IMAP Monitor is a simple IPHost Monitor. IMAP, or Internet Mail Access Protocol, is one of two popular protocol used to access email. Unlike POP3, IMAP is much more flexible, allowing to store the message on server and thus access all the messages from any computer. IMAP Monitor allows you to check for mail server presence and pass authentication test.
Checking IMAP mailbox manually via telnet or openssl (in case of secure connection) isn’t hard, yet the password is in general case transmitted in plain text. If a secure IMAP is used, the password can’t be intercepted (sniffed), yet it still is typed in plain on console. If many email server should be checked, manual testing becomes ineffective. Exposing passwords also adds to security risk, even if consoles the only place passwords appear at. Testing connectivity only and/or not testing the IMAP authentication altogether isn’t an option if mail access availability is of high importance.
IPHost IMAP Monitor is easy to create, start by specifying an IMAP server (host) and port number. Ports can be either 143 (standard insecure or TLS connection) or 993 (standard secure port); other ports can also be used when necessary.
To test authentication, select a credentials set in Credentials section (or create a new one), and select a connection security type (TLS if available,TLS, SSL or none) from the drop-down list. It is not recommended to use real IMAP mailbox credentials for monitoring purposes; unless really necessary, create a technical account to monitor mail server state. Specify longer poll delay if required and set state conditions for down and warning states on State sonditions tab.
IMAP Monitor may be used for both checking mail server availability and authentication results (monitoring mail box credentials validity). Since IMAP is often used along with SMTP and, perhaps, POP3, creating monitors for all the mentioned protocols allows system administrators to control the stability of email services in general. Authentication assumes availability of other services, thus successful test would indicate regular state of several network services at once.
Depending on which type of service (site etc) IMAP mail is used, other type of IPHost monitors can be set up to watch the overall activity. Using IP Host PING monitor or TCP monitor etc. is recommended to lower the load on the server (i.e., run PING several times as more frequently as mail service monitor).
Description of other features:
| Monitoring Features | Here you can find the list of monitor types supported in IPHost Network Monitor and brief description of their parameters. |
| Application Templates | Here you can find the list of application templates supported in IPHost Network Monitor and their short description. |
| Network Discovery | Helps you to create a basis of your monitoring configuration and automates the task of detection network hosts and network services. |
| Alerting Features | Here you can find the list of alert types (ways of reaction to the problems happened during monitoring) available in IPHost Network Monitor, and their brief description. |
| Reporting Features | Here you can find the list of report types available in IPHost Network Monitor with brief descriptions. |
| IPHost Network Monitor interfaces and structure |
Here you can find an overview of IPHost Network Monitor components, Windows and web interfaces. |
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