Tracing settings
All programs and services write logs — traces in technical jargon — to the Logger, which collects them in a shared file. On the Tracing Settings tab, you define how detailed they are.
On the General subtab, four buttons set all levels at once:
| Button | Effect |
|---|---|
| Recommended | the recommended levels for normal operation |
| No trace | no logs, except errors of the alarms |
| Minimum | errors only |
| Maximum | everything, as detailed as possible |
The Server, Admin, Agent, Wallboard, Dispatcher, RoutingService and Logger subtabs each contain a table for one program: under Trace facility the areas, under Trace level the level None, Error, Warning, Information or Detailed. On Agent, you also select on the right the agents to whom these levels apply; for all other agents, no logs are written.
SNMP settings
With SNMP, you report alarms to a monitoring system of your IT department. In the SNMP Server configuration group:
| Field | Meaning | Default |
|---|---|---|
| SNMP Server | name or IPv4 address of the system that receives the messages (traps). If empty, SNMP is off. | empty |
| SNMP Port | the port of the receiver | 162 |
| SNMP Community | the community | public |
| SNMP Location, SNMP Contact | location and contact person that the server gives on request | empty |
| SNMP Version | V1 or V2 | V1 |
| SNMP Identifier for this Server | a number by which the monitoring system recognizes the server | 0 |
If an SNMP server is entered, the server itself answers SNMP requests on UDP port 6008 and sends traps for alarms whose severity provides for this — see Performance monitoring and alarms. SNMP requires the Server: SNMP monitoring license.
Emails for alarms
Severities of alarms can also send emails. What these look like is defined by the Email template group: Subject and text. The following placeholders are available in them:
| Placeholder | is replaced by |
|---|---|
%ALARMNAME% |
the name of the alarm |
%TYPE% |
RAISED for a new alarm, UPDATE for a change |
%RAISED%, %CHANGED% |
when the alarm was raised or changed |
%SEVERITYNAME%, %SEVERITYLEVEL% |
name and level of the severity |
%THRESHOLD%, %VALUE% |
the threshold and the measured value |
If the text is left empty, the server sends a standard email in English — even if a subject is entered. The sender is the address from Email sending.
Maintenance plan
On the Maintenance Plan tab, you define in a calendar when the server maintains its database. At the start of each entry, it rebuilds the indexes and shrinks the database files. Without an entry, there is no automatic maintenance. Only main administrators may edit the plan.
Schedule maintenance for a quiet time, for example at night: while it runs, the database may respond slowly. You start maintenance manually with Maintenance in the Database group of the ribbon. What maintenance does exactly and what to bear in mind afterwards is described in Maintenance.