Improvements

• Service test
  Service test may work in 3 modes:
  a) Alert when service not started  -  HostMonitor checks specific service state
  b) Alert when service not started or does not respond - HostMonitor checks service state and responsiveness (this mode used by default)
  c) Alert when some "Auto" services not running
  HostMonitor will get list of ALL services with Automatic startup type and check state of each service. If some "auto" service is not running, HostMonitor will set Bad test status. You may specify comma separated list of services that should not be checked, e.g. MMCSS,sppsvc,UxSms; you may use * wildcard at the end of the name, e.g. clr*,spp*
  
  
• ODBC Query test
  Some ODBC drivers (e.g. MS SQL ODBC Driver version 13.1+) support Integrated Windows authentication and Active Directory Integrated authentication. In this case you may type WindowsAuth instead of login name (for Integrated Windows authentication) or set ADAuth as login name (for Active Directory Integrated authentication). Password field is not used in such case.
  
  
• SQL Query action
  When ODBC driver supports such options, you may type WindowsAuth instead of login name (for Integrated Windows authentication) or set ADAuth as login name (for Active Directory Integrated authentication). Password field is not used in such case.
  
  
• Database logging
  When ODBC driver supports such options, you may type WindowsAuth instead of login name (for Integrated Windows authentication) or set ADAuth as login name (for Active Directory Integrated authentication). Password field is not used in such case.
  
  
• Minor GUI improvements
  
  
• Improved WatchDog application
  
  

  The following issue was resolved

• RMA for Windows: HP iLO Fans test could check specific fan but could not check all fans installed on the system. Fixed

  New test methods

• Apache test (Apache HTTP Server is a free and open source web server for UNIX and Windows platforms).
  HostMonitor can check the following Apache server performance metrics:
  - Connections/sec
  - Bytes/sec
  - Busy workers
  - Idle workers
  
  
• NGINX test (NGINX is high performance HTTP and reverse proxy server).
  HostMonitor can check the following performance metrics:
  - Connections/sec
  - Requests/sec
  - Non handled ratio
  - Non handled count
  - Current connections
  - Busy(active) connections
  - Waiting(idle) connections
  - 1xx responses ratio
  - 3xx responses ratio
  - 4xx responses ratio
  - 5xx responses ratio
  - Total error responses ratio
  - Cache hit ratio
  - SSL fails ratio
  - SSL handshakes / sec
  - Health checks
  
  
• Tomcat test (Tomcat is one of the most commonly used servers for Java applications).
  HostMonitor can check the following performance metrics:
  - Free memory ratio (%)
  - Used memory (MB)
  - Busy threads
  - Busy threads ratio (%)
  - Requests/sec
  - Bytes/sec
  - Processing time
  - Errors/sec
  - Errors/requests ratio
  
  

  Improvements

• HostMonitor (RCC): new popup menu "Switch to folder N" switches from Views pane to Folders pane and selects folder where current test item is located
• HostMonitor (RCC): new option for custom menu items. If command starts with [copy] keyword then HostMonitor does not execute command, instead it resolves variables and copies data into clipboard. E.g. if you set menu item using the following command line [Copy] Test: %TestName% Reply: %Reply% select the test and click on menu, then HostMonitor will copy into clipboard buffer string with test name and reply value.
• New telnet command 'TDID <TestID>' (or 'TestDependentsByID <TestID>') shows list of IDs of all test items that depend on Master test specified by TestID

  The following issue was resolved

• HostMonitor (RCC): if you copy multi-line text from clipboard into User Defined Variables list (Global variables), GUI did not process such operation correctly. Fixed

  RMA for UNIX 1.32

• File Integrity test supports MD5, SHA256 and SHA512 digest. Use one of these modes when you need to check for unauthorized file modifications. CRC32 can be used for legitimate modifications monitoring (not related to system security).

  New test methods (HostMonitor, RMA for Windows)

• UPS Health
• UPS Load
• UPS Charge
• UPS Voltage In
• UPS Voltage Out
• UPS Temperature
• UPS Remaining Time

Using SNMP protocol HostMonitor may monitor uninterruptible power supply devices, check battery status, retrieve active alarm conditions, monitor battery temperature and charge level, input voltage and so on. HostMonitor can check various UPS models from APC, CyberPower, Hewlett-Packard Company, Eaton, IBM, TrippLite and more.

  Network Discovery

• Replication option "Adjust test settings automatically" tells HostMonitor to adjust some settings according to target host OS and detected protocols. Now it may set UPS type when you copy UPS related test
• New Replication option "If Master tests not copied, try to find new masters using existing tests as examples" can be very useful when you already have set of test items related to the target hosts but you want to replicate some new test methods. If you copy just dependent items, this option tells HostMonitor to check existing test items located in the target folder, find tests with similar "master-pattern" and set the same masters for new test items.

