HTTP URL Monitoring

In an environment where the downtime of any website applications and services can cause a negative impact on the business performance, problems must be accurately identified and solved.

Applications Manager acts as a continuous URL monitoring service that keeps constant watch over a specified URL or website page. They test the website applications and web services to ensure that they are functioning properly. URL monitors verify the availability of specified, addressable, standard HTTP and HTTPS URLs. They scan the HTTP and HTTPS pages looking for a predefined keyword to check whether the website is available.

• Creating a new HTTP(s) URL monitor
• Monitored Parameters

Creating a new HTTP(s) URL monitor

Prerequisites for monitoring URL metrics:Click here

Using the REST API to add a new URL monitor:Click here

To configure for URL monitoring, follow the given steps:

1. Select New Monitor. Choose HTTP-URLs.
2. Provide any display name for the HTTP-URL monitoring.
3. Provide the HTTP/HTTPS URL address you want to monitor.
4. Provide the Polling Interval (in minutes) for which Applications Manager updates the status of the monitor.
5. Enter the Timeout (in seconds) for which the URL monitor should wait for a page to complete downloading before timing out.
6. Use the Add Advanced Web Monitors field to add other advanced web monitors like SSL/TLS Certificate Monitor, Webpage Analyzer, DNS Monitor, Brand Reputation, and Website Content Monitor.

HTTP Configurations: Apart from the basic URL Monitoring, Applications Manager also provides you with advanced options that furnish effective and more flexible URL Monitoring. This is optional and you need to choose these options only if the HTTP/ HTTPS URL requires Form-based authentication.

7. Choose a Form Submission Method between the POST and GET, which are the two types of methods for any HTTP/HTTPS URL. If you choose POST, select Payload Type for 'POST' form submission.
8. Provide the request parameters, if any. The request parameters must be provided as name=value pairs for POST and GET methods. For example, if you want to monitor a URL like, https://apm-prod-server:9090/showresource.do?haid=1&type=UrlMonitor&method=getMonitorForm, then provide "?haid=1&type=UrlMonitor&method=getMonitorForm" as request parameter.
9. Enter the credential details like user name and password for authentication, or select the required credentials from the Credential Manager list after enabling the Select from Credential list option. You can also authenticate through SAML ADFS Authentication by selecting the required credentials added using SAML Authenticator.
10. Specify the response code and choose the appropriate condition for which the error should be notified by specifying the criteria under Error if Response Code field. By default, it is greater than 200.
11. Enable the "If monitor detects error, re-try immediately to verify error" checkbox, if the monitoring is to be automatically performed whenever it detects an error, i.e. when an error is detected, the monitor will immediately be scheduled to run again once.
12. Sometimes you may want to customize the default HTTP request header. You have the option to customize the "User-Agent" field. Check the Custom HTTP(S) Headers and User Agent checkbox and enter the HTTP Header and User Agent in the text boxes. You may add multiple HTTP Headers and User Agents.
13. Choose the SSL version from the drop-down menu, if enabled. By default, it is set as Auto.

14. Enable the Client Certificate Authentication checkbox if and only if you have enabled Client Certificate Authentication for the server you want to monitor. Please note that only files of type "PKCS#12"(.p12) are supported. Also, provide the Client Certificate Password for the certificate, if required.

    Note: When you upload two Client Certificates of same name, note that the previous one will be overwritten by the later.

15. If you are adding a new monitor from the Central Server, select a Probe Server.

Content check: Additionally, you can choose to perform content check in the URL page. The URL monitoring searches the keyword in the content of the URL page to check the availability of the URL.

16. Specify the contents that should contain and/or should not contain while performing the check in the URL response.
17. Enable the Do case sensitive keyword search checkbox if you wish to perform a content check for case-sensitive character strings.
18. Enable the Regular Expression checkbox if you wish to perform a content check based on regular expressions. (Refer Regex Guide for more info)

19. Click Add URL Monitor to initiate monitoring of the specified URL.

Monitored Parameters

To access the HTTP URL monitor in Applications Manager, navigate to the Monitors Category View by clicking the Monitors tab. Click on HTTPs URLs Monitor under the Web Server/Services table. Displayed is the bulk configuration view of the HTTP URL monitor, distributed into three tabs:

• Availability tab gives the Availability history for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
• Performance tab gives the Health Status and events for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
• List view enables you to perform bulk admin configurations.

Click on the individual monitors listed to view the monitored parameters.