Network state checking

[kurci2]

Hello!
I have a question related to services that provide checking if for example a website is up an running. One of those services is for example Pingdom. Point is that you can configure a checker that checks every minute if particular website is available and if it is not one gets a notification.

Now my question:
Those services (like pingdom) are checking form outside. Does anyone know if it is possible to configure a similar service but in following way. One computer from inside my network would constantly singnal that it is "OK". If the singal from the inside would dissapear I would get a push notification to my phone that there is something wrong with my network.

Thank you very much!

 

[RaDiKaL_]

Yes, that would be the trap messages from SNMP protocol, every device that supports SNMP has many different trap codes that you need to configure in order to get an email, SMS or RSS feed letting you know that something is wrong, from getting an alert that the CPU is overheating to a disconnection from the network.

You'll need to make a little research to implement it depending what device you are going to monitor and what alerts you want to receive from it, when having a lot of devices and parameters to oversee you might need some specialized software to handle all that information such as Solarwind's Network Monitor.

 

[kurci2]

Yes, that would be the trap messages from SNMP protocol, every device that supports SNMP has many different trap codes that you need to configure in order to get an email, SMS or RSS feed letting you know that something is wrong, from getting an alert that the CPU is overheating to a disconnection from the network.

You'll need to make a little research to implement it depending what device you are going to monitor and what alerts you want to receive from it, when having a lot of devices and parameters to oversee you might need some specialized software to handle all that information such as Solarwind's Network Monitor.

Thank you for your answer. I am aware of software like this (I already use PRTG for monitoring my devices). But the problem is that this software runs locally. So if one of monitored computer goes offline I am instantly notified.
The problem is if gateway fails. Then local sofware can not mail any notifications and I am not notified about failure. This is why I am looking for external service which would notify me when signals from inside my network would stop comming, indicating failure of my whole network (or most importantely of Gateway server).

Thank you again!

 

[bill001g]

Its all going to depend how much you want to pay for this service. The most common method is to try to prevent the failure by having redundant routers and internet connections. Other than that you are going to have to look at some of companies that provide network monitoring over the internet. Some claim to be free but I suspect there is a catch. You will have to use whatever method of monitoring they support. It likely would be them asking your machine for status rather than your machine sending status. You could of course lease a server and run whatever you like from a hosting center.

 

[kurci2]

Its all going to depend how much you want to pay for this service. The most common method is to try to prevent the failure by having redundant routers and internet connections. Other than that you are going to have to look at some of companies that provide network monitoring over the internet. Some claim to be free but I suspect there is a catch. You will have to use whatever method of monitoring they support. It likely would be them asking your machine for status rather than your machine sending status. You could of course lease a server and run whatever you like from a hosting center.

Hello! Thank you! I understand what are you saying.
But I need more specific information. Which service provides this functions? Whis software exactly should I run?
I am sure that someone did this before...

 

[bill001g]

It doesn't take much searching to find network monitoring services providers on the internet. Pretty much outsource server monitoring will get you many companies offering the service. We had looked at this before we just decided to put in a server at a hosting site running nagios and cacti ourselves...mostly because we did not trust to give out information to a external company.

This was a couple years ago so it may be different but the free services only did very basic stuff like ping your server every 15 minutes. If it was down for more than some period of time it would send a email. The paid service was pretty much a full outsourced monitoring service with similar tools to what you run internally. They could produce reports or monitor pretty much anything from cpu load to temperature of the hard drives. The part that prevented us from considering it was that we need to allow fairly extensive SNMP access which would allow them to gather far more information that some people felt was acceptable.

The simplest way is to place a server running your favorite monitor software in someone elses house. It really depends on if you are talking about some website you are using as a hobby or you have a commercial site that is generating money for you.

 

[kurci2]

Thank you for all your answers.
Unfortunately I did not find a service which would do exactly what I want.
But I did find one that is in my opinion the best so far. It is called Pulseway. One can get a variety of information and notifications from one's device. Also "critical" push notifications like offline state of the machine.

Thank you for your help. I hope someone else will find this information useful.