Policies, checks and thresholds

Monitoring policies live in Settings > Monitoring, listed in the order they apply: the global default, customer policies, site policies, device group policies, device overrides, then any policy not assigned anywhere. Each shows what it changes, where it applies, its checks, thresholds and windows, and how many devices it reaches. See How monitoring works for how they combine.

Warning: Managing monitoring decides what every monitored device runs, as SYSTEM or root. Give the Monitoring manage permission only to people you would trust with that.

Create a policy#

1. Go to Settings > Monitoring and click New policy.
2. Give it a Name and, if you like, a Description.
3. Set a Priority. At one level, the higher priority wins.
4. Choose where it applies: Customers (every device of these customers), Sites (every device at these sites) and Device groups (every device in these groups). A policy assigned nowhere does nothing until you assign it.
5. Save, then set what the policy changes (below).

Device overrides are made for you the first time you change a check or threshold for one device from its page, and are listed under Device overrides.

Settings#

Open a policy to edit it. In any policy but the global default, tick Set beside a setting to change it here; leave it as Inherited to take it from less specific policies. Save with Save changes or Cmd+S.

Checks, thresholds and windows save as you change them, and switching one on or off takes effect straight away. Changes reach the agents within moments.

Checks#

Checks are things the agent tests on every device the policy reaches. Click Add check and choose the Type:

For every check you also set:

1. A Name, as it appears in lists and alerts, for example Practice portal.
2. Run every, from 30 seconds to an hour, and whether it is Switched on.
3. Only on: limit it to Windows, macOS, Linux or Other. Leave all unticked for every operating system.
4. Warning after so many failures in a row, and Critical after (leave empty for never critical).
5. A Key. A check with the same key in a more specific policy replaces this one. It is made from the name unless you change it.

An HTTPS check also reports how many days its certificate has left, which the certificate thresholds use. A ping check also has limits for packet loss, round trip and jitter. File, folder, software and script checks, and ping limits, are covered in Script, file and server checks.

Note: For safety, ping, port and HTTP checks refuse link-local and cloud metadata addresses, and the agent refuses them too.

Thresholds#

Thresholds say when data becomes an alert. Click Add threshold and choose what to alert on:

Then choose the Severity (Info, Warning or Critical), whether it is Switched on, and its Key.

• Clears only past stops a value hovering on the line from flapping. Left empty, a metric must come back 5% of the threshold (at least 1) before the alert clears.
• Thresholds on the same thing share one alert. Disk C: at 86% opens a warning; at 96% the same alert turns critical; back at 90% it is a warning again.

Use the switch on a row to turn a check or threshold off, and the ... menu to edit or delete it. Deleting or switching off a rule resolves its open alerts, because the rule has gone. If another rule of the same family still applies (for example a warning left when you delete the critical), it takes over at once.

Templates by server role#

The Templates tab in Settings > Monitoring has eleven ready-made policies: domain controller, file server, SQL Server, Hyper-V host, IIS web server, Exchange hybrid, print server, Proxmox node, Linux web server, Remote Desktop host and backup server. Each watches the role's services, checks the event logs for the role's known errors, checks its ports or web interface, and where storage fills, adds disk thresholds and a forecast.

Each template finds its servers by itself: a device group rule looks for the role's own services (for example NTDS on a domain controller or vmms on a Hyper-V host), or the device role of the same name. So you can apply a template to every customer and it reaches only the servers that have the role, including ones added later.

1. Open Settings > Monitoring and click Templates.
2. Open a template's ... menu to see what it adds and how many devices it would find.
3. Choose Copy to make a policy of your own from it (unassigned, to change first), or Apply to copy it and assign it to every customer or to the customers you pick.
4. To stop using it, choose Take off. The groups it made are removed and the policy stays, unassigned.

A copy is yours: changing it never changes the template, and a template that improves in a later update never changes your copy.

Changing one device#

To change a check or threshold for a single device, open the device and click Config on its Monitoring card. Change or switch off an inherited one, or add new ones; Tenvara stores the change in the device's own override policy. See Device health.