What kind of servers can I check with WhistleBlower?
Whistleblower can check the following types of servers:
•Web Servers
•Appleshare IP
•DNS Servers
•First Class
•Filemaker Pro
•4D
•FTP
•Hotline
•IMAP
•LDAP
•News
•POP3
•Quicktime Streaming
•Radius
•SMTP
•Telnet
Can I check a secure (https:) type web server?
Not yet directly. However you can at least be sure that the server is listening ok. Use the GenericTCP server option and set the port to the port your secure server runs on (probably 443). This will not send any data back and forth with the server but will open a connection and make sure the server answers properly. The GenericTCP socket can be used for many of the things WB doesn't currently support.
Can I check my Retrospect server?
Not yet. I have experimented a lot with Retrospect trying to support it but it doesn't appear to listen for incoming connections. Therefore there is nothing for me to connect to to check. If anyone konws differently please let me know.
Can I send a simple Ping?
nope. Currently no networking components of REALbasic support sending a ping. However there is a third party plugin that I use for sending UDP packets to Radius servers who will be adding ping support in the near future. As soon as that is available I should have a new version of WB out in a matter of hours that will support it as all the infrastructure is in place.
Does Wb work with other server products like Keep It Up?
Wb will happily co-exist with Keep It Up, on the same box or on the servers we are checking. Indeed if you are running a server like Retrospect that WB doesn't support and can't talk to via the generic task then you can use WB to connect to KIU's web server. You can even put in the path to KIU's list of active applications and verify the return contains the name of a specific application.
What is a PowerKey?
Powerkey is a server restart product made by sophisticated circuits: http://www.sophisticated.com/ that can physically shut off and switch back on a hung server. WB can talk to this directly.
What is that restart script included with the package?
Though I've done everything to remove memory leaks I can there may still be things that will slowly eat up memory. While this might be acceptable for a regular app that is used and then quit regularly, for a server app even this is unacceptable because it runs 24/7. In previous beta's if the app runs out of memory it simply quits. While this is better than crashing, it still isn't good enough. If the restart script is in the same folder with the app (and you haven't changed the name of the app) then if it runs out of memory it will launch the script before quitting and the script will re-launch it therefor recovering any lost memory. You can also launch this script from the web based administration if you see the memory is leaking.
Whats with the funky date format in the log?
the date is stored that way so that it will sort properly. The format is:
year/month/day hour:minute:second
Got other things you think should be in the FAQ's? Email them to me at: whistleblower@sentman.com