hostcheck

Name

hostcheck -- Checks to see if hosts are up or down.

Description

Hostcheck is used to determine if hosts on the network are reachable, that is, able to be pinged. Hostcheck just gives "up" or "down", for actual ping times see the pingcheck module. This module can be given IP addresses or hostnames, which are resolved by hostcheck using DNS.

Configuration

Configuring hostcheck is quite simple. Each desired host is set with the "checkHost" variable. Any number of hosts may be given. For example:

config
{
	checkHost = 192.168.0.1
	checkHost = mycompany.com
	checkHost = alpha
}
		

Windows users may configure hostcheck though the RSPD Configuration window. Hosts are added and removed from a list. See Chapter 2 for more details.

Thresholds

Hostcheck also supports thresholds. Any of the hosts which were given to check may be used in a threshold. The only two allowed operators are "==" and "!=", which can be used to compare against the words "up" or "down". Therefore "!= down" and "== up" could be used interchangeably, as coule "== down" and "!= up".

Here are some example thresholds:

# Example thresholds for hostcheck
thresh1.threshold = HostCheck.192.168.0.1 == down
thresh2.threshold = HostCheck.alpha == up
		

History Data

The hostcheck module will save boolean values for each host or IP address it is given. This data, using the RSP History Viewer or RSP Web tools, can be used to show server availability over time.