Copyright: WatchDog Help 1.10


Internet Watch Dog Help Index (V2.2)

Internet Watch Dog(IWD) allows you to monitor  Internet services.  The services you monitor may be services you are responsible for providing or they may be services you or your clients use.

WatchDog  will perform tests at regular intervals on all of the various TCPIP based services.

It can be used to monitor the services provided by WebServers, NewsServers, MailServers, and many other functions important in providing quality services across the Internet.

For the latest version of Internet Watch Dog please check the NetWin Web Site: http://netwinsite.com

Each line in the main dialogue display shows a test that Internet Watch Dog has been setup to perform.  A RED bar indicates that the last attempt failed, the total number of successes and failures are shown (since startup) as well as the average response time from that service, and the current state, plus the full name of the site.

To modify/test/examine an individual test item first select that line in the main dialog then press one of the buttons down the right hand side.

Additional help available on the following topics:

Modifying EMAIL loop tests

Modifying RAW tcpip tests

Selecting a type of service to test

Showing tests records

Answering initial setup suestions

Setting configuration options

Selecting which tests to perform

Entering a registration key

Filling in the registration form

Selecting which tests to perform

Specifying actions on test failures

Internet Watch Dog, Copyright (C) 1996 NetWin Ltd., New Zealand, All rights reserved.


Email Loop tests

Internet Watch Dog has a special test procedure to ensure your Email system is fully working.

First it sends a mail message using SMTP, and then it attempts to read the message using your POP server.  It keeps retrying for some time.

 For the most complete test of an email service you should give it the mail address of a remote mail drop that has been set up to forward email to a local account, this will fully test the outgoing and incoming legs of your mail system as well as showing you the round trip time of your mail system.

Alternatively you can configure it to send to a local email account and retrieve test messages from there. This can even be your own live email account if you are not able to setup a special email account for IWD. The ‘test’ messages will be read and deleted by IWD without touching your own email messages.  If you use your own live email account for IWD you may occasionally experience the following minor problem: If your own mail program (Eudora / Pegasus) reads and deletes the IWD test message before watchdog sees it then you can expect that IWD will report that the message was not delivered properly.  This will only happen very rarely.


Modifying the RAW tcpip test

The RAW tcpip test allows you to test any ‘standard’ tcpip service, IWD opens a connection to the specified port, sends a specified ‘command’ and then waits for the specified ‘response’ if anything coming back from the port matches the ‘success’ string then the test is deemed to have succeeded.  In this way almost any ‘text based’ tcpip service can be tested to make sure it is running and giving normal responses.

When you add a new test to the list the ‘send’ and ‘success’ strings are pre defined for most of the common TCPIP services.


Selecting a Test Type

This dialogue allows you to select the type of service you want to test. WatchDog will either create a special test for the service you have chosen or it will use a generic test module and fill in the test parameters with settings appropriate for that service.


Showing Test Records

This dialogue shows you the record of successes and failures for the test you selected.  You can select to show the full record of all entries for that test or just the failures.

Using the Log File Button:

If you select a single line in the record display you can then show the full log of events happening around that time.   The “Log File’ button  will show you the actual TCPIP transactions,  (if still available).  Note that the log file may include log lines from other test that were being performed at the same time.


Initial Setup Questions

These questions allow WatchDog to setup a default set of tests for the Internet services you wish to monitor.  The  selections you make here can nearly all be modified later  so it is fine to enter your “best guess” at this stage. You can also leave a field blank if you don’t know what to answer.

However,  as WatchDog cannot really monitor the services you are interested in until you have provided this information NOW is probably a good time to search out the answers to each question. Following are notes on each of the individual questions you will be asked:

Internet Server:

This is just the IP  name or number for the machine which is providing most of the services you want to test or monitor. Individual tests can be set to test services running on different machines but the address you enter here will be used as a default to save you re-entering it in five different places. An IP name for this field could be something like        news.toyuniversity.ac.nz

an IP number for this field could be something like 131.123.64.93

Test Email:

This is the email address which WatchDog will send test email messages to. It then tries to retrieve the test messages from the local POP server you are testing. The test messages will not interfere with normal use of the same email address. So while the ideal might be to setup a special email address that watchdog can use for testing it is quite acceptable to use your own live email address. If you do use a live email address your normal email reading program may occasionally read and delete a test message before WatchDog has a chance to retrieve it - in this case WatchDog will naturally report a test failure - but this will occur only very rarely.

Using a local email address for testing only checks that the local service is handling email messages. It does not check that this email server is sending messages out to the rest of the world and retrieving messages sent from the rest of the world. For this reason a better test is provided by entering an email address on a remote machine for the TestEmail question. This remote email address should then be set to forward messages to your local email address. Most Internet service providers and perhaps a “sister organization” overseas will be happy to provide you with a remote email account you could use in this way. (You may be able to reciprocate by providing them with a test email account on your machine)

POP Username:

This is the username on the local email server that is used when retrieving email messages. This will be used by WatchDog to retrieve and delete the test messages it sends. Note this will not interfere with the normal use of this same username for your normal email messages.

POP Password:

Just the password to go with the POP username you have entered.

Reports to:

This is the email address WatchDog should send reports to.  WatchDog sends summary reports at the frequency you select from the configuration dialogue. The default is every seven days.

Watchdog can also be set to send email reports when a particular service fails a given number of tests. This would normally be to alert you to a problem such as a server having gone down etc. We suggest one of the other error actions should be used for email server fault notification

If you don’t want any email reports sent just leave the ReportsTo field blank.


Setting configuration options

This email address and smtp host will be used to send you reports and warnings of failures.

The WatchDog directory is the directory containing the wdog.exe application and its associated test records and log files.

Watchdog can be installed as a service to allow it to always run even when no users are logged in. If it is running as a service it can be removed - note adding or deleting WatchDog as a service will not have any effect until the machine is restarted.


Selecting which services to test

Select the services which you wish to setup ‘default’ tests for, you can add/modify/remove tests later so just tick the ones you are certain about at this stage.


Entering a registration key

Enter your registration key and press OK.  If you do not have a full key yet WatchDog  generates a registration key for you which will allow the software to work for 3 weeks.  To get a permanent registration key fill out the registration form and then Email it to NetWin Ltd.  In 24-48 hours you will receive a registration code to unlock the software permanently.


Filling in the registration form

To get a permanent registration key fill out the registration form and then Email it to NetWin Ltd. Our email address is netwin@world.std.com

In 24-48 hours you will receive your registration code to unlock the software permanently.

At present we can only accept payment by Credit card.

Your credit card details will be encrypted for safe transfer across the Internet.

Please Note: The registration form is not sent  automatically , you must email it yourself using your own email system. The encrypted registration details are stored in a .txt file and copied to the paste buffer to make sending it to us simpler.


Type Sel Dialogue

Type selection dialogue.


Sellecting actions to perform on test failures

This dialogue lets you define the action to take when a test fails. There are two groups of actions A and B.

You first define a trigger level for each group of actions then select which actions you want performed in each group. The trigger level is the number of contiguous fails for this particular test.

For example if we use F and P to represent pass and fail then the following sequence of events would trigger A and B actions at the following points with a trigger level of 1 for A and 3 for B

P  P P P P F P P P F P P P F F P P P F F F P P P P P  F  F  F  F F  F F P

                      A              A             A               A                               A

                                                                                   B                                   B