  Actions:

The following group names can be used in HM scripts
_AllUPSHealth   _AllUPSLoad   _AllUPSCharge   _AllUPSVoltageIn   _AllUPSVoltageOut   _AllUPSTemp   _AllUPSTime
E.g.
  DisableTest   _AllUPSLoad
  EnableTest   _AllUPSTemp
  PauseTest   _AllUPSHealth 10

  Acknowledgments:

Normally HostMonitor resets operators comments when test status changes from "bad" to "good". Now you may change this behavior. If you insert KeepAckCommentNDays=3 line into [Logging] section of hostmon.ini file and restart HostMonitor, it will keep comments that are up to 3 days old (you may use different number, e.g. keep comments for 5 or 15 days)

  HostMonitor, RCC and RMA: minor improvements and corrections related to the following modules

Tests

• HP iLO Health
• HP iLO Disks
• HTTP test
• URL test

Actions

• Send message to pager (TAP)
• Send message to beeper
• Send E-Mail

GUI

• Test Properties dialog for Drive Free Space test
• User profiles dialog
• Auditing Tool

  MIB Browser improvements

• supports SNMPv3, authorization, encryption
• supports SNMP profiles
• more responsive GUI

  Disk Meter improvements

• supports SNMPv3, authorization, encryption
• supports SNMP profiles

  The following issue was resolved

• HostMonitor 11.10 Beta: WMI test could fail by timeout. Fixed

  Improved tests

NT Event Log
New option "Report about last event but count ALL" works similar to "Report about last Bad/Good event" option, however it counts all NEW events that fit "bad" filter (and "good" filter if specified). If "Show events description in Reply field for NT Event Log test" option is disabled (Options dialog) then test will display number of detected "bad" events in Reply field of the test.
Also you may use '%NTEvents_BadCnt%' and '%NTEvents_GoodCnt%' variables for Optional status processing, actions or Custom HTML reports (regardless of "Show events description" option). E.g.

File Integrity

• Now test may check MD5, SHA256 and SHA512 digest. Use one of these modes when you need to check for unauthorized file modifications. CRC32 can be used for legitimate modifications monitoring (not related to system security).
• Also HostMonitor/RCC GUI and "Import from file" function allows you to setup test item with empty digest. In this case HostMonitor will calculate and set digest on 1st test probe. This saves your time when you need to setup tests for large files.
• Minor GUI improvements

URL

• Now test may check MD5, SHA256 and SHA512 digest. Use one of these modes when you need to check for unauthorized file modifications. CRC32 can be used for legitimate modifications monitoring.
• New option "Compute and check digest within the following tags" allows to specify some important parts of the document and check digest only for these parts. E.g. check digest for HTML code between "<table" and "</table>" sections

  Improved actions

Minor improvements related to the following actions:

• Show popup window
• Send e-mail

  Improved Network Discovery

Copy/Paste/Replicate functions offer new option "Adjust test settings automatically". It tells HostMonitor to adjust some settings according to target host OS and detected protocols. E.g. if you copy CPU Usage test from Windows to Linux host, HostMonitor may change OS property from "Windows (RPC)" to "UNIX (SNMP)"; also HostMonitor may change SNMP profile specified for the tests; change OS property for Memory tests; adjust Drive Free Space tests for Windows, UNIX or NetApp devices and so on.


  New application: Disk Meter

Disk Meter displays chart with information about all disk drives mounted on local or remote system. Each disk represented by a bar; red colored bar indicates disk with free space below specified limit.


Disk Meter can connect to remote system using WMI or SNMP protocol and retrieve data from various systems, such as:
- Windows
- FreeBSD
- Linux
- AIX
- ESXi
- Solaris
- NetApp NAS


  GUI improvements

• HostMonitor/RCC: new popup menu item related to Drive Free Space test allows to start Disk Meter using test settings for automatic data collection (note: SNMPv3 not supported by Disk Meter v1.00, will be supported in the next version)
• RMA Manager: better interaction between RMA Manager, HostMonitor and Active RMA agents
• Other minor improvements for HostMonitor, RCC and Web Service GUI

  The following issue was resolved

• HostMonitor v11.00 Beta could not process connections from Active RMA agents when many agents sent requests at the same time. Fixed

Over 100 improvements were made in version 11.00, most significant listed below

• 24 new test methods
• 11 improved tests
• Improved actions
• New variables
• Improved built-in tools
• Improved external applications
• Speed optimization

New test methods

New test methods for UNIX systems allow you to check Linux, BSD, AIX and other UNIX-like systems without using RMA agent (when SNMP protocol enabled on the system):

• Drive Free Space
• CPU Usage
• Process

(Memory test could check UNIX systems without RMA agent since version 9)

