SiteScope
Release Notes

Highlights in this release

• Active Directory Solution: SiteScope 7.9.0.0 provides a new solution template to meet the needs of monitoring Active Directory (AD) availability and performance. This feature provides expertise and best practice methodologies as part of a rapidly deployable monitoring solution for Microsoft Active Directory environments. Included as part of this solution are:
  • A template of pre-configured server, log, and event monitors that provide in-depth, proactive monitoring of the availability, and performance of Active Directory services. These monitor templates are only available with the Active Directory Solution option license.
  • The Active Directory Replication and Browsable NT Counter monitors are added as part of the Active Directory (AD) Solution template. This monitor type can only be added using the AD solution template.
  • An Active Directory monitoring best practices document that provides expertise for proactive Active Directory performance measurement and troubleshooting. This document is provided as a password secured PDF file. The password to open the document is supplied with the purchase of the AD Solution license.
• Exchange Solution: SiteScope 7.9.0.0 provides three new solution templates to meet the needs of monitoring Microsoft Exchange messaging systems. This feature provides expertise and best practice methodologies as part of a rapidly deployable monitoring solution for Microsoft Exchange 5.5, 2000, and 2003 servers. Included as part of this solution are:
  • A template of pre-configured server, log, and event monitors that provide in-depth, proactive monitoring of the availability, health, and performance of Exchange systems. The monitor templates are only available with the Exchange Solution option license.
  • The Exchange Message Traffic, Exchange Mailbox, Public Folder, and Browsable NT Counter monitors are added as part of the Exchange Solution templates. These monitor types can only be added using one of the Exchange solution templates.
  • An Exchange monitoring best practices document that provides expertise for proactive Exchange performance measurement and troubleshooting. This document is provided as a password secured PDF file. The password to open the document is supplied with the purchase of the Exchange Solution license.
• SNMP by MIB Monitor: A new version of SNMP monitor was added and changes were made to other SNMP-based monitors to improve the usability in working with SNMP agents. The OIDs available to the SNMP by MIB Monitor can be easily extended by adding vendor MIB files to the SiteScope/templates.mib directory. This and other browsable SNMP monitor types (Cisco Works and F5 Big-IP) will query a host for all of its available OIDs and display them as a expandable/collapsible tree of counters.
• SNMP by MIB Tool: added a new SNMP tool that provides a collapsible/expandable tree view of the OID's defined by a MIB for an SNMP agent. Information such as OID names, descriptions and values is available in the tree. Only the OIDs present in the selected MIB are displayed. An All MIBs, option will display all OIDs from all MIBs present on the SiteScope server.
• Added the Network Bandwidth Monitor which is designed for monitoring network appliances such as routers and switches. This new monitor type also includes a new Real-time report graph feature available via the Real-Time Metrics link associated with the monitor in the group detail table.

1. SNMP by MIB Monitor, F5 Big IP Monitor, Cisco Works Monitor: All versions of SNMP are now supported by these monitors. This includes V3 with MD5, SHA, or no authentication and with and without DES privacy encryption.
2. Script Monitor: The following enhancements were made to this monitor type:
   • Added a feature to allow user to select which characters serve as replacement parameters in a USE COMMAND script
   • The Script Monitor has been enhanced so that it now allows up to 30 metrics to be returned and status can now be set on up to 10 returned values. The license point usage has been adjusted for this monitor type to match other multiple counter monitor types.
3. Regular Expression Test: Added a new Diagnostic Tool page used for testing regular expressions against target content copied into the applicable input field on the tool page. This tool uses the same Perl5 regular expression API used by other monitors in SiteScope. Use this tool for quick development and troubleshooting of content match expressions.
4. Oracle JDBC Monitor: Added DB Machine Name a new field to the monitor setup page used to associate a text descriptor of the database machine to the monitor data when it is reported to Topaz.
5. Browsable counter monitor types: The ability to edit counters in monitors with browsable counter selections has been added. This includes most Application monitor types. The user can add new counters to an existing monitor by using the Choose Counters screen for the applicable monitor. Counters can be deleted using the checkbox controls in the Counters field on the applicable monitor setup page. Warning: Changing counter selection after the monitor has run for some time will disrupt report data relative to the original monitor configuration.

