SiteScope User's Guide

Disk Space Monitor

The SiteScope Disk Space Monitor provides an easy way for you to track how much disk space is currently in use on your server. A full disk can cause a host of problems including system crashes and corrupt files.

Usage Guidelines

Why should I use this monitor?

Running out of disk space can cause a host of problems both large and small, and it's something that can happen slowly over time or very rapidly. Having SiteScope verify that your disk space is within acceptable limits can save you from a crashed system and corrupted files.

How should I schedule my monitors?

The disk space monitor doesn't require many resources, so you can check it as often as you like, but every 10 minutes should be sufficient. You can specify both warning and error thresholds so that SiteScope can notify you of a potential problem in time for you to do something about it. You may even want to have SiteScope execute a script that deletes all files in certain directories, such as /tmp, when space becomes constrained.

Completing the Disk Space Monitor Form

To display the Disk Space Monitor Form, either click the Edit link for an existing Disk Space Monitor in a monitor table, or click the Add a new Monitor to this Group link on a group's detail page and choose the Add Disk Space Monitor link.

Complete the items on the Disk Space Monitor Form as follows. When the required items are complete, click the Update Monitor button.

Server

Choose the server that you want to monitor. The default is to monitor disks on the server on which SiteScope is installed. Click the choose server link to monitors disks on another server.

Disk

Choose the disk drive that you want to monitor from the list.

Note: Disk performance counters are disabled by default in standard Windows 2000 installations. In order for you to monitor disk drives using the SiteScope Disk Monitor on servers running Windows 2000, you must enable these disk counters. Use the diskperf -y command line on each Win2000 machine you want to monitor disk space and then reboot each server. You should then be able to select the disk drives for those servers in the SiteScope Disk Monitor form.

Update every

Enter how frequently the monitor should check this drive. The drop-down list to the right of the text box lets you specify time increments of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. You must specify a time increment of at least 15 seconds.

Title (Optional)

Enter a name for this monitor. This name appears in the Name text box on the monitor table when you open the group's detail page. If you don't enter a name, a default name will be created.

Advanced Options

The advanced options give you the ability to customize error and warning condition thresholds. If you choose not to set them, SiteScope uses pre-set defaults if available. If a default is not available, SiteScope cannot utilize the condition.

Disable

Check this box to temporarily disable this monitor and any associated alerts. To enable the monitor again, clear the box.

Verify Error

Check this box if you want SiteScope to automatically run this monitor again if it detects an error. When an error is detected, the monitor will immediately be scheduled to run again once.

Note: In order to change the run frequency of this monitor when an error is detected, use the Update every (on errors) option below.

Note: The status returned by the Verify Error run of the monitor will replace the status of the originally scheduled run that detected an error. This may cause the loss of important performance data if the data from the verify run is different than the initial error status.

Warning: Use of this option across many monitor instances may result in significant monitoring delays in the case that multiple monitors are rescheduled to verify errors at the same time.

Update Every (on error)

This options allows you to set a new monitoring interval for monitors that have registered an error condition. For example, you may want SiteScope to monitor this item every 10 minutes normally, but as often as every 2 minutes if an error has been detected. Note that this increased scheduling will also affect the number of alerts generated by this monitor.

Schedule (Optional)

By default, SiteScope's monitors are enabled every day of the week. You may, however, schedule your monitors to run only on certain days or on a fixed schedule. Choose the Edit schedule link to create or edit a monitor schedule. For information about creating schedules, read the instructions on Schedules.

Monitor Description (Optional)

Enter additional information about this monitor. The Monitor Description can include HTML tags such as the <BR> <HR>, and <B> tags to control display format and style. The description will appear on the Monitor Detail page.

Report Description (Optional)

Enter a description for this monitor that will make it easier to understand what this monitor does. The description will appear on Management Reports and on the info list for a monitor.

Depends On (Optional)

To make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor or monitor group, use the drop-down list to select the monitor or group on which this monitor is dependent. Select None to remove any dependency.

Depends Condition (Optional)

If you choose to make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor, choose the status condition that the other monitor or monitor group should have in order for the current monitor to run normally. The current monitor will be run normally as long as the monitor or group on which it depends reports the condition selected in this option.

List Order (Optional)

By default, new monitors are listed last on the Monitor Detail page. You may use this drop-down list to choose a different placement for this monitor.

Error if

Set the Error threshold for this monitor. By default SiteScope reports an error condition if your disk becomes more than 98% full. If you want to change the error threshold, choose percent full and = from the drop-down lists and then type the new threshold in the text entry box. The value you enter must be a whole number.

percent full=

Warning if

Set the warning threshold for this monitor. By default SiteScope reports a warning condition if your disk becomes more than 95% full, but less than the error threshold. If you would like to change the warning threshold, choose percent full >= from the drop-down list and type the new threshold in the text entry box. You must enter a whole number.

For example, if you want to change the warning threshold to 90%, choose percent full >= from the drop-down list and then enter 90 in the text entry box.

Good if

If you'd like, you can set conditions that must be met in order for SiteScope to return an OK status. If you don't set this, SiteScope will assume that the monitor should return an OK status unless either the Error or Warning thresholds are reached.

The symbols in the comparison value list are the same as those for Error if.