Understanding SiteScope E-mail Alerts

SiteScope E-mail Alerts are one of the methods that SiteScope can use to notify you about problems with applications and servers being monitored by SiteScope. The E-mail Alert contains a description of the problem that occurred. It may also contain diagnostic information and descriptions of the most common causes of the problem. This document will help you better understand the information in the alert message.

If you followed a link embedded inside an e-mail message to get to this page and you are not familiar with SiteScope, perhaps some explanation is in order. SiteScope is software, installed on a server, that is used to monitor applications and servers and report if they are performing correctly. A system administrator configured the SiteScope software to send you this alert when SiteScope noticed a problem in the Web environment.

This section describes:

The SiteScope E-mail Alert Format
Questions About Alerts

SiteScope E-mail Alert Format

SiteScope e-mail alerts can provide you with important data about conditions in your Web environment. Depending on which mail template has been chosen for the alert, the e-mail alert message contains details that allow you to quickly identify real and potential problems. These sections are described below:

Alert E-mail Subject Field

SiteScope e-mail alerts are sent with a summary of alert information written into the subject field of the e-mail message. This includes the following information:

the subject of the message -- "SiteScope Alert"
the category of the monitor alert -- error, warning, ok, or no data
the name of the monitor or title of the monitor
the status returned by the monitor
the address, in parentheses, of the SiteScope installation that sent the alert

The following is an example of a SiteScope generated e-mail alert header:

From: <sitescope admin e-mail> To: <you@yourdomain.com> Subject: SiteScope Alert, error, URL: http://gate.company.com, unknown host name (gate.company.com)

Alert Message Header

The message text of the e-mail alert is divided into sections. The first section is the alert header. The first line in the alert header includes a link to the SiteScope installation which sent the alert. This provides you with quick access to the SiteScope installation reporting the problem.

Below the link to SiteScope is a block of text that further summarizes what caused the alert. This includes:

the name of the monitor that triggered the alert
the group to which the monitor belongs
the alert status reported by the monitor
the sample id number indicating how many times the monitor ran before the condition was reported
the time of day when the error occurred

After this text block is a link to this help page of the SiteScope help documentation.

The following is an example header section:

This alert is from SiteScope at http://demo.thiscompany.com:8888/SiteScope Monitor: URL: http://missing.thiscompany.com Group: empty Status: unknown host name Sample #: 1034 Time: 9:57 am 9/8/98 For documentation about alerts, go to: http://demo.thiscompany.com:8888/SiteScope/docs/AlertHelp.htm

More Information / Diagnostics

This section includes more diagnostic information about the error that occurred. Depending on the type of monitor this may include:

a description of the error or alert condition
descriptions of the most common causes for this condition
if the monitor is the type that tests a network application, a ping test will be performed
if the ping test fails some description of the most common causes for this failure
if the ping test failed, a traceroute test will also be performed
a description and listing of the traceroute results

Note: if you do not want diagnostics to run, such as when traceroutes are taking too long, select the " NoDiagnostics " e-mail template by editing the e-mail alert or by selecting the template from the Additional E-mail preferences page. This is accessible the Edit E-Mail Preferences link on the edit alert page for the subject alert.

The following is an example:

More information: This message is returned when DNS cannot find an IP address for a name. Check the network connection to the DNS server. Check that the DNS server for that domain is running. Check that DNS is properly configured on the SiteScope machine. Check that the name exists in the configuration for that domain. A test of the Internet connection to gate.company.com failed. This suggests that the problem may be a failure of some piece of the network or the server. Trace Route results for missing.thiscompany.com This trace shows you the path to missing.thiscompany.com. Each line shows how long it took to get to the next step along the path. If the trace does not end at missing.thiscompany.com, then the last line shows the last good step along the path. The times are in milliseconds -- a large change shows which step is the slowest part of the connection. Unable to resolve target system name missing.thiscompany.com.

Monitor Details

This section lists the settings for the monitor which caused the alert. These settings can be changed by using the Edit Monitor form.

Example:

----------------------   Detail   ----------------------
URL: http://missing.thiscompany.com
Timeout: 60 sec
Update every: 864000
Title: URL: http://missing.thiscompany.com
Update every (on errors): n/a
round trip time: n/a

Questions About Alerts

The following are some common questions about SiteScope e-mail alerts. You can find additional information on SiteScope alerts in the Knowledge Base accessible at our Customer Support site .

Q: Why do I get a lot of e-mail messages about the same error?

A If an alert is configured to be sent "Always," , you will get an alert every time SiteScope monitor runs the test and finds an error. This can generate a lot of e-mail alerts for monitors which run frequently. If you only want an alert when the problem first starts, change the setting to "Once" under the When section on the Define E-Mail Alert form. This will instruct SiteScope to send an alert only once when the monitor finds an error. The monitor may continue to report an error but the alert will only be sent once.

Q: How do I configure SiteScope so it only sends an alert after the problem happens more than once?

A You can suppress transitory or intermittent alerts by making changes on the Define E-Mail Alert form. Most of the options under the When section on the form include text boxes for selecting a number. By default these are set to 1 (one). This means that an alert will be sent after the first time an error condition is reported. Changing this number for the option that you have selected will suppress the alerts until the error has been detected the number of time you have indicated. For example, changing the number of the option: "Always, after the condition has occurred at least N times" from 1 to 5 will have SiteScope send you one alert the first time there are five consecutive errors reported.

Another choice for suppressing intermittent alerts is to check the "Verify Error" box on the Add / Edit Monitor form. When this box is checked, SiteScope will verify the test result by immediately re-running the test when there is an error. Go to the Monitor detail page and click the Edit link in the Monitor detail table to bring up the Edit Monitor form for the selected monitor.

Q: Why do I receive e-mail messages saying SiteScope has started when I have not shut it down?

A SiteScope normally re-initializes itself once each day. You can use the E-Mail Preferences page to have SiteScope send a message whenever SiteScope restarts. If this check box is selected, SiteScope will send a brief status message to the administrator's e-mail address whenever SiteScope starts running or re-initializes. This means that you would normally receive a message once per day. This message will also be generated if someone manually stops and restarts the SiteScope process. Other incidents of this message may indicate that a monitor or process has taken too long to run. An example might be if a script being run by a script monitor hangs up during execution.