1. Web Services Monitor and Web Service Test Tool
   • Added support for .NET based web services which uses a slightly different SOAP request than many other web services
   • Changes were made to allow use of HTML symbols, for example the & or > symbols, in the Web service argument list and have them preserved in the service call, as well as when editing the Web Service monitor or running a test using the Web Service Test tool.
   • Changed the Web Service Test page to be consistent with Web Services monitor definition page
   • Added NTLM Support
   • Fixed a bug where a WSDL file is truncated during retrieval, when its size is larger than 50Kb
   • Refrain from generating the <parameters> tag if there is only one field element in a complex type parameter. This is done to accommodate behavior of .NET servers.
2. Reports: Changed the calculation of uptime to use the best case scenario
3. NT Event Log Monitor: Allow value properties in the NT Event Log Monitor to be used as error and warning thresholds
4. Siebel Web Server Monitor: the monitor has been changed so that it can work in environments where the Siebel web server requires HTML-form based authentication to retrieve the performance statistics page, for example, SiteMinder or Netegrity.
5. SunOne Monitor: Added a timeout field for get counter values operation on the SunOne monitor setup page. This get counter values operation is activated each time the monitor is run. By default timeout value is 60 seconds.
6. Monitor Summary Report: An option is added to allow the user to display the number of license points used by each monitor in the Monitor Summary Report
7. Log File Monitor: Fixed a problem when upgrading Log File monitor. When the _resetFile property does not have a value [for example, when upgrading from older versions] the behavior should be the default which is: Never reset position
8. SNMP Trap Monitor: Fixed a problem for SNMP V2 traps where the IP address of the sending agent was being set to n/a. This change sets the address to the IP of the sender if available and n/a otherwise.
9. Multiple Monitors: Fixed a problem where some counters would not show up for perfex-based monitors
10. Custom columns with empty values are being displayed on the groups page as $_columnName$ where they should not be displayed at all.
11. Citrix monitor: Fixed a problem where an exception was being thrown when counters are missing
12. ALT/QTP preference page was changed to Recorder Preference page - update the links and string.
13. Made a change so that if an ALT Script or QTP Script monitor fails to create a log file at all, the monitor will be reported as failed.
14. MAPI Monitor: a change was made where the monitor was not working on Outlook XP SP2
15. Tuxedo monitor: Fixed a problem in the monitor where a carriage return character is being introduced into its connection data text field when it should be completely empty (when defining a new monitor instance).
16. NT Event Log Monitor, Log File Monitor, SNMP Trap Monitor: These monitors include blank fields in the alert when the user selects the option to send a single alert once,after all items have been checked. A change was made that will aggregate all of the matching event, log entry, or trap messages into a single string for the alert. To enable this feature, a new template property - matchDetails - needs to be added in the applicable e-mail alert template (found in the SiteScope\templates.mail directory). Also added a new setting _NTEventLogMonitorDetailsMax=1000 for the NT Event Log Monitor to limit the total number of characters that get passed to the alert text in the matchDetails template property.
17. NT Counter Monitors: Include more information in error logging when a counter is missing, for example, group and machine
18. DNS Monitors: Made changes to enable the DNS Monitor to support environments with mulitple-language operating systems. Two new settings are added to the master.config file to allow custom matching on the field labels returned by a nslookup operation. The _dnsServerTags is used to list equivalents for the Server label. The _dnsNameTags is used to list equivalents for the Name label. Each setting may include a comma separated list of server and name label options. For example, _dnsServerTags=Server,Serveur,Servidor.
19. Service Monitor: Made a change when listing processes over an NT-to-NT SSH session so that the monitor does not break when an 'error' and 'exit' are returned in the std output.
20. Alerts: Fixed a problem with the hyperlink for the alert indicator icon in monitor tables for alerts on multiple monitors across multiple groups. Previously the link was incorrect for the case of alerts for multiple monitors.
21. Installation: Added an option for localized Japanese install screens when running the SiteScope installation executable on servers with a non-English version of an operating system.
22. Websphere Monitor: fixed a problem in the Websphere Servlet Monitor where there was a missing value for the first counter
23. Documentation:
    • The monitor documentation has been reorganized into divisions to reflect several monitor type classifications: standard monitors, solution monitors, optional monitors, and EMS monitor types
    • Added a new SiteScope Reference Guide PDF that contains sections previously included as part of the Advanced Topics section in the SiteScope User Guide. This new SiteScope Reference Guide PDF contains a new section explaining master.config settings.
    • Added a new table of network ports used for SiteScope monitoring to the User's Guide in the section Getting Started with SiteScope
24. Internationalization:
    • Alerts log entry are I18N supported.
    • Alerts use the subject charset as defined in the master.config file. If not defined, UTF-8 is the default.
    • Group Creation: You can enter non English group names in I18N mode.
    • Integration with Monitor Administration is now I18N, when working in I18N mode
25. Base64:
    • Base64 encode subject trailer was changed from '==?=' to '?=' (RFC Standard).
    • Base64 Encoder support encoding strings by specific encoding. Streams for sending/receiving mails initialized by mail charset entry in master.config. If not defined, UTF-8 is the default.

Highlights in this release

• Added the Siebel Log File Monitor for monitoring Siebel server statistics.
• Enhancements were made to the Siebel Server Manager Monitor for expanded monitoring of Siebel server performance.

1. Monitors: enhancements were made to the Siebel Server Manager Monitor including:
   • added support for monitoring Siebel 6.x servers
   • added support for monitoring component group metrics
   • added support for metrics indicating both tasks running and tasks completed
2. Added the Multiple Log File Monitor for monitoring one or more text-based log files within a single directory.
3. Added a new field to the Database Monitor that associates a text descriptor to the monitor data reported to Topaz.

1. Monitors: changes were made to the Siebel Server Manager Monitor to:
   • in the Siebel Server Manager Monitor counter browse tree, components are now qualified by their parent component group
   • improved error handling for the monitor
   • fixed a problem with script path handling so that UNC specification can be used for specifying script path
   • the percentage of tasks in error counter (% tasks in error) has been changed and is now reported as the number of tasks in error (# tasks in error)
2. Fixed a problem in the Script Monitor where if you specify a parameter string (to pass to the script) that contains \\xxx, the parm string gets passed to the script as \xxx. Also fixed a problem where \" was being passed as just ". The string entered in the Parameters field are now passed correctly, without escaping when using the \ character.

Highlights in this release

• New integrated Java SSH client for monitoring over SSH connections

1. Platform: with this release SiteScope supports the Red Hat 9.0 platform.
2. WebLogic Monitor: Added support for WebLogic 8.0 application servers.
3. Security: Added the choice of using an integrated Java client as part of the SiteScope application for connecting with SSH to remote machines. This client provides a significant increase in SSH remote scalability, reduces the resource consumption on the SiteScope server and is the default client for all new SSH remotes. External SSH clients are still supported. This new feature introduces the ability to parallelize monitor execution against SSH remotes. The degree of parallelism defaults to 3 simultaneous connections, and is configurable in the user interface.

