how to configure a switch monitoring ?

Hi dolvis

Do you want to see on which port something is plugged in and running? Or what do you mean by "availability"?

regards Thomas

Hi Thomas

In my architecture I have a computer plugged on a port of a switch and I would like PRTG to inform me whether the port is up or down, I mean the state of the port . i am using a cisco 2950 SWITCH. SO HOW TO CONFIGURE IT IN PRTG ?? thanks

Hi Dolvis

I don't know how to achieve that what you want with prtg. Ususally you monitor the devices "behind" the ports (or only the traffic through those ports). The only thing that came in my mind is to check if there is traffic on the port, and if there is not, for a certain amount of time, the port will turn red.

May I ask "why" you want to do that, maybe then we can help you with a solution?

Maybe this would be one: https://www.softperfect.com/products/portmapper/

regards Thomas

Hello Dolvis,
There are a few ways to successfully use PRTG in this scenario.

Using the SNMP Traffic Sensor with the Connection Status Handling configured, PRTG can alert you in the following cases:

• The sensor for the interface will always turn into a red error status for a disconnected interface. This applies if the ifOperStatus of the interface is not "up".
• The sensor will go into an error status for a disconnected interface only if it is not deliberately deactivated in the configuration. This applies if the ifOperStatus of the interface is not "up" and the ifAdminStatus is "up". So the sensor will keep the Up status when the interface has been deactivated.

But a more comprehensive approach would be to monitor the actual server behind the switch port. For that, create a device which has the address of the device plugged into that port and you may add various distinct sensors:

• Ping Sensor: The Ping sensor sends an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo request ("Ping") from the computer running the probe to the device it is created on to monitor the availability of a device.
• HTTP Sensor: If your device device is a WebServer the HTTP sensor monitors a web server using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This is the easiest way to monitor if a website (or a specific website element) is reachable.
• Port Sensor: If the server behind that switch port isn't a webserver but opens sockets, you can use the port sensor to monitor a network service by connecting to its port. It tries to connect to the specified TCP/IP port number of a device and waits for the request to be accepted.

There are also many additional application specific Sensors like SQL, SNMP, WMI and so-on. For a complete list, please visit our List of Available Sensor Types.

Monitoring the server itself is better than monitoring the switch interface's status because other things may also affect the server that may not necessarily bring down the interface.

For further questions, we're glad to help.