This article applies to PRTG Network Monitor 15.x.19 or later

Testing a WSDL or SOAP Service with PRTG

You can test the availability and response time of a WSDL or SOAP service by utilizing an HTTP Advanced sensor. After all, a SOAP request is at its core just an HTTP POST transaction with a few special options set.

To get it to work you need:

• Service Endpoint/URL
• SOAP Envelope
• SOAP Version

If you have the WSDL, you can generate the SOAP envelope using a standard tool, for example the Membrane SOAP Client or the Eclipse SoapUI Plugin.

As an example, we will use a publicly available SOAP request that you can find in this Directory of Public SOAP Web Services: the StockQuoteWSDL.

http://www.webservicex.com/stockquote.asmx?WSDL

It defines the available operations and layout of the SOAP request.

Using a WSDL tool, you can create the following request:

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The specific headers you need are:

Content-Type: text/xml
SOAPAction: http://www.webserviceX.NET/GetQuote

The Soap 1.1 Envelope

<s11:Envelope xmlns:s11='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'>
  <s11:Body>
    <ns1:GetQuote xmlns:ns1='http://www.webserviceX.NET/'>
      <ns1:symbol>XXXX</ns1:symbol>
    </ns1:GetQuote>
  </s11:Body>
</s11:Envelope>

Set up the HTTP Advanced Sensor

To check the availability of your SOAP service with PRTG, these are the steps to follow:

• Add the HTTP Advanced sensor to a device in your device tree.
• Select the following HTTP Specific Settings:
  1. Request Method: POST
  2. Postdata: Paste in your SOAP Envelope.
  3. Content Type: Custom
  4. Custom Content Type: text/xml if you work with SOAP v1.1 or application/soap+xml if you work with SOAP v1.2. (To get a description of the differences between SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2, you can have a look at this SOAP Web Service Tutorial.)

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• Select the following Advanced Sensor Data:
  1. Use Custom HTTP Headers: Choose the option Use custom HTTP headers
  2. Custom HTTP Headers: Paste in your SOAP action and the SOAP content type: SOAP Action: [Your SOAP Action] Accept: [Your SOAP Content Type].
     Note: It is important that you set the Accept: parameter because otherwise the system inserts Accepts: text/html, which does not give you the result you want. In our example, add the following SOAP Action and Accept parameters to the Custom HTTP Headers field:

SOAPAction: http://www.webserviceX.NET/GetQuote
Accept: application/soap+xml

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• Result Handling: Store the latest HTML result. This option allows you to see the actual content of the server's response for debug/troubleshooting. Enlarge here.

Look at the Results

To see what is returned as a result, take a look in the sensor log. PRTG usually saves the sensor logs in %PROGRAMDATA%\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\Logs (Sensors). The file(s) are called:

• Result of Sensor xxxx: See the whole HTTP transaction.
• Result of Sensor xxxx-A: See the response or answer, which is the raw SOAP return envelope.

This means that the actual return is XML Escape encoded like:

…<GetQuoteResult>&lt;StockQuotes&gt;&lt;Stock&gt;&lt;Symbol&gt;QQQ&lt;/Symbol&gt;&lt;Last&gt;104.15&lt;/Last&gt;…

If you want to check the content with a keyword to trigger a warning or error status, you have to use a literal match. In this example, we’re looking for the last price for the stock: <Last> which is XML Escaped as &lt;Last&gt;.

Therefore, take care of the following sensor settings:

1. Require Keyword: Set sensor to warning if keyword is missing.
2. Response Must Include: [Your Keyword], here: &lt;Last&gt;.

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The HTTP Advanced sensor will also give you all the timing information for the SOAP service.

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