How to Create Devices and Targets

How it works

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.

Configuring a target

Hostname / Port

Enter the POP3/IMAP server address and port number.  This could be the URL or the IP address.

Select the protocol type radio button: POP3 or IMAP4.1.

Make sure your server supports the appropriate protocol type before you continue.

Time Validation Threshold (in seconds)

Enter the number of seconds the system should wait for a response from the target resource before returning an error. If this is left blank the default timeout is 120 seconds.

Encription

When enabled – POP3/IMAP over SSL/TLS will be requested.

POP3:

  • YES Explicit – connects to the server and explicitly requests TLS encryption to be enabled by sending the STLS command to the server. Default port is Port 110.
  • Yes Implicit – TLS encryption is switched on implicitly upon connection to the server. Default port is Port 995.
  • No – encryption is not used. Username/password can be sent encrypted (e.g., by using base64). Default port is Port 110.
  • Auto – TLS encryption will only be used if Dotcom-Monitor client considers it necessary and if the server informs the client that it supports TLS encryption.

IMAP:

  • YES Explicit – connects to the server and explicitly requests TLS encryption to be enabled by sending the STARTTLS command to the server. Default port is Port 143.
  • Yes Implicit – TLS encryption is switched on implicitly. Default port is Port 993.
  • No – encryption is not used. Username/password can be sent encrypted (e.g., by using base64). Default port is Port 143.
  • Auto – TLS encryption will only be used if Dotcom-Monitor client considers it necessary and if the server informs the client that it supports TLS encryption.

If you select encrypted connection, please make sure there is the correct port number in the Hostname / Port fields. If the port number is not specified, a default port will be used instead.

Login to Server

When disabled –Dotcom-Monitor® connects to the destination address and port and check for successful connection.

When enabled – the authentication procedure will perform the following steps using the credentials supplied in the Login Information section:

User Name: Enter a username for POP3/IMAP authentication.

Password: Enter a password for POP3/IMAP authentication.

The authentication will be attempted using the following methods:

  • CRAM_MD5
  • Login
  • Plain
  • Simple
  • SSL/TLS

If none of the methods have succeeded unencrypted, the socket is switched to SSL and repeats each method until a positive response is received (according to RFC 5034 on authentication mechanisms).

If any of the authorization methods succeed – the monitoring is successful. If not, the monitoring will report an error.

DNS Options

The DNS Options feature allows users to choose how domain name server (DNS) requests are conducted during a monitoring task.

To specify the mode of resolving hostnames, in the DNS Resolve Mode section, select one of the available modes. For more details on the feature configuration, see DNS Mode Options.

The Custom DNS Hosts section allows to set up the mapping of IP addresses to hostnames. IPv6 and IPv4 DNS resolution is supported.

To specify the mapping, enter the IP address and the hostname in the corresponding fields.

Examples:

192.168.107.246   example.com user.example.com userauth.example.com tools.example.com
192.168.107.246   example.com
192.168.107.246   user.example.com
192.168.107.246   userauth.example.com

See also: DNS Mode Options.