Servers Alive v5 Service Release 1 (build 1748)


New

  • HUGE speed increase when loading the hostfile and when deleting an entry.
  • For the URL check you can select between HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1 (default is HTTP/1.0)
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DBU Consulting\Servers Alive\Paging\MaxRedials (string) By default the SMS sending will try it 2 times (that's 1 re-dial), you can change this from 1 redial to max of 10 redials.
  • New HTML tags <sa_threshold_num>, <sa_checkresponse_num>, <sa_roundtrip_num>, <sa_stats_minrtrip_num>, <sa_stats_maxrtrip_num>, <sa_stats_avgrtrip_num> contains the first numeric part of their "normal" version tags.

    <sa_rrd_roundtrip_graphname>,<sa_rrd_checkresult_graphname> contains the name of the RRD graph that SA "could" generate.
  • SAIF can also use SA_PRETTYNAME as parameter
  • The SOA DNS check will return "Server authority for domain" or "Server not authority for domain" depending on IF the server that you're checking is the authority for the domain defined within the DNS protocol definition (ctrl-P)
  • Added the SRV record type to the DNS check, it will return the 'svr hostname' for the given domain
  • The SNMP GET check can do an SNMP SET before performing the SNMP GET Limited to SNMPv1/v2 and 3 SNMP SETs.
  • The SNMP check can also convert the received result to a HEX representation. (each charachter will be replaced by a HEX value (in 2 bytes) representing the ascii value of the character)
  • The process check is case-sensitive, this means that a process with the name test is different from a process with the name Test
    The process check can be made case-in-sensitive via HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DBU Consulting\Servers Alive\StartUp\ProcessnameCaseInsensitive (dword) with a value of 1.
  • New telnet/ssh command INCHECKCYCLE
    Possible response: YES/NO
    (if SA is busy doing a check cycle (realy checking) then the response is YES else NO)
  • HTTP(S) GET can also be used as ALERT
  • HTTP(S) GET/POST can also be used as EXECUTIVE ALERTS
  • HTTP/HTTPS checks full communication can be logged to a file for debugging purposes.
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DBU Consulting\Servers Alive\StartUp\logHTTP (dword) value of 1 to enable
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DBU Consulting\Servers Alive\StartUp\logHTTPFIle (string) file were logging should be done (include path)
  • Most SMS providers limited the number of chars within a message. You can control the way Servers Alive is handling this via:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DBU Consulting\Servers Alive\Paging\MaxMessageSize (string) to define the max size of a message (when not in the registry or 0, we default to 160)
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DBU Consulting\Servers Alive\Paging\SpliLongMessage (string) value of 1 -> message of more then MaxMessageSize will be split into several messages, value of 0 the message is cut at MaxMessageSize bytes (everything over MaxMessageSize isn't send)
  • RRD checkresult logging can also be done for the EXTERNAL (non-COM!) checks. (was already possible for diskspace, perfmon and snmp checks)
  • The client certificate support has been enhanced. You can now load a KEYfile and a CERTfile for the individual HTTP(S) check. You have to edit the entries file for it however.
    #SSLKEYFILE=c:\directory\keyfile.ext#SSLKEYPWD=password#
    SSLCERTFILE=c:\directory\certfile.ext#SSLCERTPWD=password#
    IF you're using a PFX file then the SSLKEYFILE and SSLCERTFILE parameter will point to the same file, and both the SSLKEYPWD and SSLCERTPWD will be the same too.

Fixes

  • In response to security advisory CAN-2005-0352 we disabled to use of the F1 key (HELP) in Servers Alive when running it as a service.
  • The COM check logic has been completely rewritten. It fixes several crash situation, uses less memory and handles.
  • In some cases you could get an error when doing a logoff/logon on the system running SA as service when SA was non minimized.
  • The Save Changes at exit was not triggered by a change that SA makes to the externalCOM check parameters.
  • The user running the app/service needs to have a TEMP directory and have write access to it, for the system user this can be a problem. That's why the URL check will now create a file within the same directory as the serversalive.exe file and this file is called "_temp_for_url.tmp"
  • When trying to move the first alert above itself there was a runtime error and after that a crash of SA.
  • We can see a theoretical way of getting Servers Alive external COM check into a loop, this should now be fixed.
  • Due to a typo the time-limited registration codes didn't work.
  • Some issues with the URL check when there was a timeout after the 302 redirect
  • Some issues with the URL check when a cookie was send within a 401 (access denied) frame.
  • The RTSP check always gave a down, even if the stream was up.
  • The menu to add an executive alert did show a "command" but selecting it did nothing.
  • Executive alert (when more then ..% of all) didn't work correctly.
  • During a check cycle we could get a runtime error 91 - fixed for several unrelated cases with the same error
  • Timing issue during the FTP + SSL upload, causing the connection to be made but the file wasn't uploaded.
  • The SMTP mail sender uses the local hostname and hostdomain when sending the HELO/EHLO command to the remote server. On NT4 systems the standard APIs we're using to get the hostname/hostdomain don't work correctly. Therefore we decided that IF for some reason the HELO/EHLO logic that we're using results in an empty "name" that we will use SAHOST.DOMAIN.COM when sending the HELO/EHLO command to the (remote) SMTP server.
  • If the an "nt service name + display name" was longer then 128 double bytes then the listing/checking of a service on that system (even one with a short name) would hang.
Customer praise
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