Software Components

The product includes three components:

• A Monitoring Service performs network discovery, continuously monitors network resources, collects monitoring data, sends notifications, executes alerts, and writes logs.
• A Monitoring Client (Windows GUI) is used to browse and change the monitoring system configuration and to view reports, graphs, and logs.
• A Web Interface enables you to view reports and graphs showing the current system state or monitoring results for any other period of time from any Internet browser enabled device.

Monitoring Service

The monitoring service runs as a Windows service. This component performs network discovery, continuously monitors network resources, collects monitoring data, sends notifications and regular reports, executes alerts, and writes logs. The service controls the web server that provides access to the web interface so it should be started in order to access the web interface.

Monitoring Client

The monitoring client (Windows GUI) is used to browse and change the monitoring system configuration and to view reports, graphs, and logs. The monitoring client is installed on the same host where the monitoring service is running.

To be able to configure IPHost Network Monitor from another host you should enable Remote Access to the host where it is installed, connect to it using the Remote Desktop and start the monitoring client in your session. To run the monitoring client from outside of your local network, you can

1. Connect to the SSH gateway of your local network (if any);

2. Securely forward TCP port 3389 (Windows Terminal Services) of the monitoring host to local port 3389 over SSH;

3. Connect to the localhost using the Remote Desktop from your computer.

It is recommended to close the client GUI when you don't need it to save system resources and let the monitoring service produce more accurate results. You can choose Exit from the program menu or from the context menu in the system tray to close the client, or just press Alt-X. The client GUI also consumes less resources when it is put in the system tray.

See the section Windows Interface for a more detailed description of the client GUI.

Web Interface

The Web interface enables you to view reports and graphs showing the current system state or monitoring results for any other period of time from any Internet browser enabled device. Different types of reports, ways of resource grouping and reporting time periods are supported. Web interface also provides system summary on Dashboard tab, shows recent problems on Alerts tab and provides Help pages online. Recommended Internet browsers are Firefox 2.x or later, Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Google Chrome and Opera 8 or later. Mobile versions of these browsers may be used to view mobile version of IPHost Network Monitor Web interface.

The Web interface is provided by the Apache 1.3.37 Web server that is started and controlled by the monitoring service; when the monitoring service is turned off, the Web interface becomes unavailable. See the section Web Interface Overview for a more detailed description.

Monitoring Database

All components of IPHost Network Monitor use the Firebird 2.0.1 relational database to store monitoring configuration and data. The Firebird server is installed as part of the product; it runs in application mode (not as a service) and does not interfere with other copies of Firebird that may be installed on your system. The Firebird server is started and stopped automatically. It is possible to run custom SQL queries on the monitoring information; if you would like to run custom queries, please contact support@iphostmonitor.com to obtain a database schema.

Monitoring service performs nightly backup of database at 1:50 AM; the backup file has the same name as the database file with the suffix of .gbak added. In case of an unlikely database failure, the service restores the database from backup automatically when it starts. The client will also detect database failures and will ask if the database should be recovered from backup. If you start the recovery, the client will display the progress dialog. Database recovery is a lengthy process; it may take a few minutes. If it is started, please let it finish and don't interrupt it.

TCP Ports

There are three TCP ports utilized by the system. The Firebird server runs on TCP port 3055 by default; the monitoring client and monitoring service exchange information over TCP port 3056 and the Web interface is served on port 8084. Initial port numbers are selected automatically by the installer; you may see them on the System Settings page of the Global Settings dialog in the monitoring client). You may change the ports manually followith the instructions on that page.

Configuration File

There is a text configuration file, nms.ini stored in the Application Data folder (it is the "C:\ProgramData\IPHost Network Monitor\" if you have Windows Vista or above "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\IPHost Network Monitor\" if you have Windows 2003, XP, or below that defines the main parameters of the system such as host names, ports, application paths, and so on. You can change this file directly as explained on the System Settings page of the Global Settings dialog. Please note that you have to exit the IPHost Network Monitor client application and stop the monitoring service before editing the ini file.

IPHost Network Monitor doesn't require the installation of a software agent on monitored hosts.