1. Log Files: All passwords are recorded as asterisks (stars) in the log files.
2. Performance: The thread stack size for SiteScope on UNIX/Linux was changed to 256kb.
3. SAP CCMS Monitor: Added support for SAP configurations where there is more than one SystemNumber running in an Application Server.
4. Browser: added the Mozilla 1.4 browser to the list of SiteScope supported browsers.
5. SiteScope Service: for SiteScope on NT/2000, the SiteScope Service shuts down more gracefully. Note: On some large SiteScope installations using the command net stop SiteScope may report that it is unable to stop the SiteScope service. This message is erroneous; the service will stop. However, it may take longer than the time allotted by Microsoft Windows for completion of the net command. This is the cause of the error message.

Highlights in this release

• Upgraded JRE used by SiteScope to 1.4.2_02
• WebSphere Monitor now supports WebSphere 5.x series servers
• New group-level setting to synchronize the running of all monitors within a group
• New SSH setting controls on NT and UNIX Remote pages
• Improved report generation performance

1. The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) included with SiteScope is upgraded to version 1.4.2_02. Among other improvements, this allows the use of Microsoft Authorization certificates for SSL.
2. Installation: A new "Update from Web" program item is added to the Windows Start Programs group for SiteScope on Windows NT/2000. This enables checking for SiteScope upgrades via the Internet.
3. SiteScope Health: added individual line item Reset and a global Reset option to the SiteScope Health monitors to reset and clear earlier error or warning status.
4. Log File Monitor: added options to check log file records from the beginning of the file either once or every time that the monitor is run.
5. WebSphere Monitor: added support for WebSphere 5.x series servers.
6. WebSphere Performance Servlet Monitor: added support for the counters in error threshold.
7. Monitor groups: Added a new group-level setting to synchronize the running of all monitors within a group to a group update schedule.
8. WebSphere MQ Status Monitor: Added support for monitoring Events on MQ servers.
9. Added support for forwarding custom headers in URL redirects.
10. SSH: Added UI support for configuring advanced SSH options when configuring remote server connection profiles to use SSH connections. The new UI section presents a number of options and enhancements for using SSH connections for SiteScope monitoring including:
    • Added a Port Number setting to the SSH connection settings options for remote server profiles. This resolves intermittent no data results when using SSH to connect to remote servers.
    • Added support for a secondary SSH response
    • Added support for limiting the number of concurrent SSH connections open to a single server.
    • Added support for caching SSH connections. Allows SiteScope to pool SSH connections for multiple monitors rather than establishing a new connection for each command.

1. License: The behavior of SiteScope has been changed in the case that the SiteScope license has expired. A new page is displayed that notifies the user of the license status and allows a new license to be entered.
2. Reports: Changes were made to significantly improve SiteScope report generation which includes reducing the CPU usage and time needed to generate reports.
3. Log File Monitor: Allow subdirectories to be included in log name for UNIX remote.
4. Web Services Monitor - Added support for use of NT Challenge Response
5. File, Log File, and Directory monitors: Changes were made to facilitate monitoring of files, log files, or directories on a remote Windows NT/2000 server. SiteScope will attempt to connect through NetBIOS if the user includes the UNC path to the remote file. If a NetBIOS connection is unsuccessful, SiteScope will try to match the \\remoteserver with servers defined in the remote NT connection profiles.
6. The setting _noCheckDefaultThresholds=true has been corrected to match the default SiteScope behavior for checking monitor status. When set to true (or when the setting is not found in master.config, group, or monitor frame) SiteScope will only check the result of the monitor against the error, warning and good thresholds set by the user. If no user selected threshold condition resolves to true, the monitor status will be reported as "good". The effect is that any inconsistencies in error, warning, and good thresholds logic or limits are ignored. When set to _noCheckDefaultThresholds=false, SiteScope will check monitor results against the user selected thresholds and also against the default (hard coded) SiteScope thresholds for that monitor type. For both setting options, the first threshold that resolves true stops all further threshold checking.
7. NT Performance Counter Monitor: Added support for the PERF_PRECISION_100NSEC_QUEUELEN counter type.
8. Service Monitor:
   • Fixed a problem when the monitor is looking for a service name on Windows where a match is reported for any service name containing the target service name as a substring of another service name. For example, setting the monitor to match on Network DDE would also match on Network DDE DSDM. Now the monitor will no longer match on substrings.
   • The same fix as above was made for when the monitor is looking for a process name on Windows. Now the monitor will no longer match on substrings.
   • On UNIX, fixed a problem in matching process names when a process list includes non-alphanumeric characters such as quotes.
9. Script Monitor: Fixed an error that was generated if parentheses are used in the content match field for the monitor.
10. Topaz Watchdog: Changed the license point cost of the Watchdog monitors to be zero points
11. Siebel Monitors: Added the ability to report to Topaz the quality (or status) for each measurement being monitored rather than only the monitor status.
12. WebLogic Monitor: Fixed a problem to handle large error messages and reformat them to a reasonable size.
13. Tuxedo Monitor: Upgraded the monitor to support the latest version of the product supported by LoadRunner.
14. WebSphere MQ Status Monitor:
    • Changed the monitor to allow monitoring of queues that are locked in transactions or by processes.
    • Added support for Channel Time between Sends counter for multiple channels in one monitor instance.
    • Added support for connecting to the MQ server through a port other than the default port 1414.
    • Corrected some other error handling behavior.
15. ALT Script Monitor
    • Fixed a problem where monitor results failed to display in reports if there were many transaction defined (for example, more than 10 transactions).
    • Support for multiple thresholds to the ALT Script monitor type was restored.
    • Changed the license behavior to count a minimum of 3 points for each monitor instance.
16. QTP Script Monitor: This monitor type was deprecated in this release.
17. Restored the display of custom columns for monitors.
18. CPU Monitor has been upgraded to work with RedHat 9 servers.
19. UI: All password fields are hidden on HTML pages and in tools for NT Challenge Response. In addition, if no password is defined, the field is now blank.
20. LDAP: Enabled caching of LDAP authentication so that SiteScope will only need to authenticate once per session instead of for each page request. This feature is controlled by two new entries in the master.config file: _ldapAuthenticationCaching and _ldapCacheExpirationInSecs
21. Remote UNIX: Fixed a problem with the Detailed Test of Remote UNIX server connection profiles that use SSH as a connection method.
22. Added a setting _createDailyPostLog= in the master.config for creating daily post logs instead of a single post.log. When this setting is set to true, SiteScope will create daily post logs with filenames in the form of postYYYY_MM_DD.log
23. Added a setting _createDailyAccessLog= in master.config for creating daily access logs instead of a single access.log. When this setting is set to true, SiteScope will create daily access logs with filenames in the form of accessYYYY_MM_DD.log

