Creating A Service Monitor In NMS

2 minute read

If you have ever had complaints of erratic behavior from an external web server that is out of your control, it can be difficult to convince a user that the issue is on the external host’s side. This guide will show you how to add a service monitor to NMS to monitor a website or device to which you do not have access.

In most situations, you will not be able to enable SNMP on an external web server. Ping monitoring also doesn’t paint a full picture for a web server that may only be accessible on ports 80 or 443 (HTTP / HTTPS). To combat this, we can create a service on a client device to check the availability of these target ports and alert respectively.

  1. Log into the NMS portal as an admin user.
  2. Navigate to “Services”. Here you will find any existing service monitors that are currently in place.

  • The status indicator on the far left is solid green, indicating that the service is online.
  • The uptime on the services are 13 hours and 54 hours, respectively.
  • The purpose of the top service is to monitor HTTP for the site.
  • The purpose of the bottom service is to monitor TCP on port 5555 for the host (Softether VPN).
To create a new Service Monitor

  1. Navigate to the “Devices” tab.
  2. Choose a client site
  3. Determine which device we would need to poll from. A service monitor uses a device that is already added to NMS to reach out to your target.
  4. Navigate to Services gt Add Service:
Here, you will receive the “Add Service” page:

  1. Select “Host” device.
  2. Select the type of service you would like to monitor. Some require additional configuration.
  3. Set a description that makes it obvious what this service does.
  4. Choose the IP address of the target device. For a website, this is where you will enter the URL without http, https, or trailing /.
  5. Select “Add Service”.
  6. After some time a green indicator will appear next to your service. This is showing the device as up.
Last modified April 14, 2021
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