Can I turn a core server into a remote probe?

That's what we figured but had to ask. There are some pretty complicated custom sensors at that site. Can you recommend any way to easily port those sensors from ont stand-alone PRTG to another? Can I slide sensors from one system to another using the Enterprise Console for V9?

Afraid that isn't possible. The only way currently available would be to add the sensors anew.

The easiest way would be create a new remote probe device connected to the original core and clone the sensors onto that new remote probe, then just move the remote probe to the new installation as is described in other articles.. The only thing you need to do then is remove the "Clone of" text in the name of each sensor.

That's what I was thinking of doing but here's the rub: remote probes get 100% of their instructions and config from the core server and do not send configuration to the core server. So, lets say I have remote probe connected to core server A with one device. That device as ID# 21. I could then disconnect that probe from server A and connect it to Core Server B but how does the probe tell Server B about device # 21 and it's sensor configs? Worse yet, what if Server B already has a device with id# 21?

Our next thought was to copy the device's XML snippets from the Server A config file, change all the device and sensor IDs to numbers that have not yet been assigned by Server B and then pasting it into Server B's config file. However I don't think this would work either since there's probably a lot of other work that happens behind the scenes when a new device or sensor is created.

So we're going to do it the old fashioned way, by hand. Besides, isn't that what interns are for?

Dear Jim, I would also really recommend not to try any copying of XML-Fragments from one configuration file to another, there is background work yes, but also dozens of relations (maps, schedules, reports, dependencies) that are very easily overlooked in such a process, and then you potentially end up with a corrupt configuration file.

So now, 3 years later, with new version i have the same issue. We have an old deployment, with over 400 sensors at one location. We created new AWS hosted core deployment and want to use all of our locations as remote probes reporting to this AWS instance. So how can i do either:? 1. Turn existing PRTG instance into a remote probe so then i can attach it to AWS core preserving all 400 sensors 2. Create a new probe and somehow migrate (move, clone, whatever) all sensors from this standalone install to the probe and then unattach this probe from old server and attach to new one

Thanks

It is not possible to convert a PRTG Core Serer into a Remote Probe. A Remote Probe does not hold any configuration information. So it is also not possible to just connect a Remote Probe to a new Core Server, and thus taking all sensors with the Remote Probe to the new Core, this can't be done.
Merging Configurations is also not possible. You can only migrate a full configuration from one Core Server to another (overwriting one configuration then with this).

Since there are many people trying to do this, why doesn't Paessler create a way to do it? We often need to create a new core server then, move existing old probes to it.

lhaus, thank you for your feedback. It's actually a lot more complex then one might think, and as there aren't that many request for such a "conversion-feature" we rather use the limited developer resources we have, for improvements and features, where much more of our 150,000 installations benefit from.

Is there a way to import a customer environment, with its own license, to another core server? The background is that we are getting more and more inquiries as to whether we can take over and monitor the existing PRTG environment in our monitoring. The customer would however reluctantly have bought his license for free. Many Thanks

Best Regards Dennis

Demnikat, thank you for the KB-Post. Merging configurations is not possible I'm afraid. You will need to create the devices and sensors then manually in one of the two configurations.

Since 2015, it's now 8 years later. Not sure why as future versions were rolled out that this hasn't been implemented. Is it possible today? I have a core server with 900 sensors that have collected data for 2 years. I now need to create a new core server and the already existing core server needs to become a remote probe. Networks are more likely to grow than to shrink. This is an inherit design flaw for PRTG if a core server can't be converted to a remote probe.

Hello Chris,

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to transform a Core Server into a remote probe. However, you can transfer a remote probe from one PRTG server to another PRTG server. You can use the probe transfer feature in the PRTG Desktop to transfer the remote probe.

Kind regards,
Muna Azmi - Tech Support Team