Documentation forIpMonitor
Effective December 31, 2024, IpMonitor will reach its end of life and will no longer be available or supported. If you liked IpMonitor, consider trying another SolarWinds product.

HTTP User Experience monitor

The HTTP User Experience monitor verifies that a web server can accept incoming sessions and transmit a requested resource (such as a web page, or the results of a CGI script).

Use the HTTP User Experience Monitor to ensure that the web server can:

  • Communicate with ipMonitor using the HTTP protocol
  • Respond within a required number of seconds
  • Access the source files and resources required to construct a specified web page or resource
  • Transmit a specified web page or resource that is an exact content match with the snapshot of the resource that ipMonitor has on file

This monitor can generate considerable bandwidth if aggressive timing parameters are applied. SolarWinds recommends keeping the default timing intervals of 300 seconds intact.

If you use log analysis or web analytics software, this monitor may generate hits. See your log analysis software for information on how to exclude ipMonitor from the analysis.

Create an HTTP User Experience monitor

  1. Click Devices in the toolbar.
  2. Locate and click the targeted device you want to monitor.

  3. In the toolbar, click Add > Add New Monitor.

  4. In the Select Monitor menu, click HTTP - User Experience

  5. Under Identification, enter information about the monitor.

    1. Enter a name in the Monitor Name field using up to 64 characters. This name will appear in the monitor list, monitor status, log files, and your reports.

      You can change this name later, if necessary. ipMonitor does not use this field to internally identify this monitor.

    2. Select Enabled to enable the monitor.

      When enabled, the monitor tests the specified resource using the settings you enter under Test Parameters. You can disable the monitor later if required.

    3. Select Store Monitor Statistics for Recent Activity and Historical Reports to enable this functionality.

  6. Under Test Parameters, enter the monitor testing parameters.

    1. Enter the IP address or domain name of the device, server, or sensor you want to monitor.
    2. Enter the TCP port number that the targeted resource responds on. The default is TCP port 80.

    3. Enter the relative path to the resource you want to monitor beginning with a forward slash (/).

      For example:

      /notes/changelog.txt

    4. Select a credential for monitoring. When selected, ipMonitor uses the credential account and password information to authenticate to the target machine and test the status of the drive or share.

    5. (Optional) Select Force communication through an HTTP Proxy Server to monitor the HTTP resource through your HTTP proxy server.

      Before you select this option, ensure that the ipMonitor global Client HTTP Settings selection in System Settings are set up correctly to allow communications with your proxy server.

  7. Under Analysis of Test Results, click Update to obtain the file size and checksum (CRC-32) of the resource.

    ipMonitor retrieves the file based on the test parameters and generates a checksum for comparison against the original value. If the file size or checksum differ, ipMonitor initiates the failure and alerting process.

  8. Under Timing, configure the fields for the monitor testing states.

    1. In the Maximum Test Duration field, enter the maximum test duration rate (in seconds) that the monitor times out before the test is considered a failure.

    2. In the remaining fields, enter the number of second between each test while the monitor is in an OK state (Up), a failed state while alerts are processed (Down), and a failed state and the maximum number of alerts have been processed (Lost).

      In the Lost state, no additional failure alerts are processed. However, a recovery notification is sent if the monitor recovers.

  9. Under Notification Control, complete the fields to determine how many test failures must occur before an alert is sent.

    1. Enter the number of test failures that occur for each alert before ipMonitor generates an alert for the monitor. The default option is 3.

    2. Enter the maximum number of alerts to send before the monitor enters a Lost state.

      The monitor must be assigned to a notification alert to generate an action.

  10. Under Recovery Parameters, complete the fields to indicate the corrective action used to automatically restore a resource using the External Process Recovery, Reboot Server Recovery, or Restart Service Recovery action.

    1. Enter the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN), NetBIOS, or IP Address of the machine hosting the service that needs a restart or the machine that needs a restart. You can also click Browse to locate and select the machine.
    2. Select the set of credentials used by the recovery alert. You can select a specific credential to execute recovery alerts that require access to restricted resources, such as Reboot Server, Restart Service, or External Process.
    3. Select the list of services to restart on the target machine specified in the FQDN/NetBIOS/IP Address field. This field is only required for the Restart Service alert. If a service has dependencies, select all dependent services.
  11. Click OK.

Test results

Test Result Description
Kps (kilobytes per second) Indicates the web server's transfer data rate.
http (HTTP status code) Codes in the 200 to 399 range indicate success. Codes in the 400 to 599 range indicate an error.