Highlights in this release

• Added the SAP CCMS Monitor
• Added the MQ Status Monitor for MQ Series monitoring
• Enhanced COM+ Monitor
• SiteScope Health able to verify MG and config file health
• Configure multiple remote server profiles by entering a comma separated list of remote server addresses
• Export Monitor Summary Report in text formats
• Improved integration with Topaz
• Enhanced SiteScope Failover performance
• Several UI and navigation changes

1. Added a SAP CCMS Monitor type for monitoring SAP Computer Center Management System.
2. Added a MQ Status Monitor type for monitoring MQ Series servers.
3. Added an enhanced COM+ Monitor type monitoring components on COM+ enabled servers. This monitor type was available in SiteScope 7.8.0.1 as a patch. The monitor is now available and has been enhanced with a new timeout field. Requires an optional license and download of required software components.
4. Added a Windows Resources Monitor as a beta monitor type for monitoring performance counters on remote Windows servers using the Performance Data Helper utility.
5. Manage Monitors: added a new view filter feature to the Manage Monitors and Groups page to create a filtered, selectable list of monitors and / or groups based on name, machine, or monitor type.
6. SiteScope Health: added new SiteScope health monitoring functions that include:
   • integrity checks and validation of monitor group (MG) configuration files
   • integrity checks and validation of SiteScope master configuration file
   • integrity checks and validation of history report configuration file
   • monitoring of several key parameters relating to SiteScope-to-Topaz connectivity and data transfer
   This incorporates the functions of the MG Analyzer utility available with previous versions of SiteScope.
7. Browse Monitors: added an Edit link for individual monitors in the table that gives direct access to the Edit Monitor page for the subject monitor. A Refresh link has also been added to allow a monitor refresh.
8. SiteScope Health: A Max Monitor Skipping setting has been added to allow monitors that are skipping to be disabled automatically and sends an e-mail to the administrator instead of restarting SiteScope. This function is disabled by default but can be enabled by removing the _shutdownOnSkips=true setting in the master.config file.
9. SSH: Added ability to choose key or password based authentication for SSH connections on a per connection basis. (Windows only)
10. Script Monitor: added a feature that allows you to pass parameters to a "USE COMMAND" script .
11. Websphere Monitor: added a timeout field on the monitor add and edit page.
12. iPlanet Server Monitor: added new messages that help guide the user through various errors, dealing with URL format, Netscape versions, and counter mismatches.
13. Monitor Sets: UNIX machine names will appear with the monitor names as the readable server name, while the _remote setting in the configuration files will contain the correct server remote reference.
14. Alerts: Added an optional alert icon display to the SiteScope main page, group detail pages, and Browse Monitors page to indicate if alerts are configured for the context displayed. This feature is enabled/disabled on the General Preferences page.
15. Reports: Added an optional report icon display to the group detail pages and Browse Monitors page to indicate if reports are configured for the group or monitors displayed. This feature is enabled/disabled on the General Preferences page.
16. SSH: UNIX Remotes configured with SSH can now be defined and used multiple times for the same target machine. This will allow for manual load balancing of monitors against the same server.
17. NT and UNIX Remotes: added the capability to create multiple remote server profiles using common login credentials by entering a comma separated list of remote server addresses on the Add Remote Server page. Note: Server definitions created using this feature are added to the remote server list but connectivity to the remote server is not automatically tested.
18. Main Page: Added a "worst category" status icon to the SiteScope Main Page and the SiteScope Multi-view button at the top of the display that indicates the worst reported monitor category being reported. This provides an overview of status without the need to see all groups on the page simultaneously.
19. Reports: Added graphing of numbers that use _noScientificNotation=#.#####
20. Added -DWebSphereMonitor.debug=255 for debugging with bin/go.bat; This prints details of the connection process for the WebSphere Monitor. Output goes to console.
21. Link Check Monitor: Added _keepTryingForGoodStatus=7 for the monitor. Manually add to group or monitor. It will try for a good status 7 times using a different URL api. Also escapes blanks in forwarding links.
22. Monitors: Added _noCheckDefaultThresholds=true property. When set to true the monitor will *only* check the result of the monitor against the error, warning and good thresholds of the monitor, as defined by the SiteScope administrator in the Monitor edit/add GUI. If the _noCheckDefaultThresholds= setting is missing then the monitor will first check the result of the monitor against the defined thresholds and if none of the conditions are met the monitor will then check the default thresholds of the monitor. Manually add this property to a monitor, group or master.config
23. Multi-view: added a Multi-view Preferences section to the Edit Multi-view page that allows editing of Multi-view settings previously accessible only by editing the master.config file. Access permissions to the preferences are controlled by the Edit Multi-View setting under User Preferences.
24. Monitor Summary: added an optional feature to export the Monitor Summary Report (formerly the Monitor Description Report) to a file on the SiteScope server. The file format options are comma-delimited (csv), tab-delimited (txt), and HTML (htm) formats. SiteScope presents a hyperlink to the exported file when the report is generated.
25. Topaz Watchdog has been integrated into SiteScope. The Topaz Watchdog functionality is available when SiteScope is configured to log data to Topaz. Topaz Watchdog is enabled/disabled via the Topaz Preferences page.
26. Added _ignoreMissingTemplateProperties=true property. When set in master.config, group header or monitor frame, this will silently ignore missing properties that are referenced in template files. Specifically added for SNMP alert templates.
27. SSH: Added _debug=true property for SSH remotes. When set in master.config for a particular remote configured to use SSH, extended debug information will be printed to RunMonitor.log. This information compliments the trace facility.

