This release is a major update of the product.

New and changed monitor types

Dedicated monitors for system resources such as CPU load, memory usage, disk space usage, and system processes have been added. Every type of resource can be queried using any of 3 technologies: WMI, SNMP, or SSH. Thus, 12 new monitors were added in total (3 protocols * 4 resource types). Previously you could only monitor average CPU load and available memory explicitly with the WMI Query monitor. It was not possible to specify any additional parameters. Also in the previous releases you could monitor certain system resources by means of the SNMP Custom monitor and selecting a resource in SNMP MIB Browser but that was rather inconvenient. For example, you had to define a disk index instead of providing its human readable name. Now you can define various parameters for monitored resources. For example, you can give a disk name, indicate whether to check for used or free disk space and select units of measure (Mb/GB/%). You can give a process name, optional arguments and query a total count of such running processes or CPU load they generate on any remote host. The SSH monitor was improved by adding the capability to run a locally defined script on a remote host. You can take the script body from a local file or define it inline in a text box. The WMI monitors for CPU and memory were replaced by new resource monitors. The existing monitors of those types will be converted to new ones automatically. An Uptime (days) parameter was added to the WMI Query monitor. An upcoming new set of functional features of IPHost Network Monitor will be based on the new monitor types mentioned. Refer to the product help for a detailed description of settings for all new monitors.

IPHost Client Application changes

New Monitor Wizard has been revamped due to an increased number of various monitor types. Now it allows you to easily locate and add necessary monitors to your system. Previously you could create only one monitor of a certain type at a time. You had to run the wizard multiple times to create monitors of different types that might have common settings. On the first page of the wizard you can select multiple monitors to create. Monitors are grouped by categories to simplify searching for a particular monitor type. You can add most commonly used monitor types to the ‘Favorites’ category by clicking the Star/favorite icon. The ‘Favorite’ category is selected by default to avoid searching for your favorite monitors. Using the ‘Find’ line narrows your search by finding your keywords in the monitor type’s name or description. Another option to narrow the search is to use filters. You can select the protocol filter and/or resource type filter by clicking the corresponding checkboxes. You can see a changing number of filtered monitor types when checking/unchecking different checkboxes. Before leaving the first page of the wizard you can review and correct the list of selected monitors. On the next pages you select or define a new host (server) for the new monitors. And on the last page you can review and adjust monitor parameters. As with the new monitor types, this new wizard layout will be used to develop an upcoming new set of functional features of IPHost Network Monitor.

IPHost Client Application changes

It is now easier to manage credentials used to access monitored hosts and services. Credentials are used to monitor resources that require authentication and authorization and to execute certain simple alerts that also require authentication. Previously you had to define credentials in the settings of each such monitor or alert, even though in most cases there is a limited number of different sets of credentials that might be defined from one central place. It is also common to have all resources on a host share the same credentials, and LDAP allows sharing them across all hosts of the network. The new design does just this. Now you can define named credentials of various kinds use inheritance to propagate them down the host tree, or override them at any level. Now there are three types of named credentials: Windows, UNIX-like, and SNMP. You can manage credentials of any type on the new User Credentials page in the Settings dialog. Monitors that use credentials of a certain type now have a separate credentials section on the Main parameters tab where you can define which ones should be used. You can indicate whether credentials of the parent tree node (a host etc.) should be inherited, or you can break the inheritance and select a different existing set of credentials, or add a new one. This can be done for hosts, host groups, and agents as well. Also, you can change the credentials used for network (re)discovery on the new Credentials tab on the Rediscovery page of the Settings dialog or in the Discovery wizard.

IPHost global settings changes

We have added a Web Interface settings page, which allows you to:

* enable/disable “Insecure” access to Web Interface (via HTTP)

* enable/disable “Secure” access to Web Interface (via HTTPS)

* tune the Apache web server HTTP port

* tune the Apache web server HTTPS port

* tune the host name or host IP address used to access system Web Interface

* change web server certificates and private key

* protect Web Interface with a password

IPHost Client Application changes

We have simplified editing of the Main parameters, State conditions, and Alerting tabs. You don’t need to press the “Edit parameters” button to start editing anymore. All panes are now permanently editable.

Monitoring Service changes

The service now ignores monitor dependencies if they produce a cycle, that is, some monitor appears to depend on itself. Cyclic dependency tracking is fixed. Now you cannot create cycles in a dependency chain. Previously it was possible and the client application might hang when editing such dependencies. There is one exception: you can specify that a monitor depends on itself. Such a dependency will be ignored. It may appear, say, when you indicate that all monitors in a group depend on one of the group member monitors using inheritance of settings. For example, you have a group of a few hosts behind a switch and make them all dependent on PING for that switch in the settings of a host group which are then inherited by all hosts and monitors. Then PING for the switch will depend on itself, too, and this “cycle” will be ignored by the service.

Monitoring Service changes

Now IMAP and POP3 monitors can be discovered even with wrong credentials settings.

We have added the “Ignore HTTPS (SSL) errors” option to HTTP(S) monitor and “Ignore SSL certificate errors” option to Mail (IMAP, POP3, and SMTP) monitors. It allows ignoring various SSL certificate errors, e.g. a self-signed or expired certificate. This option is turned on by default.

The generation of unique Message-ID in email messages is fixed.

The “Edit parameters” popup has been removed from the test email dialog.

IPHost Client Application changes

Now negative values are allowed in the Value List section on the State conditions tab.

IPHost Client Application changes

The SNMP Trap payload now can be accepted or rejected based on its full payload, not on values only. The payload consists of  several ‘OID value_type value’ triplets. And this payload now can be filtered by using regexps for ‘OID=value’ strings.

Several small bug fixes.