What is this?

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

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

What options are available to automate reports in PRTG

Votes:

0

I am managing 14,500 devices spread across 180 locations ( schools ) and I want to be able to set up reports for each of the locations. The devices are wireless access points and I want the IT person at the school to get reports on downtime, client number and bandwidth usage on the access points.

I have done some research today on what I can do with the API and also what I could do using a program to drive the normal user interface ( web scraping and automation ). So this is a post about my findings and an invitation to anybody who may have looked at this to chime in with more information. I just want to share my findings because a fair bit of what I found isn't that well documented:

api report rest

Created on Aug 30, 2018 8:32:13 PM

Permalink

1 Reply

Votes:

1

The API for reports is limited. You can do the following:

Pull a list of reports
Delete a report
Clone and rename a report
Set the sensors for a report ( add additionals but not remove )

What you cannot do is manipulate report settings through the API but this should be possible through web scraping of the main Settings page web form but this would require a sophisticated python script and couldn't be done with a simple shell script. In terms of automating reports for schools the options might be:

Create template reports with everything set except:
- recipient email
- Report name
- Root device group for sensor selection
Clone and rename the reports using API call
Set device group with API call
Set email address for recipients with web scraper script

I would potentially be cloning each report 180 times. If I decided to change something in the report such as:

Sensor filter tag
Day of report generation
Inclusion of data files
Beginning and end text

my choices would be:

Modify base report, delete all clones reports and regenerate
Use webscraper approach to modify all cloned reports individually ( would need to be able to identify them, probably based on a key value in the report name )

Report API Examples

Pulling a List of Reports

So the only thing I can find that you can do with reports is list them. You don't seem to be able to manipulate the node on the device tree to which a run will apply curl --noproxy mydom.com https://prtgaero.mydom.com/api/table.xml?content=reports\&output=xml\&columns=objid,name,template,\ period,schedule,email,lastrun,nextrun\&username=RESTFOOL\&passhash=1234567890 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <reports totalcount="13" listend="1"> <prtg-version>18.3.42.1748</prtg-version> <item> <objid>400</objid> <name>Summary report for all sensors</name> <template>List of sensors (with 1h graph)</template> <period>Day</period> <period_raw>0</period_raw> <schedule>None</schedule> <schedule_raw>0</schedule_raw> <email/> <lastrun>-</lastrun> <nextrun>-</nextrun> </item> <item> : <item> <objid>4787</objid> <name>Santaluces Top 100 Client Counts - 1min Avgs</name> <template>Highest and lowest 1 minute averages</template> <period>Day</period> <period_raw>0</period_raw> <schedule>None</schedule> <schedule_raw>0</schedule_raw> <email/> <lastrun>8/29/2018 2:03:59 PM (176 Sensors)</lastrun> <lastrun_raw>43341.7527726157</lastrun_raw> <nextrun>-</nextrun> </item> <item> <objid>4788</objid> <name>Santaluces Top 100 Client Counts - 5min Avgs</name> <template>Highest and lowest 5 minute averages</template> <period>Day</period> <period_raw>0</period_raw> <schedule>None</schedule> <schedule_raw>0</schedule_raw> <email/> <lastrun>8/29/2018 2:04:30 PM (176 Sensors)</lastrun> <lastrun_raw>43341.7531268750</lastrun_raw> <nextrun>-</nextrun> </item>

Rename a Report

You can rename a report:

curl --noproxy mydom.com https://prtgaero.mydom.com/api/rename.htm?id=4788\&value=Silly%20New%20Report%20Name\&username=RESTFOOL\&passhash=1234567890
<HTML><BODY class="no-content"><B class="no-content">OK</B></BODY></HTML>

Set Sensors for a Report

So contrary to my belief, there is an API call to add a group, device or sensor.

curl --noproxy mydom.com https://prtgaero.mydom.com/api/reportaddsensor.htm?id=4785\&addid=2934\&username=RESTFOOL\&passhash=1234567890 The problem is that there is no way to retrieve the set of assigned sensors or groups or to delete objects. The only option would be to clone a report, set the report name and sensors and email. We would want to be able to delete a report as well if we needed to rebuild a set of reports.

