Overview of Available Monitoring Types

Even if your web page is accessible and you’re sure that users can reach it at any time doesn’t mean that all elements on the page are rendered successfully and loaded with the optimal speed. For example, some images, Flash, or CSS elements on the page can fail to load while the page is loaded successfully.

A web page is tested using desktop or mobile browser engines to your choice. Detailed performance data is provided for each element on the page. Content validation, as well as basic authorization, are performed while monitoring. When a page or specific element on a page fails to perform as expected, an alert will be sent to let you react quickly.

Configure a Single Web Page device to set up performance monitoring.

Dotcom-Monitor supports generating of Lighthouse reports with the specified frequency to monitor changes in a specific web page metric. The key feature of the solution is monitoring a specific audit metric. You can select a metric and set an error threshold to receive alert notifications when a monitored score is out of the acceptable range. In addition, you can configure alerting on errors that occurred while running Lighthouse, specify an audit scheduler, and set up scheduled reporting on the monitoring results.

See Lighthouse Monitoring & Testing with Dotcom-Monitor.

HTTP/S monitoring

An HTTP/S monitoring checks a single URL for availability, performance, proper content and errors. It supports POST and GET requests, cookies, form submissions, custom headers, password-secured sites (basic HTTP/S authorization as well as cookie/script authorization mechanisms), and timeout thresholds.

HTTP/S monitoring validates security certificates, check certificate authority, and check for expiration. It can also be configured to send you reminders when the certificate expiration date is approaching.

If the website or web application relies on an API, or use third-party API, API availability is a crucial part of monitoring. For example, you use an ID or other personal data validation software on your website to process user input. In this case, you need to be sure it’s available and returns proper data. Dotcom-Monitor will send a request to the API and evaluate its response for content, speed, and response codes. If the response does not fulfill the specified requirements, the alert will be sent out.

See Add/Edit an HTTP(S) Device to set up HTTP/S and REST Web API monitoring.

SOAP-based web services monitoring

If you need to test a SOAP-based web service for availability, errors, and proper content, select the SOAP monitoring. SOAP is a lightweight protocol for the exchange of information in a decentralized, distributed environment. It is an XML-based protocol that consists of three parts:

• An envelope that defines a framework for describing what is in a message and how to process it
• A set of encoding rules for expressing instances of application-defined data types
• A convention for representing remote procedure calls and responses.

A SOAP device assigns agents to replicate one or more client requests and monitor web services.  Based upon the preferences selected in the device setup, Dotcom-Monitor will send alerts if an issue is detected.

See also Add/Edit a SOAP Device.

Monitor Postman Collections

If you have a collection of integration tests for internal API testing with Postman, but also need to set up tests from outside your local network, you can upload the Postman tests to Dotcom-Monitor.

The Dotcom-Monitor platform allows monitoring checks using an uploaded Postman Collection as frequent as every minute to every 3 hours, giving the team plenty of flexibility and options for setting monitoring checks. 

See why to use Dotcom-Monitor to monitor Postman Collections in Postman Monitoring (Collection Tasks) with Dotcom-Monitor APIs.

Insomnia Collection Monitoring

You can transfer your Insomnia collections to Dotcom-Monitor to perform API testing based on your pre-configured Insomnia tests.

Learn more from Insomnia Collection Monitoring with Dotcom-Monitor.

WebSocket Monitoring

A WebSocket device created in the Dotcom-Monitor platform checks a single WebSocket URL for availability, performance, proper content, and errors. The monitoring device can also be configured to validate security certificates and response content.

See more in WebSocket Monitoring.

The FTP monitoring agent connects to the specified FTP server, logs on to the FTP server using a user name and password you provide, and a directory listing command is issued to retrieve a specific directory. After the contents of that directory are listed, the monitoring service checks if specified files exist on the server in that specific directory. If our remote monitoring agents detect a problem at any point in the process, Dotcom-Monitor will notify you via the notification process.

See also Add/Edit an FTP/SFTP/FTPS Device.

Dotcom-Monitor SSL Certificate checker allows you to set up automated monitoring of the certificate expiration date, authority, and validity, including intermediate certificates, etc. You can also set a certificate expiration reminder to be notified about upcoming expiration in advance.

See also SSL Certificate Monitoring: Expiration, Validity & Revocation .

SMTP Server uptime monitoring

Whenever you send an email, your email client interacts with the SMTP server. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the Internet protocol for electronic mail delivery that most mail servers today use to deliver email. The SMTP server on your host may communicate with other SMTP servers to actually deliver the email.

During an SMTP monitoring, the agents monitor the SMTP server by connecting to the specified mail server and performing an SMTP handshake. If a remote server does not respond to a handshake or is unavailable, an error condition will be triggered.  If you have alerts configured, you will receive an alert.

See also Add/Edit an SMTP Device.

POP3/IMAP connection monitoring

To verify that users can access their email account via POP3 or IMAP protocols, POP3 / IMAP monitoring is an option. Dotcom-Monitor connects to a mail server (POP3 or IMAP) and logs in using a user name and password you provide. For example, when you check your email, your email client connects to a POP3 server using port 110. The POP3 server requires an account name and a password. Once you have logged into the POP3 server, it opens your email store and allows you to access it. Dotcom-Monitor uses the same protocol to monitor your POP3 servers for errors and sends an alert when a monitoring agent detects an issue.

See also POP3/IMAP Device.

