What is the difference between the different Alerting and Monitoring response types?

This article applies to:

• Firewall Suite

Question:

Information:

Enable Up Response

Select this option to have the software follow the instructions in a particular response profile when the monitored object or device is "up," which means the device is active or responsive to the polling request. Choose this option if the normal state for the object is down or inaccessible, or if the object you want to monitor does not yet exist and you want notification when the object or device becomes available, active, or accessible.

Suppose, for example, you want the module to tell you when your Web server has created and saved a new log file. You might configure the software to poll a particular directory to look for a particular file. Ordinarily, that file will not exist until the server creates it, so its "state" will be "down." Once the server creates the file, however, its state will change to "up," and the software can notify you.

Enable Down Response

Select this option to have the software follow the instructions in a particular response profile when the monitored object or device goes "down," which means that it becomes inactive or unresponsive to the polling request. Choose this option if the monitored object or device is normally active, available, or accessible, and you want notification when that state changes.

Suppose, for example, you want to monitor the state of your Web server to ensure that it is accessible. In this case, configure the software to poll the Web server periodically to check its state. If the server does not respond to the polling request, the software can wait for a time to verify that state, then notify you that the server is down. It can then initiate the response action you pre-program into your response profile to deal with that condition.

Enable [other] Response

Select this option to have the software follow the instructions in a particular response profile when the monitored object or device changes its state from an expected state. What happens to change the state from the expected state to a different state depends on the nature of the object or device property you want to monitor.

Suppose, for example, you want to monitor SNMP traps from a monitored device, and take an action when the software receives or intercepts a trap. You would choose "SNMP Trap - Forward SNMP Traps" as your device in the "Select Device" tab, then select "Enable Received SNMP Trap Response" in the "Select Response Profile" tab.

This article was previously published as:

NETIQKB14689