What is this?

This knowledgebase contains questions and answers about PRTG Network Monitor and network monitoring in general.

Learn more

PRTG Network Monitor

Intuitive to Use. Easy to manage.
More than 500,000 users rely on Paessler PRTG every day. Find out how you can reduce cost, increase QoS and ease planning, as well.

Free Download

Top Tags


View all Tags

How do I troubleshoot discovery

Votes:

0

I'm having issues running discovery on remote computer. No sensors are created and I don't see any errors etc. I verified that WMI works fine. Where do I look for details why discovery fails?

discovery troubleshooting windows

Created on Oct 7, 2015 8:45:36 PM



Best Answer

Accepted Answer

Votes:

0

Hello,
thank you for the additional information.

We strongly suggest using a domain admin account when monitoring via WMI, but you should be able to authenticate locally by using "."(single dot) as the Domain or Computer Name. That is commonly understood by windows as Local.

Alternatively, since there's no windows domain, you may also consider switching over to SNMP Monitoring which is more lightweight and doesn't depend on windows credentials. Windows Server 2012 R2 supports SNMP and PRTG offers equivalent SNMP Sensors for most WMI queries. To allow SNMP monitoring you must Install and configure the SNMP Service.

Best Regards,

Created on Oct 9, 2015 7:46:49 AM by  Luciano Lingnau [Paessler]

Last change on Oct 9, 2015 7:47:27 AM by  Luciano Lingnau [Paessler]



5 Replies

Votes:

0

Hi artisticcheese

What kind of device do you want to add? I assume its a Windows Computer.

  • Have you installed SNMP Services on that computer (Windows Server add feature)?
  • Have you configured the SNMP Service proper (Tab - Security on the SNMP Service)?
  • Is the firewall enabled?

Start there, tell us more about the kind of the device and we may help with this.

cheers Thomas

Created on Oct 8, 2015 7:57:44 AM

Last change on Oct 8, 2015 8:58:57 AM by  Luciano Lingnau [Paessler]



Votes:

0

Greetings,
we appreciate your inquiry.

The auto-discovery has a log called "Auto Discovery Debug Log (1).log" which is generated on the following folder: "C:\ProgramData\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\Logs (System)\" by default.

The most common issue for the auto-discovery to fail is the device not replying to ping, in that case the auto-discovery halts because it considers that the device "doesn't exist", most devices require the ping test to succeed before the template is deployed. In such cases the log looks similar to this:

[...]
08.10.2015 09:49:12: Autodiscovery Started; Device ID: 4042
08.10.2015 09:49:12: Device Templates; Device ID: 4042; Selected: 59
08.10.2015 09:49:12: Template Loaded; Device ID: 4042; Name: Generic Device (PING only)
08.10.2015 09:49:18: Template Check; Device ID: 4042; Check ID: ping; ERROR: 106
[...]

Best Regards,

Created on Oct 8, 2015 8:58:03 AM by  Luciano Lingnau [Paessler]



Votes:

0

Ping is successfull and in fact PING and RDP sensors are created as part of discovery.

I'm using Windows Detailed via WMI discovery template and I verified that WMI working as expected.

I don't have SNMP service installed as I assume all data shall be coming from WMI. Is SNMP is a requirement? PRTG server running Windows 2012 R2 as well as server I'm trying to discover.

Debug log is below. I see there is error mentioned but I did manually run WMI tool from PRTG and verified that both connectivity is working as well as account is correct. What Error 106 means?

10/8/2015 2:44:25 PM: Autodiscovery Started; Device ID: 2158
10/8/2015 2:44:25 PM: Device Templates; Device ID: 2158; Selected: 1
10/8/2015 2:44:25 PM: Template Loaded; Device ID: 2158; Name: Windows (Detailed via WMI)
10/8/2015 2:44:28 PM: Template Check; Device ID: 2158; Check ID: ping; FOUND
10/8/2015 2:44:34 PM: Template Check; Device ID: 2158; Check ID: wmi; ERROR: 106
10/8/2015 2:44:34 PM: Template Assigned; Device ID: 2158; Name: Windows (Detailed via WMI)

Created on Oct 8, 2015 2:48:13 PM

Last change on Oct 9, 2015 7:48:20 AM by  Luciano Lingnau [Paessler]



Votes:

0

I just found what was the issue:

On auto discovery tab I specified username/password but not server-name which I guess prevents authentication.

How do I reuse same username/password for computers which are not part of AD but having the same credentials? Right now I have to manually override value for all devices and type computername in a field, if I just leave it empty it denies authentication.

Created on Oct 8, 2015 2:54:35 PM

Last change on Oct 9, 2015 7:41:52 AM by  Luciano Lingnau [Paessler]



Accepted Answer

Votes:

0

Hello,
thank you for the additional information.

We strongly suggest using a domain admin account when monitoring via WMI, but you should be able to authenticate locally by using "."(single dot) as the Domain or Computer Name. That is commonly understood by windows as Local.

Alternatively, since there's no windows domain, you may also consider switching over to SNMP Monitoring which is more lightweight and doesn't depend on windows credentials. Windows Server 2012 R2 supports SNMP and PRTG offers equivalent SNMP Sensors for most WMI queries. To allow SNMP monitoring you must Install and configure the SNMP Service.

Best Regards,

Created on Oct 9, 2015 7:46:49 AM by  Luciano Lingnau [Paessler]

Last change on Oct 9, 2015 7:47:27 AM by  Luciano Lingnau [Paessler]




Disclaimer: The information in the Paessler Knowledge Base comes without warranty of any kind. Use at your own risk. Before applying any instructions please exercise proper system administrator housekeeping. You must make sure that a proper backup of all your data is available.