Configuring URL Monitoring

Monitor the uptime, availability, performance, content accuracy, and certificate of URLs by using PATROL for Synthetic Monitoring. For details about what attributes are collected in monitoring, see Monitor-types-and-attributes.

To configure URL monitoring

1. Perform one of the following actions:
   • In BMC Helix Operations Management, click Configuration > Monitoring Policies > Create Policy.
   • In TrueSight Operations Management, click Configuration > Infrastructure Policies > Create Policy.
2. Click Add Monitoring Configuration.

3. To configure the KM, set the following preferences in the Add Monitoring Configuration dialog box:

   Monitoring Solution	Monitor Profile	Monitor Type
   Synthetic Monitoring	Synthetic Monitoring	URL Monitoring

4. In the URL configuration section, click Add.

5. Specify the following fields:

   Field	Description
   URL address	Enter the complete URL that you want to monitor in the following format: http://<Host>:<PORT>/<URL> or https://<Host>:<PORT>/<URL> By default, if no port is specified, port 80 for HTTP and port 443 for HTTPS are monitored.
   URL display name	Enter a unique name that identifies the URL that you want to monitor.
   HTTP request method type	Select the GET HTTP method type to use for the specified URL.
   HTTP encoding	Select one of the HTML character sets supported by the agent: Web Server default -- The Web Server encoding encodes the response without any encoding from the KM. *(All) -- All types of encodings.
   HTTP request timeout (sec)	Set the HTTP request timeout in seconds. If the system does not retrieve a response before the specified timeout, it generates an alert for the MonitoringStatus attribute. Info A server request can take longer than 30 seconds to respond. To prevent a timeout error, increase the timeout value(Maximum 120 seconds).
   Follow web server redirects	Select the web server configurations that allow monitoring of redirected URLs: NEVER: Select this option to never redirect. ALWAYS: Select this option to always redirect. NORMAL: Select this option to always redirect, except from HTTPS URLs to HTTP URLs. By default, this field is set to NEVER.
   Use Redirected Hostname for Device Mapping	Select the Use Redirected Hostname for Device Mapping checkbox to enable the system to map devices by using the host name obtained after the URL redirects, rather than the original host name you entered. This feature is particularly useful in environments where URLs redirect to different hostnames, ensuring that the system accurately identifies devices based on the final resolved host name.
   Proxy settings Note: If a URL proxy setting is specified, it overrides the global proxy settings.
   Proxy host name/IP address	Enter the proxy host name or IP address on which the proxy server is installed.
   Proxy port number	Enter the proxy port number.
   Proxy User Name	Enter the proxy server user name. If proxy server authentication is not required, leave the field blank.
   Proxy Password	Enter the proxy server password.
   HTTP response code check
   OK status code ranges	Enter the range of the status code to set the Availability attribute to OK. Specify the range in a comma-separated list. For example, 200-299, 200-302.
   Warning status code ranges	Enter the range of the status code to set the Availability attribute to WARNING. Specify the range in a comma-separated list. For example, 1-199, 300-999. Important Any status code not configured as OK or Warning, including an empty status code, sets the 'Availability' attribute to ALARM.
   NTLM/basic authentication
   User Name	Enter the user name of the URL for authentication. If the URL authentication is not required, leave the field blank.
   Password	Enter the URL password.
   HTTP response content check criterias
   Contains the string - single line	Enter the string expression that needs to be verified.
   Case sensitive	Select this checkbox to enable case-sensitive verification of the specified string.
   Regular expression string	Select this checkbox to enable a regular expression search criteria.
   HTTP response check condition	Select the HTTP response check condition to set an alarm based on the following conditions: Do not match Match If you select the Match condition and the response includes the specified string, the KM generates an alarm. For example, If the configured string expression is Login failed, and the Match condition is selected, the KM generates an alarm when the response contains the string 'Login failed'. If the configured string expression is Login succeed and the Do not match condition is selected, the KM generates an alarm when the response does not contain the string 'Login succeed'.
   User Agent	Enter the HTTP user agent.  The user agent field is used to identify the browser of the Web Server.
   Client certificate database details
   .jks file path	Enter the full path name of the Java Keystore Database (.jks file) file with the required certificates located on the same host as the PATROL Agent.
   KeyStore password	Enter the password of the Java Keystore Database (.jks file).
   Global Proxy settings
   Proxy host name/IP address	Enter the proxy host name or IP address on which the proxy server is installed.
   Proxy port number	Enter the proxy port number.
   Proxy User Name	Enter the proxy server user name. If proxy server authentication is not required, leave the field blank.
   Proxy Password	Enter the proxy server password.
   Administration
   JAVA Home(11 or above)	Enter the full path of the JRE directory on the PATROL Agent server.  The JAVA version should be 11 and later. For example, c:\java\jre11. Info Make sure that the JAVA_HOME is configured correctly; if it is not set up properly, monitoring will not start.
   JVM Arguments	Enter the additional Java Virtual Machine arguments for the Java collector. For example, for Java memory settings: -Xms256m -Xmx1024m.
   Enable Device Mapping	Select the required option to enable device mapping based on the URL hostname: External DNS Hostname -- The KM resolves the canonical DNS name by using reverse DNS lookup from the URL IP address. URL Hostname --The KM uses the direct host name extracted from the URL without any DNS resolution. Disabled -- The KM does not create a device from the URL. By default, this field is set to External DNS Hostname.
   Enable Debug	Select the checkbox to enable debug. The log files are available in the following directory: For Linux -- $PATROL_HOME/stm/url/log directory  For Windows -- %PATROL_HOME%\stm\url\log directory
   File based policy configuration	Select the checkbox to enable File based policy configuration. You can monitor web URLs by configuring the File based policy configuration. You can upload a file that contains your list of URLs.
   URLs file path	Enter the full file path where the URLs are configured. The URLs in the file must be added in the following format: URL<SEP><url>|URL_LABEL<SEP><url_display_name>|USER_AGENT<SEP><user agent string>|METHOD<SEP><method>|CHARSET<SEP><charset>|CONTENT_TO_MATCH<SEP><string>| CONTENT_MATCH_CASESENSITIVE<SEP><0 or 1>|CONTENT_MATCH_REGEX<SEP><0 or 1>|CONTENT_MATCH_STATE<SEP><0 or 1>|DYNAMIC_REDIRECTS<SEP><0 or 1 or 2>| RESPONSE_OK_RANGE<SEP><200-299 or 302>|RESPONSE_WARN_RANGE<SEP><1-199 or 300-999>|TIMEOUT<SEP><1-120> The <SEP> symbol serves as a separator. In this context, STX is used as the separator, which stands for Start of Text. It’s a control character in the ASCII character set with the decimal code 2 (or 0x02 in hexadecimal). Info Only URL and URL_LABEL are the mandatory parameters. All other parameters are optional. Refer to the sample file for an example of the correct URL format. You can initiate a file upload directly from the BMC Helix Operations Management (BHOM) policy, and the KM automatically retrieves and processes the file. Info If you make any modifications to the file, restart the PATROL Agent.

6. Click Save.