1. Topaz Integration: Several changes were made regarding the integration of SiteScope with Topaz to improve scalability, reliability, and SiteScope performance.
2. SiteScope Failover: Enhanced the effectiveness and accuracy of SiteScope Failover (High Availability) feature, and added support for improved Topaz reporting during Failover situations.
3. Web Service Monitor: Added namespace qualifier to method name invocation element of the SOAP request, as some web service providers require it.
4. Alerts: Alert Definition Page advanced "status match" feature no longer stays blank after a status match is entered.
5. Ping Monitor: if Ping does not connect, and SiteScope is configured for Topaz, the good/error/warning conditions can test against 'n/a' for %packets, otherwise %packets tests against 0 (zero)
6. Reports: Fixed a problem so that jpg files in Reports now display for non-administrator users. Added a SiteSeer/SiteScope switch to handle jpg files correctly.
7. http://localhost:8888/SiteScope/cgi/go.exe/SiteScope?page=topaz page will now display with HTML(&<>;) and multi byte characters in groups.
8. URL Sequence Monitor: the monitor now clears the matchValue properties from previous runs when no match is found on the current run.
9. Reports: the _maxStatusLength=320000 setting controls status length in reports, default 256 characters. Very long lines in SiteScope log no longer break reporting functionality.
10. E-mail Alert: e-mail will continue sending to addresses if one e-mail address goes to a mail server that times out.
11. NT Counter Monitor: the monitor now finds parenthesis between backslashes to identify DB instance. Ignores extra parentheses like this \\server\perfobject\counter(KB)
12. Schedules:When adding/editing a report using month-to-date you can specify a schedule time, and the time will no longer revert back to 00:00
13. Radius Monitor: the monitor, using Java 1.4, now monitors RSA Radius Server. We only send a buffer long enough to hold the data written. Added -DRadiusMonitor.debug
14. Port Monitor: the monitor will now do string matching on the "port response" text by using 'port response' selection in the error/warning/good thresholds. Use 'contains' with single quoted text.
15. SNMPTrap templates.snmp files can now contain a line like this: [Specific: <_myMgMonitorSpecificTag>] that will override the 'Specific' value in the SNMP preference page. This value will be sent in the 'Specific' field of SNMP Trap Alerts using this template.
16. Navigation:
    • the link for SiteScope Preferences was moved from the second row navigation links to become a button on the main SiteScope navigation bar. The Multi-view icon button has been removed and replaced with a text hyperlink as part of the second row navigation links.
    • Navigation: the second row navigation links have been changed to provide easier access to several key SiteScope views and features. The navigation links also display context-sensitive links for common actions depending on the view or page being requested.
17. Reports:
    • added processing logic to retain the "most significant" text for data legends displayed on the vertical axis of reports. Previously, the data legends for long counters used in some Application monitors were truncated to the first 21 characters. This often removed the "most significant" text from the counter label. The change works to preserve the last portion of the counter label. The number of characters preserved varies based on the _chartHeight setting in the master.config file.
    • removed the SiteScope "fish"" logo from report chart frames. The logo continues to be displayed at the bottom of report pages. Also corrected the layout of optional report subtitle text to be aligned with the report title.
    • modified the generation of reports in XML format to add needed line breaks to correct a problem that some report sections contained lines that were too long for XML parsers.
18. Multi-view: made the following changes to the Multi-view display:
    • Moved the Multi-view Edit link from below the display table to a navigation button at the top of the display.
    • Moved the Multi-view Help link from below the display table to a navigation button at the top of the display.
    • Added an option to suppress local SiteScope license information from the Multi-view. To suppress the license string add the _overviewHideLicense=true setting to the master.config file.
19. Main Page: changed the display of the main SiteScope page to include new user guidance text in the case that no groups are found or if only the default "Examples" group is defined.
20. Monitor Sets: monitor sets can now be added by users accounts other than the SiteScope administrator.
21. Monitor Summary: links the report selection page now open the page in the same browser window.
22. Logs: Changes were made to the process for writing monitor data to the SiteScope monitor data logs to improve performance.
23. SiteScope no longer attempts to re-read the master.config if it is not there and it should be. Now, SiteScope shuts down in this error condition. To have SiteScope try to recover from this condition start SiteScope with -DretryMasterConfigReads=true on the java command line.
24. Manage Monitors and Groups: the Topaz Logging options has been changed. The previous two options of Enable Logging and Disable Logging have been replaced with a single button labeled "Topaz Logging Options". This brings up a separate page for selecting what data you want logged to Topaz.
25. Topaz Preferences: new controls have been added to the Topaz Preferences page that add new options for disabling and synchronizing SiteScope settings with Topaz. The disable option has been changed from a check box to a control button.
26. Logs: Changes were made to SiteScope file-based logging to improve SiteScope reliability and performance. Logging data to files is changed to use separate threads to reduce the process blocking. The logging is also buffered. Two parameters are added to the master.config to control these processes
27. go.bat has been moved to the SiteScope/bin directory. For backwards compatibility the go.bat in the SiteScope/classes directory will act as a redirect.
28. Installation: the UNIX/Linux Installer has been changed to use an InstallShield Multi-Platform installation package.
29. Dispatcher binaries and related files have been moved from SiteScope/tools/Dispatcher to the SiteScope/directory.
30. Script Monitor: remote connection information can now be cached for multiple Script monitors running a single script on a remote server. This change is made to reduce remote login sessions, reduce network traffic, and improve SiteScope performance.
31. The CheckPoint OPSEC monitor type has been deprecated in this version.

