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Network Monitoring

This guide will help you get started with our Network Monitoring service.

What is Network Monitoring? What can I do with it?

Network Monitoring is an external testing service which polls your network for outages and issues. Using multiple sites and allowing a variety of different tests per host, Network Monitoring avoids false positives and provides an accurate estimate of your network's current health.

How do I set it up?

Please complete the following steps to get started with the Network Monitoring service.

1. Create Network Monitoring

The first step is to create an account and create a Network Monitoring host for your network such as mydomain.com or secure.mydomain.com. (You may use an IP address for the Network Monitoring host, but if the IP address changes in the future, you would need to purchase a new Network Monitoring host.)

You will also be asked for a Notify Email (the primary email contact for all service monitor notifications) and Notify Mode (the verbosity of the messages). Complete the checkout process to activate your service.

2. Add service monitors

A single Network Monitoring host can have up to ten service monitors, allowing you to check multiple services at a single network (for example, both your webserver and mail server). Each monitor has the following options:

• Service: The default monitor type, such as TCP::HTTP (80) to monitor a webserver or TCP::SMTP (25) to check a mail server
• Port: Leave this blank to monitor the default port, or enter the alternate port of your server (e.g. HTTP on 8080).
• Check Interval: How often the network is polled
• Monitoring: You may enable or disable a monitor at any time. Disabled monitors are not counted toward overall host status.
• Description: A note to describe this service monitor (e.g. "my webserver")
• Expected Data: By default, the service monitor will only check to ensure it receives a successful connection. Expected Data allows you to verify that the server is responding correctly, such as looking for the 220 SMTP banner of a mail server or a hidden tag on your website. If the data is not located, the monitor is marked as Trouble (see below).
• Notify Email: An optional, additional notification address for this specific service

3. Configure your network

Now that you have created service monitors for your Network Monitoring host, you will need to make sure your network accepts connections from our testing servers. If you use IP-based whitelisting or firewalls, you will need to allow connections for the following addresses:

Agent Name	Current Location	IP Address
Agent A	Chicago, IL	204.13.249.133
Agent B	Palo Alto, CA	208.78.69.133

Status Definitions

A Network Monitoring host and its service monitors have five different statuses. The host status is a measure of the overall health of a network, while a service monitor's status indicates the success or failure of specific checks.

Host Status

• Green (Good): This host's service monitors are operating correctly and returning successful checks.
• Yellow (Trouble): One or more of this host's service monitors are reporting an error.
• Red (Failure): All of this host's service monitors are reporting errors.
• Disabled: This host's service monitors have been paused, and no active checks are being performed.
• Unknown: This host or its services have been recently activated, and it does not have enough data to report.

Service Monitor Status

• Green (Good): All of our monitoring centers were able to perform two successful checks in a row.
• Yellow (Trouble): One of the monitoring centers reported a failure during its last or current check. This does not necessarily indicate an outage. This status can also occur if the service is available but the expected data does not match.
• Red (Failure): All of our monitoring centers reported a failure for two checks in a row. This usually indicates an outage.
• Disabled: This service monitor has been paused, and no active checks are being performed. Its status is not counted toward the host's overall health.
• Unknown: This service monitor has been recently activated, and it does not have enough data to report.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a Network Monitoring host and a service monitor?

A Network Monitoring host is created for a specific network, such as mydomain.com, while service monitors are individual tests performed on that network, such as HTTP on port 80 or SMTP on port 25. A single Network Monitoring host can have up to ten service monitors.

How is a host's health measured?

Each service monitor tests the network at defined intervals. If a service monitor returns a single failure from one or more facilities during a check, the service is marked as Trouble. If the service reports two or more failures in a row from all monitoring centers, the service is marked as Failure and the host itself is marked as Trouble. (This helps to prevent false positives.) If all of the service monitors report problems, the host is marked as Failure.

How can I filter Network Monitoring notification emails?

If you want to filter or process our email check notifications, you should configure your mail client to look for a mail header "X-DYNDNS-Netmon: Monitoring Alert". If you wish to filter by subject, the messages appear as:

[Service/Host] [Problem/Down/Up] Notification - [Service Type] on [Host Name]

For example, a service monitor reporting trouble for Google might have the subject line Service Problem Notification - TCP::HTTP:80 on www.google.com, and a host reporting an all-clear for Yahoo! could appear as Host Up Notification - www.yahoo.com. All notification emails are delivered by automailer@dyndns.com.

What else can I do to monitor my network?

Our Monitoring Best Practices article details a number of utilities and tips for ensuring a healthy network.

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