Microsoft Exchange Server uptime monitoring

To monitor your Microsoft Exchange Servers for errors and receive an alert when a monitoring agent detects an issue, ActiveSync Email monitoring can be used. Dotcom-Monitor checks a remote mail server to verify that users can access their email account via Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol then sends an email to check for the successful delivery of the email message. After the email delivery has been deemed successful, the email is deleted.  Any error detected during the monitoring check is reflected in the report with an Error Code and appropriate description.

A monitoring check follows these steps with no issues for a successful response:

1. Connect to a specified mailbox
2. Send a test email from the specified mailbox to the same address
3. Check for the test email within the mailbox.

See also Add/Edit an ActiveSync Device.

Complete end-to-end mail server availability monitoring

If the goal is to perform end-to-end availability monitoring of your mail servers, use SMTP-POP3/IMAP monitoring. First, a monitoring agent tests the SMTP server by sending an email to the specified email address. After that email is sent, the agent attempts to log in and retrieve the email from a POP3/IMAP server. If the SMTP or POP3/IMAP steps experience an error, or the email is not found within a specified time-out period, an error is recorded. If you have alerts configured, you will receive an alert.

See also Add/Edit a Round Trip Email Device (SMTP-POP3).

TCP port availability

To test connectivity to a web server through a certain TCP port, the easiest way is to use Telnet port availability monitoring.

For example, you can use Telnet monitoring to make sure that no firewalls are blocking incoming connections from applications to Internet services. Dotcom-Monitor will send a request to the TCP port with the specified number on the web server to make sure that the port is open and you can receive a response.

See also Add/Edit a Telnet Port Availability Device.

See also Add/Edit a UDP Device.

Traceroute and ping tools help you quickly identify and diagnose network-related outages and issues for servers and other network devices. The ping command sends an ICMP echo request to a target name or IP address, helping you to verify IP-level connectivity.

These types of monitoring are useful for ensuring the integrity of routers, firewalls, and multiple Internet appliance devices, and is an important component of your remote network monitoring services.

See also Add/Edit a Ping/ICMP Device and  Add/Edit a TraceRoute Device.

Streaming media monitoring checks video and audio streaming services for performance, errors, and availability.

See also Streaming Media Monitoring and Add/Edit a Streaming Media Device.

If the goal is to check both web page availability and the video streaming placed on it, it’s best practice to combine the Streaming Media monitoring and HTTP monitoring of a target in one device. This ensures that not only the video is rendered and available on the page, but the page by itself is loaded properly and vice versa.

VoIP/SIP monitoring devices create monitoring agents that connect to a specified VoIP server using the supplied credentials to ensure that the service is available.  To accomplish this, SIP monitoring is provisioned as either an extension or a client on the VoIP system and configured to call a specific number using a specified SIP server with certain parameters. The expected result of the call is set up as “Answer,” “No Answer,” “Busy,” or an error condition (if there is an unexpected result).

If an error is detected, SIP monitoring records all properties of the error, which helps to pinpoint where the error condition is occurring. SIP monitoring reports these error properties as blobs of text accessible in online reports:

• SIP Final Response:408
• SIP Final Response Description: Request Timeout
• Media: False
• TimedOut: True

See also Add/Edit a VoIP SIP Device.

DNS lookup

DNS Server monitoring queries a specified DNS server in order to resolve a specific internet protocol (IP) address.

See also Add/Edit a DNS Device.

Domain name checks for presence on multiple DNS Blacklists

A DNSBL device polls major domain name service (DNS) Blacklist (DNSBL) databases for an IP or a hostname you specify. If the IP or hostname is found in one of the DNSBL databases, an error will be flagged.  If you have alerts configured, an alert will be triggered.

The technology is built on top of the Internet Domain Name System. DNSBLs publish lists of addresses linked to spamming. Most mail transport agent (mail server) software can be configured to reject or flag messages which have been sent from a site listed on one or more of these DNSBLs.

If your mail servers are included in a DNSBL database, it will cause other companies to deny email delivery from your servers. It’s important to know if your servers are listed in DNSBLs, so you can quickly request removal and find the root cause of the DNSBL listing.

The DNSBL device references the following authoritative blacklists:

• psbl.surriel.com
• dnsbl.sorbs.net
• bl.spamcop.net
• zen.spamhaus.org
• b.barracudacentral.org
• all.spamrats.com

If your mail server or IP address is detected on any of these blacklists, you may need to contact the specified blacklist directly in order to determine why your address is listed and request to be removed from the list.

See also Add/Edit a DNSBL Blacklist Device.

Dotcom-Monitor Windows service enables Windows computer or server monitoring, as well as allowing users to monitor a test or production environment, using data from Windows Performance Counter (WPC) and set alerts when limits are exceeded.

To set up monitoring, refer to these articles from the Windows Performance Monitoring category of the Knowledge Base.

The Dotcom-Monitor Linux monitoring service enables Linux computer or server monitoring, as well as allowing users to set thresholds for data from Collectd performance counters and set alerts when those thresholds are exceeded.

To set up the monitoring, refer to these articles from the Linux Performance Monitoring category of the Knowledge Base.

Enables tracking of SNMP capable devices using SNMP V1, V2 or V3.

To set up the device, refer to these articles from the SNMP Monitoring category of the Knowledge Base.

It allows users to monitor the performance of any custom metrics available for collecting on a server or device.

To set up custom collectors and configure monitoring, refer to these articles from the Custom Collectors category of the Knowledge Base.