Highlights in this release

• Created SiteScope Personal Edition (limited to 10 points)
• The Siebel Command Line Monitor now supports Siebel version 7.5.3
• Web Sphere Monitor supports WebSphere 5.x servers using the PMI interface.

1. URL Sequence Monitor: Fixed a bug that was introduced in version 7.8.0.0 that limited the URL Sequence Monitor to four steps. The monitor now works with more than four steps.
2. URL Sequence Monitor: The floating window that appears when the Displays HTML in a Floating Window option is checked in the URL Sequence monitor now disappears when requested.
3. Preferences/General: Fixed a bug that was introduced in 7.8.0.0. that in certain situations caused a blank screen to appear after saving changes in the Preferences/General page. A save operation no longer causes this situation.
4. Remotes: Fixed a bug in how SiteScope handles SSH connections when running a remote script. In certain situations when a script doesn't return, the SSH connection would hang and start skipping. SSH connection functionality now handles this situation without hanging.
5. Personal Edition: Mercury Interactive has created a new version of SiteScope called SiteScope Personal Edition. This version is the same as the standard SiteScope product but limited to 10 points. This release includes the ability for a Personal Edition license to be input in the license option field.
6. Service Monitor: Fixed a bug that was introduced in the 7.8.0.0 Service Monitor that resulted in failure of SSH communication between Windows NT systems. The Service Monitor now functions as normal via SSH.
7. ActiveWatch: Mercury Interactive has changed the name of its managed service offering from ActiveWatch to Topaz Managed Services (TMS). All references to ActiveWatch within SiteScope have been changed to Topaz Managed Services.
8. Ping: Fixed a bug that was introduced in SiteScope 7.8.0.0 that caused the Ping Monitor to not detect error conditions. The Ping Monitor now functions as normal.
9. Siebel Command Line Monitor: The Siebel Command Line Monitor now supports Siebel version 7.5.3
10. Topaz Integration: Fixed a bug in the integration between SiteScope and Topaz where an incorrect data format was being sent that caused inconsistent data logging.
11. Topaz and Reporting: Match value can now be reported in both.
12. Web Sphere Monitor: support was added for monitoring WebSphere 5.x servers using the PMI interface.

Highlights in this release

• Added SiteScope configuration file backups options
• Added the Siebel Web Server Monitor and the Siebel Server Manager Monitor for monitoring Siebel servers.
• Revised the first time setup screens
• Added ALT Script Monitor using Mercury Interactive's Astra LoadTest
• New Backup Groups option for restoring files like master.config and group files.
• Increased performance and scalability of the server monitors when monitoring Windows NT/2000 environments from SiteScope on Windows 2000.
• Upgraded JRE used by SiteScope to 1.4.1.02