Clone a Report

A report can be cloned and the clone renamed:

curl --noproxy mydom.com https://prtgaero.mydom.com/api/duplicateobject.htm?id=4784\&name=TestNewReport\&username=RESTFOOL\&passhash=1234567890

Note that this does not provide us with the ID of the new object. A better way to use curl is:

curl -Ls -o /dev/null -w %{url_effective} --noproxy mydom.com https://prtgaero.mydom.com/api/duplicateobject.htm?id=4784\&name=TestNewReport\&username=RESTFOOL\&passhash=1234567890

https://prtgaero.mydom.com/public/login.htm?loginurl=%2Freport.htm%3Fid%3D4792%26tabid%3D3&errormsg=

-L option: "If the server reports that the requested page has moved to a different location (indicated with a Location: header and a 3XX response code), this option will make curl redo the request on the new place."
-o /dev/null sends normal output to oblivion
-w %{url_effective} causes the redirect URL to be written to stdout
-s is silent

So we get the redirect URL back and in there is the ID of the new object:

https://prtgaero.mydom.com/public/login.htm?loginurl=%2Freport.htm%3Fid%3D4792%26tabid%3D3&errormsg=

In our script we pull this ID out by piping the output through sed: | sed -e 's/^https.*id%3D$[0-9]\+$.*$/\1/'

The response when creating a report is the following ( used the -v option to get this ):

< HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
< Connection: close
< Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
< Content-Length: 0
< Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 17:37:27 GMT
< Expires: 0
< Cache-Control: no-cache
< X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
< X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
< Server: PRTG/18.3.42.1748
< Location: /report.htm?id=4793&tabid=3

The returned URL /report.htm?id=4793&tabid=3 would actually take you to the Settings tab for the newly created report. Delete a Report In the event that there was some kind of change to the master report, there would be a requirement to delete any reports cloned from the master and then recreate them.

curl --noproxy mydom.com https://prtgaero.mydom.com/api/deleteobject.htm?id=4791\&approve=1\&username=RESTFOOL\&passhash=1234567890

Scheduling or Customizing a Report

Once a report has been cloned, assuming it has no scheduling, it is then possible to set it up on a schedule to be emailed out. I found reference to what looks like an API call "genreport" with the following parameters:

Parameter Description id Report ID report_period Must be set to "manual" manual_period_start Start date in format 2010-01-01 manual_period_end End date in format 2010-03-31 report_processing Set to "report_pdfandmail" report_emailaddress Target Email Address for the report

This was pulled from a forum post detailing a specific use of those parameters and the API call is not documented by Paessler. The problem this one is that it is a one time invocation

Looking at what happens when the settings are changed and saved through the web interface:

#593016 2018-08-30 15:09:53 10.254.20.208 "user2917" prtgaero.mydom.com 443 POST /editsettings 
"name_=Weekly Daily Downtime"
&tags_=
&"template_=T2 Top10 Uptime time.htm"
&"ownerid_=2917|Ed McGuigan|"
&"timezone_=Eastern Standard Time|(UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)"
&papersize_=letter
&orientation_=0
&comments=
&sensorlist=2945
&tagfilter_=
&filtertag_=pingsensor
&scheduletype_=3
&specifichour_=0
&dayweek_=7
&daymonth_=1
&date_=
&maildisk_=2
&[email protected],[email protected]
&emailgroup_=-1
&usecompression_=0
&dataperiod_=1
&reporttype_=1
&reportday_=0
&reportweek_=1
&reportmonth_=1
&reportyear_=1
&schedule_=-1|None|
&percentileshow_=0
&percentile_=95
&percentileaverage_=300
&percentilemode_=1
&savedatafiles_=nofiles
&"reportheader_=Bing bong boolabongbing"
&"reportfooter_=Ding dang gillyfangs"
&accessrights_=1
&accessrights_=1
&accessrights_201=100
&id=4790

It would be possible for me to build up a web form and do a POST to simulate this. I would need to pull the report with a webscraper and then read every form field and it's value to recreate the form, change the email address to what I wanted and then post the form. Fairly doable from python.

Add comment

Created on Aug 31, 2018 1:15:57 PM