New test for monitoring Cisco devices

• Cisco Health
• Cisco Temp
• Cisco Fans
• Cisco Power
• Cisco CPU Usage
• Cisco Memory

New test methods allow you to check Juniper devices

• Juniper Health
• Juniper Temp
• Juniper Fans
• Juniper CPU Usage
• Juniper Memory

New test for monitoring NetApp storages

• NetApp Health
• NetApp CPU Usage
• NetApp Temperature
• NetApp RAID status
• NetApp Free Space

New test methods allow you to check HP servers using iLO protocol

• HP iLO Health
• HP iLO Temp
• HP iLO Fans
• HP iLO Power
• HP iLO Disks

Improved tests

Dominant Process	this test allows you to specify “exclude processes” parameter using expression like firefox.exe[800 MB], oracle.exe[8 GB] Expressions in square brackets tell HostMonitor to exclude firefox.exe and oracle.exe processes from check UNLESS firefox uses over 800 MB or oracle uses over 8 GB (memory). Similar expressions can be applied when the test checks for processes are using the most CPU, Handles or Threads; e.g. svchost.exe[30 %] or chrome.exe[4000]
Drive Free Space	now test may check available space on remote Windows systems using SNMP protocol (or WMI as before)
Process test	test may check Windows processes using SNMP protocol (or RPC as before)
CPU Usage	test method can check Windows systems using SNMP protocol (or RPC as before). When SNMP mode used then last minute CPU usage is displayed. Also test offers option to check either: average/cores CPU usage (for example if system has 2 CPU cores, 1st core shows 90% load, 2nd core shows 10% then HostMonitor will display average = 50%) max usage core (in this case HostMonitor will show 90% - core with maximum load)
Certificate Expiration	works with certificates expiring after 2049 year
URL test	"Check contents" option may check multiline text, it replaces CR and LF with space character (CRLF replaced with 2 space chars) this test method was too slow checking some large HTML pages (e.g. 50MB page with specific HTML code) when “download nested frames” or “download images” options enabled. New version works much faster
HTTP test	"Check contents" option may check multiline text, it replaces CR and LF with space character (CRLF replaced with 2 space chars) this method was optimized as well and now works much faster checking big files.
DNS test	can perform PTR requests (reverse DNS)
Traffic Monitor	works faster if target device supports SNMPv2c or SNMPv3 and appropriate version is specified for the test
Interface Status	works faster if target device supports SNMPv2c or SNMPv3 and appropriate version is specified for the test
SNMP Table	works faster if target device supports SNMPv2c or SNMPv3 and appropriate version is specified for the test

Improved actions

Send E-mail action

• Consumes less system resources when HostMonitor needs to send hundreds of mails at once

Popup message action:

• New option "Max windows on screen" limits number of windows on screen (possible value 1..128)
• Increased limit for "time to live" parameter up to 1800 sec

HTTP request action
Several improvements related to HTTP mode (similar improvements for HTTPS mode were implemented earlier)

• About 30% less CPU load
• If POST request is used and 'Content-length:' header missed, HostMonitor inserts correct 'Content-length' line
• HostMonitor checks HTTP reply code and records error in the log when reply code<>200

New variables for NetApp RAID tests

%DS_ActiveCount%	The number of disks which are currently active, including parity disks
%DS_ReconstructingCount%	The number of disks which are currently being reconstructed
%DS_ReconstrparityCount%	The number of parity disks which are currently being reconstructed
%DS_VerifyingparityCount%	The number of parity disks which are currently being verified
%DS_ScrubbingCount%	The number of parity disks which are currently being scrubbed
%DS_FailedCount%	The number of disks which are currently broken
%DS_SpareCount%	The number of available spare disks
%DS_AddingSpareCount%	The number of spare disks which are currently being added into a RAID group
%DS_PrefailedCount%	The number of prefailed disks marked for rapid raid recovery
%DS_OutdatedCount%	The number of outdated disks

New variables for NetApp Health tests

%DS_MaxUsedPercent%	The percentage of space currently in use or reserved by the fullest file system
%DS_MaxUsedINodesPercent%	The percentage of inodes currently in use by the fullest file system

New variable for HP iLO tests (Health, Temp, Fans, Power, Disks)

%HealthData%

If some problem detected, shows problem description (like "STORAGE STATUS: Degraded"); otherwise reports status of all checked components, e.g. BIOS HARDWARE: OK POWER SUPPLIES: OK PROCESSOR: OK FANS: OK ...