1. Disk Space, CPU, and Memory monitors: these monitor types have a new Tools link on the monitor detail table page for Windows installations of SiteScope.
2. UNIX Remotes:
   • a secondary prompt and response field has been added for UNIX Remotes to account for cases where the remote server requests additional information to establish a telnet login session
   • a new feature has been added under UNIX Remotes that will allow the user to specify shell commands directly after a Telnet or SSH session has been initiated. These commands can be used to customize the shell for each SiteScope remote.
3. Added SiteScope configuration file backups feature that let you have SiteScope maintain one or more backups of all key SiteScope configuration files. Set the number of backups in General Preferences screen.
4. A Custom HTML property has been enabled for the user login page. This allows you to include your custom HTML above the page title. In master.config, add _loginHTMLHeader=html code
5. Added two new monitor types for monitoring Siebel servers: the Siebel Web Server Monitor and the Siebel Server Manager Monitor. Also included a setup wizard for creating groups and monitors for Siebel systems. Note: Enabling the Siebel monitor types requires a Topaz installation and a separate SiteScope license key.
6. Revised the first time setup routine to include a screen for entering e-mail and license keys and revised the following screen to allow links for setup wizards. The Copy Configurations wizard is now on a separate setup page.
7. Monitors: Added a "Clear" button to most browsable counter application monitors, such as the IIS Server Monitor, to allow all default counter selections to be cleared in a single action.
8. Added a new COM+ Server Monitor that can monitor application components running on a Windows COM+ server. For this monitor to be enabled, your SiteScope instance must be configured for use with Topaz. In addition, a small "COM+ Probe" component that is part of Topaz must be installed on the target COM+ server being monitored.
9. Added support via master.config settings to override how SiteScope handles file permissions on UNIX. The _setUnixFilePermissions setting a false value here will stop SiteScope from changing any of its file permissions. Setting this value may have unknown effects if the system defaults are not set properly. The _unixFileMask setting works exactly the same as umask(1) on UNIX, with one small change. It is not permitted to change the umask of the user bits. See man umask for a complete description.
10. Reports: Added functionality to not include no data (connection failure) to the uptime calculations
11. Added -DAlert.debug=true for debugging. This prints a fully expanded expression string for alert checking, with left side variable values printed.
12. Topaz Integration:
    • the default for Topaz integration is NOT logging to Topaz. Monitors need to be enabled to log to Topaz
    • Added number of metrics that are being logged to Topaz by default to Topaz prefs page.
13. Added a new monitor type on SiteScope for Windows to run test scripts created using Mercury Interactive's Astra LoadTest: the ALT Script Monitor. This monitor type is well suited for monitoring web page sequences that include Javascript content. Note: Enabling the ALT Script Monitor requires a separate SiteScope license key as well as installation of Astra LoadTest on the same machine as the SiteScope installation.
14. SiteScope 7.8c1 supports Windows 2003 Server. The RTSP Monitor and MAPI Monitor currently have limited support on this platform. These monitor types will fully support Windows 2003 Server in a later release.
15. Backup Groups: To backup the groups directory every 24 hours, insert the line: _backupGroups=true into SiteScope\groups\master.config. This is useful for restoring files like master.config and group files.
16. Added SiteScope configuration file backups feature that let you have SiteScope maintain one or more backups of all key SiteScope configuration files. Set the number of backups in General Preferences screen.
17. A Custom HTML property has been enabled for the user login page. This allows you to include your custom HTML above the page title. TO enable this feature, add the setting: _loginHTMLHeader=custom_html_code_here to the master.config file.
18. Monitor Description Report: Enhanced the selection options for the report to enable selection of sort key and order and to display groupwise dependencies as well as individual monitor dependencies.
19. Added functionality in Reports to exclude a status of "no data" (for example, a connection failure) from the uptime calculations in reports.
20. Added a setting to the master.config with the syntax of: _noScientificNotation=#.##### to control the number format in reports using java DecimalFormat. This also accepts commas in numbers.
21. Added a setting: _usePreviousRecordCount=true to NT Event Log Monitor to continue using an existing record count after a new connection with the remote is established.
22. Added a CGI option of -DAlert.debug=true for debugging. This prints a fully expanded expression string for alert checking, with left side variable values printed.
23. Added number of metrics that are being logged to Topaz by default to Topaz prefs page.
24. URL Sequence Monitor: When adding or updating with the wizard, you can now select "Displays HTML in a Floating Window" to see what the current target page looks like.
25. Added a new monitor type on SiteScope for Windows: the QTP Script Monitor. This monitor type requires a separate SiteScope license key as well as installation of QuickTest Pro on the same machine as the SiteScope installation.
26. Added API classes for communicating with Topaz Monitoring console known as project Flipper.
27. Two new J2EE monitor types are added for use with Topaz: J2EE Realtime and J2EE Report monitors.
28. Licensing: License point calculation was fixed so that all multi-metric application monitors are counted as one point total instead of being counted as one point per metric.

