Global Settings

The Settings dialog lets you configure global aspects of the monitoring service.

There are several dialogs that are reached by the buttons on the right side of this dialog and which are also accessible via the Settings menu.

• System Alerts - Some alerts are sent to you from the monitoring system itself, and not in response to particular monitors. These alerts include security warnings (change of configuration, etc), license issues, internal problems, unaccessible computer warnings, etc. You can control which of these internal alerts are enabled, and which notification method each one should use.
• Console Security allows you to set a password that the Console will request when it is launched. This setting allows you to limit access to PA Server Monitor to authorized users.
• Database Settings dialog allows you to set up PA Server Monitor to use the embedded SQLite database or Microsoft SQL Server as the storage for PA Server Monitor data.
• Report Settings affect the storage of archived reports and the behavior of the reporting features of PA Server Monitor.
• HTTP Server Settings allows you to change details of the way the built-in web server in PA Server Monitor operates.
• Remote Access allows you to specify which users can use a Remote Console to connect to the Central Monitoring Service and/or access reports in PA Server Monitor.

Startup Wait Time - When the monitoring service starts, you can instruct it to wait a number of seconds before active monitoring begins. This places less load on the system while it is starting, and also reduces false alarms that occur from the system not being completely started.

Ignore First Actions - To further reduce false alarms, the monitor service can ignore problems found on the very first run of each monitor. After the first run, all monitors will run normally.

Alert and Report Language - Change the display language for all of the reports and alerts.

Start in Training Mode - Most monitors support Automatic Training (see Advanced Monitor Options). When monitors are first created, they can automatically enter Training Mode. That is convenient in most cases, but it means the monitor might be a little harder to test initially since it won't fire actions until the training period has finished.

Service Account - This is a very important setting. This setting lets you control which user account is used to run the monitoring service (this is the same setting you can set on each service in the Administrative Tools -> Services applet). This account is the account that the monitoring service will use when monitoring all resources.
Note:

• The default Local System user can access all local resources, but can't access any remote Windows resources (it can however access non-Windows remote resources such as ping, web pages, etc).
• If you will be monitoring remote systems, select "The following user" radio button and set the user name and password to a domain account or to a local account which has the same user name and password as an account on the remote system (see Remote Monitoring Hints). Another alternative is to right-click the computer in the monitoring Console and select Type & Credentials -> Set Login Credentials for server-specific credentials.

CPU Throttling - The monitoring service has advanced CPU throttling built in which works to keep the average CPU usage at or around the value you set. Note that during report creation, the CPU usage will sometimes go above the throttle level, but it won't stay there for long.

Update Check - The monitoring service can periodically check if a newer version of the software is available and notify you via an alert email Action. We take privacy seriously: Please see the privacy considerations built in to the update check.

Log Files - The monitoring service writes diagnostic log files as it runs.  You can control the maximum size for the log file.  When the maximum is reached, a portion of the beginning of the log file is removed and then new information continues to get written to the end of the file.  Debug logging writes a very large volume of data to the log in a short time--it shouldn't normally be enabled unless needed by Power Admin Support to diagnose an issue.

• Location where the service log files are stored. This location can be changed by entering the new location.
• Number of days that you want to keep log information.
• There are two Debug options allow you to collect more information for the purposes of debugging monitoring issues. This is NOT something that you normally leave turned on as the amount of data recorded in the log files will grow fast and create large log files.
• There are four options to record certain events to a permanent log file (log files where data doesn't roll off after time). These log file are not affected by the number of days that you have entered to retain log information. The events that is kept in these log files are sent emails, service start & stop, monitor configuration changes, and entering and leaving maintenance.

Lock Monitoring Service - The monitoring service can be locked so it cannot be stopped. This prevents the service from being stopped using services.msc or the NET STOP command. It is still possible to uninstall the product. It is also still possible to upgrade and restart the service from the Console. To lock a Satellite Monitoring Service use the "Satellites: Lock Service (so service can't be stopped)" option in Bulk Config.