New group names supported by HM Script and Telnet interface

_AllHPHealth _AllHPTemp _AllHPFans _AllHPPower _AllHPDisks

_AllNetAppHealth _AllNetAppTemp _AllNetAppDisks

_AllJuniperHealth _AllJuniperTemp _AllJuniperFans

_AllCiscoHealth _AllCiscoTemp _AllCiscoFans _AllCiscoPower

Improved built-in tools:

• Improved System Info
• Improved Network Discovery
• Improved Auditing Tool
• Stronger password checks

System Info improvements

• It works much faster when SNMP v2c or SNMP v3 is supported
• If possible, System Info tool selects SNMP profile with higher version of SNMP protocol
• If v1 protocol specified for all related tests, System Info still verifies if target device supports SNMP v2 and provides such information
• HostMonitor v10: some requests could not work with SNMPv3. Fixed

Network Discovery

• Recognizes more devices, e.g. Juniper and NetApp, various UPS devices
• Allows to create and replicate new test methods
• %Type% variable allows to search for Juniper, NetApp, SonicWall and UPS devices
• If you choose "all SNMP profiles" mode for some network, then HostMonitor sets priority for profiles with SNMP v2c and v3 versions (not applicable for devices already discovered by older version of the software)

Auditing Tool

• Checks operator accounts, for each operator with remote access checks password strength
• Checks strength of the passwords used by RMA agents
• Checks SNMP protocol version used for tests like Network Traffic, Interface Status, SNMP Table, tests related to Cisco, Juniper and NetApp devices; warns admin when SNMP v1 is used

Stronger password checks

• HostMonitor and RCC: User Profiles unit checks operator accounts, for each operators with remote access checks password strength
• RCC operator can change its own password using menu User->Change password. Software checks passwords strength and does not allow weak passwords (unless StrongRccPswd option disabled, see notes below)
• RMA Manager: as you know it allows to change passwords for existing agents using "Agent configuration" option. New RMA Manager uses new code for stronger password validation and does not allow weak passwords (unless StrongPswd option disabled, see notes below)
• RMA_Cfg utility (helps to setup RMA settings locally) uses new code for password validation as well. It warns the operator but allows weak passwords after confirmation

Note: software checks passwords using several algorithms, you cannot change algorithms however you may adjust some parameters using [PswdCheck] section of hostmon.ini file. This section may look like

[PswdCheck] MinLen=8 NormLen=12 LongLen=16 StrongRccPswd=1	MinLen=8	sets minimum password length 8, you cannot set this parameter below 6
	NormLen=12	strings below 12 characters length (8..12) may be considered as strong password when digits, letters, capital letters and/or special characters used; strings with 12 or more chars may pass the checks with less strict requirements (e.g. just digits and Latin letters)
	LongLen=16	passwords with 16 or more characters may be considered strong even if simple charset is used (e.g. just decimal digits). However additional checks still applies and 18-digits string like "123456789123456789" will not be considered as strong password
	StrongRccPswd=1	tells software do not accept weak passwords when RCC operator changes its own password (1-default value). If you set StrongRccPswd=0 then RCC will check password and warn the operator however any password will be accepted after confirmation

Also, there is optional parameter in rma_mgr.ini file (used by RMA Manager)
[PswdCheck]
StrongPswd=1
Default value 1 - means RMA Manager will not accept weak passwords when operator will try to change password for existing/running agent using "Agent configuration" option. If you set StrongPswd=0 then RMA Manager will check passwords and show warning when weak password detected however any password will be accepted after confirmation.

Improved external applications:

• improved RMA for Windows
• improved MIB Browser
• minor changes and improvements were applied to Process Meter, Log Analyzer, Log Visualizer, RMA Manager, WatchDog, Web Service and Telnet Service

RMA for Windows

New Active and Passive RMA agents support 24 new tests for various systems:

• UNIX (Linux, BSD, AIX, etc)
• Cisco
• Juniper
• NetApp
• HP iLO

Improved tests:

• Dominant Process
• Disk Free Space
• Process test
• CPU Usage
• Certificate Expiration
• URL test
• DNS test
• SNMP Table test
• Network Traffic test
• Interface Status test

Faster processing for some service requests makes HostMonitor GUI faster (if SNMP v2c or SNMP v3 is used):

• Network interfaces window (it helps you to setup Network Traffic and Interface Status tests)
• System Info tool

Improved network discovery

MIB Browser

The following operations can retrieve data much faster when large set of counters requested and SNMP v2c is used:

• Get table
• Get row
• Get next N counters

Also it needs less time to load and save database


  The following issues were resolved

• HostMonitor and Active RMA: SNMP Trap test could filter out some valid coldStart, warmStart messages. Fixed
• HostMonitor: in some cases HTTP test did not calculate CRC for images even with "download images" option enabled. Fixed
• RCC: import from local file could report errors regarding profiles used by SNMP related tests. Fixed
• Web Service: did not show total_good_tests / total_bad_tests statistics when logged in web operator does not have access to Root folder. Fixed