1. Email Subject line: When the international flag is set, the subject line doesn't get scrambled
2. SNMP Preferences: Saves and restores the SNMP Community field.
3. Significantly increased the performance and scalability of the Ping, Service, CPU, Disk and Memory monitors when monitoring Windows NT/2000 environments from a Windows 2000 SiteScope server.
4. SiteScope Fail-over: Removed link to Fail-Over if the feature is not installed. Should be present if Fail-Over is installed
5. The Java JRE used by SiteScope has been upgraded to version 1.4.1.02 from Sun Microsystems.
6. Master.config: Protected file operations have been added so that it is less likely that the master.config will be overwritten accidentally.
7. Changed the default setting for monitor groups so that SiteScope will not backup .dyn files by default. It can be overridden by changing the value of the _backupDyns setting in the master.config to be blank.
8. Script Monitor: Corrected documentation to better explain the optional USE COMMAND feature.
9. Added new "<span class=titlename>" and "<span class=groupname>" HTML code to the Multi-view page to allow control of SiteScope title and monitor group name font and color by use of the SiteScope UI style sheets.
10. LDAP Monitor: Added the password constraint to LDAP monitor. A password is required before the monitor can be added
11. The Support link at the right end of the navigation links has been redirected to the Mercury Interactive Customer Support web site. SiteScope users are encouraged to register for access to the online support site which includes an interface for entering and tracking support requests as well as a searchable SiteScope Knowledge Base.
12. Added a check box for including warnings with "good" time in total uptime calculation in reports.
13. Reports: Corrected the text label on the warning % check box in reports. It is a display option only.
14. Added explanation to templates to include e-mail links to SiteScope report pages.
15. UNIX and NT Remotes: The Password field in a UNIX or NT remote profile is not blanked out when editing the profile. The password defaults to the last password entered.
16. Added an International flag option to the Copy Configuration option on the setup page.
17. Log File Monitor: Fixed a problem so that e-mail alerts using a rules file are sent correctly now.
18. Script Monitor: Added an optional timeout setting for use with to the Script Monitor on SiteScope for NT/2000 that kills all script processes if the script does not return an exit value before the timeout period expires. Note: This only applies to scripts run in a NT-to-NT environment and requires editing monitor group files.
19. Disk Space Monitor: Fixed a problem in the monitor so it finds correct disk space information for C and D drive information, instead of 36MB COMPAQ partition.
20. Web Service Monitor: Fixed a problem with the monitor when reading a WSDL file that used the older 1999 version XML schema xsd file.
21. Web Service Monitor: Changed the monitor to display a blank parameters box with label "parameters=", to allow the user to manually enter complex type parameter values when SiteScope is not able to process unconventional complex type parameters in a WSDL file. Previous behavior was to just throw an exception.
22. Real Media Player and Windows Media Player monitors: Fixed a problem in the monitors that caused an error if the path to the player directories contained whitespaces.
23. Monitors: Fixed several problems in the Acknowledge Monitors feature:
    • When all monitors are acknowledged inside a subgroup, it is now reflected in the subgroup acknowledge icon.
    • When acknowledging a group via acknowledge button, now disables alerts in the group.
    • When an acknowledge is cleared, the alerts are enabled no matter how/where the monitor/group was acknowledged.
    • Return/refresh links are fixed.
    • Acknowledge clear after monitor status changes now enables alerts.
    • A new master.config setting has been added that forces acknowledgements to be cleared manually. They won’t be cleared automatically on status changes. This setting is _acknowledgeManuallyClear and should be set to true. If this setting does not have a value, SiteScope will behave as it previously has.
24. Directory Monitor: Fixed a problem on Linux where the monitor could generate false negatives. A new error message indicates when the user did not have permission to access all the subdirectories.
25. Fixed a problem on Linux where local scripts were not working without the shell invocation line at the beginning. This was a JVM issue and is resolved in JRE 1.4.1.
26. The SiteScope telnet client sometimes allowed the server to get into a state where it would not echo back SiteScope commands. The Telnet Client has been changed to encourage Telnet Servers to Echo back SiteScope commands.
27. LDAP Monitor: Fixed a problem with the monitor where an LDAP Array out of Bounds Exception when when the user did not do a match in the regular expression for the content match.
28. URL Sequence Monitor: fixed a bug where checkurlsequenc monitor could be null
29. Multi-view: Changed the launch event logic for the Multi-view button on the SiteScope navigation bar to open the Multi-view window without interrupting the Meta Refresh command of the SiteScope main panel. It was found that opening the Multi-view window would stop the automatic refresh of the SiteScope main page until the page was reloaded explicitly using the browser's Refresh or Reload command.
30. SiteScope will now try and kill off processes that SiteScope has been leaving as zombies when it restarts. This functionality is controlled by settings in the master.config. The _killProcesses setting: This true/false setting controls whether or not SiteScope will try and kill these processes. The _processDestroyTimeout setting: given in milliseconds, controls how long SiteScope will wait for Java to destroy processes on its own. Currently the processes being killed are plink.exe, ping.exe, SendModem.exe, srvrmgr.exe and perfex.exe. These can be overridden by the _doNotKillProcesses setting. Simply enumerate the processes that SiteScope should not kill. Note: SiteScope will kill off "all" processes with the names listed.
31. Reports: Fixed a bug where the warning not included in % was showing the wrong value in reports.
32. CPU Monitor: Fixed a problem with the CPU Utilization Monitor. It was reporting negative average CPU usage values for computers with 4 CPU's and using Micosoft O/S.
33. Alerts: Fixed Advanced features on the Add Alert Page. The Status Match field is no longer blanked out when Monitor Type is selected.
34. BroadVision Monitor: Fixed an anomaly where in a "Production" style configuration, non-root server metrics were not available for selection when defining a new BroadVision monitor. Note that a monitor should only be defined against a primary BroadVision root node. See the BroadVision Monitor documentation for details.
35. E-Mail Alert: The Default Mail Alert Template was changed to remove the <diagnosticText>from the Default mail template and changed NoDiagnostic template to WithDiagnostic template (to include the <diagnosticText>field).
36. Reports: added a Threshold Summary Table to Reports. The threshold summary table shows each of the monitors in the report and its error, warning, good thresholds. This feature is not automatically enabled, but must be enabled in the Report setup section.
37. Alerts: fixed a problem with "Alert on Good". There was a problem with alert on good “Always, after the condition has occurred at least X times” when using “Only allow alert if monitor was previously in error at least X times”. The first value would always change to the second value no matter how it was originally set. This problem has been fixed.
38. Restored missing thresholds to the Log File, Script, SNMP, and URL Content monitors which were missing a number of threshold properties.
39. SNMP Monitor: added status as a threshold option to the SNMP Monitor which can be changed in addition to being the default threshold.
40. Script Monitor: fixed a problem with the Script Monitor path. When running a log file monitor against a remote UNIX machine and a script monitor running a script on the same remote UNIX machine, the path for finding the script would be changed. This problem has been fixed.
41. URL Monitor: Fixed a problem with the URL Monitor and the ® symbol. The use of the ® symbol (when not created using an HTML entity reference) caused the output in the Tools page to stop after the symbol. This problem has been fixed.
42. Fixed a Problem With URL Sequence Monitor Reports where URL Sequence monitors with more than 19 steps were showing n/a in the Report details.
43. Changed the Web Service Monitor to always namespace qualify the method element of SOAP requests being sent when the monitor is run, as some web service providers require it.
44. Changed the Alert temporary disable feature to allow the use of a semicolon ";" in the comment field.
45. Fixed a problem with the Multi-view page where multiple instances of SiteSeer accounts were displayed if the accounts had subgroups.
46. Changed the Monitor Set routines to allow the creation of subgroups as part of a monitor set template.
47. The EJB Monitor was removed. This monitor was only available when SiteScope was integrated with Topaz
48. Made changes to SiteScope-to-Topaz integration to improve scalability

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