[smokeping-users] Monitoring the connectivity

[Dale Sykora]

We use a simple bat file to monitor our wan links at work.  It basically
checks the wan link and compares to last known state and logs any
difference and emails. Then it repeats this in a loop.  You could do
something similar with the scripting language of your choice.

On Friday, December 13, 2013, Gregory Sloop wrote:

> You can shorten the polling time - I typically use 60 seconds. But if
> the outages are shorter than a minute on average, say 10 seconds, then
> SP probably isn't the tool to use.
>
> I've looked at a few tool to handle corner cases sort of like yours,
> and there's not a lot out there - and I don't recall what I found.
>
> In Windows, pathping works pretty well. There's a similar tool for
> *nix, and I've thought about using a |pipe script to kick it off when
> smokeping kicks off an alert.
>
> ...ah MTR - that's what I was thinking of. Again, MTR isn't a perfect
> tool for you either.
>
> Anyway - I think in general you're headed in the right direction. If
> the outages are very transient and quick, SP and Nagios are poor tools
> to monitor those with.
>
> The python idea sounds good, though I'd probably just log to a flat file,
> which seems easier.
>
> -Greg
>
>
> B> Hi Greg,
>
> B> first of all thanks for your answer!
> B> My problem is that my router looses its DSL synchronism to the Outdoor
> B> DSLAM. (I can see that from the router logs)
> B> It the needs about 30 Seconds to reconnect. Sometimes it takes hours,
> B> but that's not often the case.
> B> The short disconnects usually happen in short intervals which makes it
> B> impossible to watch a youtube video or something like that.
>
> B> But i think i write some small python script that pings some servers,
> B> store the binary result and generate graphs from it using RRDtool.
>
> B> But anyway, Smokeping works nice if it is used for what it is supposed
> B> to do :)
>
> B> Am 13.12.2013 16:56, schrieb Gregory Sloop:
> >> Sorry - forgot to send to the list:
> >> ---
> >> That's the very nature of SP.
> >>
> >> It doesn't really give only a binary state, unless the connection is
> >> totally down - that's, again, the point of smokeping - where there's
> >> smoke, there's usually fire.
> >>
> >> If you're sending 20 fpings that all have different RTT, some are lost
> >> some aren't etc - how do I give you a binary state? If I lost 5% of
> >> the packets, should I tell you the thing is down?
> >>
> >> No, you look at the colors of the plot points to tell what packet loss
> >> is. You look at the smoke and the positioning of the plot to tell RTT
> >> and variances.
> >>
> >> If you really want raw data, you can dump the RDD database with
> >> RDDDump [iirc] but it's not very useful, IMO.
> >>
> >> If you really want black/white state data, then use Nagios. It will
> >> handle alerting better, and give you very straight-forward logs of
> >> what was up or down and when.
> >>
> >> But Nagios is bad as a leading diagnostic indicator. It won't tell you
> >> about a connection that has RTT times that are trending up, or packet
> >> loss that, while not 100% is above some threshold and increasing.
> >>
> >> So, IMO, you'll either have to live with SP and the way it "sees" the
> >> world, or use a tool that's more appropriate for your wants. Because
> >> right now, you've got the saw out and you're complaining about how it
> >> pounds nails badly.
> >>
> >> And you're right. The saw does pound nails badly.
> >> But it saws nicely. I think you can accomplish the task at hand with
> >> the saw, but if you insist on pounding nails, well then you ought to
> >> switch to the hammer.
> >>
> >> :)
> >>
> >> -Greg
> >>
> >> B> Hi,
> >>
> >> B> i've set up smokeping successfully on a Raspberry Pi to monitor my
> >> B> internet connectivity at home.
> >> B> The reason is that i had a lot of disconnects during the last days
> >> and i
> >> B> want to show the graphs to my provider if this does not getting
> >> better.
> >> B> But the FPing graphs seems to be "antialiased" for me. Is there
> >> another
> >> B> probe or a way to show the graph as a clear line indicating whether
> >> a
> >> B> internet connection  is available or not using ping time average and
> >> B> timeout?
> >>
> >> B> Thanks
> >>
> >> B> Elias
> >>
> >> B> _______________________________________________
> >> B> smokeping-users mailing list
> >> B> smokeping-users at lists.oetiker.ch
> >> B> https://lists.oetiker.ch/cgi-bin/listinfo/smokeping-users
> >>
> >> --
> >> Gregory Sloop, Principal: Sloop Network & Computer Consulting
> >> Voice: 503.251.0452 x82
> >> EMail: gregs at sloop.net
> >> http://www.sloop.net
> >> ---
> >>
> >>
> >> B> Hi,
> >>
> >> B> i've set up smokeping successfully on a Raspberry Pi to monitor my
> >> B> internet connectivity at home.
> >> B> The reason is that i had a lot of disconnects during the last days
> >> and i
> >> B> want to show the graphs to my provider if this does not getting
> >> better.
> >> B> But the FPing graphs seems to be "antialiased" for me. Is there
> >> another
> >> B> probe or a way to show the graph as a clear line indicating whether
> >> a
> >> B> internet connection  is available or not using ping time average and
> >> B> timeout?
> >>
> >> B> Thanks
> >>
> >> B> Elias
> >>
> >> B> _______________________________________________
> >> B> smokeping-users mailing list
> >> B> smokeping-users at lists.oetiker.ch
> >> B> https://lists.oetiker.ch/cgi-bin/listinfo/smokeping-users
>
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