands) HostMonitor will drop this connection after the specified amount of time expires.

Maximum simultaneous connections
This option specifies the maximum number of simultaneous remote connections that HostMonitor may accept from the remote users.
It is important to note here that even just one user that connects to HostMonitor via web browser may generate several simultaneous connections. When an internet browser acquires the document from the internet it may fetch several parts of the document at once to increase performance. Thus "Maximum simultaneous connections" option of the HostMonitor's RCI interface should be set to 4 (minimum) if you plan to use web browser to control HostMonitor (even if just one user at a time will be connected to HostMonitor). Otherwise the web browser may not be able to display a web page with an interface of the HostMonitor correctly.

User profiles button
This button brings up a User Profiles dialog. There you can specify (for each user account separately) a list of authorized IP addresses from which a connection to HostMonitor can be accepted and a list of authorized operations (such as start/stop of monitoring, enable/disable tests, etc) that are allowed for each user. Only "Admin" and users that already have permissions to modify accounts of other users may access the User Profile dialog.

The following group of check boxes specifies the types of events (associated with Remote Control Interface) that HostMonitor will or will not add to system log:
Record info about accepted connections
You may enable or disable recording the information about successful connections from the remote users.
Record info about rejected connections
Disable or enable recording the information about rejected (by a HostMonitor) connections from the remote users.
Record info about accepted/executed commands
Disable or enable logging of accepted commands.
Record info about rejected/failed commands
Disable or enable logging of rejected commands.
 

HostMonitors` built in scheduler. Here you may specify which action profiles HostMonitor will execute on schedule. You have five separate entries in the list. Each of the entries has the following schedule options:

• "None" - no action (alert) will be performed.
• "Regular" - specify the time interval (e.g. every 60 minutes) to perform action profile.
• "Daily" - an action profile will be executed every day at a specified time of the day. Note: the time of the day is specified in 24h format.
• "Weekly" - an action profile will be launched once a week on specified day of the week at a specified time of the day (e.g.: weekly, every Tuesday at 22:00).
• "Monthly" - once a month, on a specified day of the month, at a specified time of that day (e.g.: every 5-th day of the month at 7:00)
• "Quarterly" - an action profile is performed once in a quarter on a specified day of the first month of each quarter at the specified time.

You may set maximum five schedules of a/m types. In each schedule you may select an action profile that will be executed accordingly. Use the drop down list to select action profiles. By clicking the button next to a drop down list you will access the Action Profiles dialog window where you may add new action profiles and actions or edit the properties of existing actions.
Note: only "scheduled" actions will be executed by Scheduler, i.e. a condition to start action should be set to "on the schedule" (in Action Properties dialog).
 

Use fixed date & time formats
By default HostMonitor gets current Windows regional settings at startup and uses these parameters until you change Windows settings and restart monitor. You can mark this option and define date & time formats. In this case, HostMonitor will use the specified formats, regardless of the system settings.


URL test related options

Do not check Internet connection
Normally HostMonitor checks if computer connected to Internet before "URL request" test (to avoid appearance Dial-Up dialog). With this option enabled HostMonitor will not perform this check.

Agent name
Some server-based scripts can check agent name and returns different information for different HTTP agents (e.g. generate different HTML pages for IE or Netscape). You can change this parameter to get correct results.

Accept SSL/PCT certificates with invalid host name
Disables function checking of SSL/PCT-based certificates that are returned from the server against the host name given in the request.

Accept SSL/PCT certificates with invalid dates
Disables function checking of SSL/PCT-based certificates for proper validity dates.


UNC test related options

UNC test mode
This parameter defines behavior of UNC tests. Select 1 of 3 options: