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.

POP3 - User Experience monitor

The POP3 - User Experience monitor verifies that your SMTP server can receive and distribute email and verify that your end users can log in from a POP3-enabled client and retrieve their email.

The monitor simulates a round-trip email journey and measures the time it takes for the collective series of transactions to occur. The process begins when the monitor delivers an email to the SNMP server on port 25 for your specified recipient address. It logs in to the POP3 mail server on port 119 and retrieves the list of queued mail. It validates all sent email, and then sends a DELE command to delete the message.

When finished, it disconnects from the server by sending a QUIT command to terminate the connection. If the SMTP server or POP3 server fails to respond, or responds with an error code at any time, ipMonitor considers the test to have failed.

Use the POP3 - User Experience Monitor to verify that:

  • The SMTP mail server can accept and distribute mail.
  • The POP3 mail server can authenticate users.
  • The POP3 server can deliver mail to a POP3 client.
  • The POP3 and SMTP servers respond within a required number of seconds.

Implementation

ipMonitor sends a message with a special subject to test the send and receive ability of the POP3 mail server. For example:

Subject: ipm9:pop3:guid:141991169

ipMonitor logs in to the POP3 server on port 110 and retrieves the LIST of queried mail—up to a maximum of the last 100 emails. It attempts to locate the email with the special subject line. It makes several attempts to retrieve the email before the test expires. After verifying the subject line, it deletes the email so it will not accumulate on the POP3 server.

Create a POP3 - 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 POP3 - 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 server you want to monitor.
    2. Enter the TCP port number that the targeted resource responds on. The default is TCP port 110.

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.
  10. Click OK.