SAM Monitor that checks for a file in a folder at specific times

Earlier last year I was working with one of our business units to setup a monitor to check for a file in a folder on the SFTP server and if it did not find a file in the folder within an hour configure an alert to go out. Link to what we were able to put together Assistance with using PowerShell to monitor a folder for files

Now it gets a little interesting.

They would like to monitor a folder on the SFTP server that gets a file dropped on it Saturdays at 1AM. If the file does not get dropped on the SFTP server generate an alert to go out to have them check the folder. The only time it needs to check this folder is on Saturdays at 1AM EST.

I have a SAM monitor setup that is checking the folder to see if there are any files in it and on Saturday it found one and it was green.

After looking at this I took the statistics for the monitor and adjusted so if there are any files in the folder it will show Warning or Critical. So if it finds a file it will show as Critical and if it finds nothing it will show as up.

Looking for suggestions to see if anyone else has done something like this. The new curve ball to this monitor/alert is that they only want it to check on Saturday mornings at 1AM and most of my monitors and alerts are set to be on all the time. I have an additional request for another folder to check from 830PM -900 PM M-F.

If someone can point me in the right direction that would be great. Thanks!

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bobmarley

I think you are on the right track for the SAM portion. Unfortunately you can't schedule SAM to only run at specific times so the monitor will run 24/7 and will be in a down state for most of the time as shown in your chart above.

When you set up your alert set it on a schedule and have the schedule only set for Saturday during the times you wish.

martian_monster

What about using the Solarwinds Unmanage Task Editor? I am trying to follow instructions on how to set it up. I am not really clear on the set duration part. I have something I need to monitor on just Saturday morning and the task editor is not super clear.

SteveK

Something like this, powershell and sam is probably your best avenue. I haven't had to do something like this before. My first thought is to use a multiple statistic value so you can capture the file/folder count as one statistic and do not set any thresholds on that. Then utilize a switch block or if statement on if the time is between monitoring ours it checks the value then reports back a 0 for good and a 1 for bad off the item count, and if its outside that window report back as always good.

The other route is it looks like is your script reports back a 1 for warning and a 2 for critical. Using the same time logic, if its outside the window just have it statically report back a 0.

I haven't utilized the scheduler before, but I believe that is supposed to create a windows task to set the monitoring windows for specific items. So yeah, only having something that you want to monitor for a single hour during the week gets rather tricky in that regard.

bobmarley

Did you get this going? As @SteveK mentioned you could return a Stastic Value within your script to report the status. In the Powershell script itself you could return a 0 (up) at all times during any time except Saturday and you time window. So basically first have the script check the day of the week and time and if it is not within your window exit out with a Statistic (0) and also Exit (0) otherwise continue on processing the script to look for the file.

martian_monster

I have two of these monitors and alerts I am working on. I have one that is only looking at the folder on Saturdays from 12AM-1AM and then another one that is M-F from 730PM to 8PM. I found this on THWACk and used it

Current Setup -

Each powershell monitor is set to 0 for Warning and Critical. (I have been changing things up a bit to get things to work)

I have alerts setup for both and then I edited the time of day for the alert to be active only during 12-1 and 730-800PM.

So right now the monitor is showing as critical or warning all the time unless there is a file found.

This seems to be working in my stage environment for now but each of the nodes will show red because the monitor is down.

Yesterday I was able to figure out the Scheduler and am testing that out right now. It seems to be working but figuring out the time to enable the task has been the tricky part.

I do like the idea of using two scripts for this - one to check to see if it is the correct date and time to run and then a second one to check for a file if the first script says it is the correct day and time to run.

I will see if I can figure out how to have a PS script check for time and see if I can add it to my current monitor or setup a new one.

martian_monster

The scheduler is definitely odd. I am probably going to disable the scheduler and see if I can use PowerShell. I may just use the Time of Day in the alert and only enable the alert when I need it on a work with the red dot on the node.

SteveK

I'm personally not a fan of having monitors in a critical or warning state for an extended period of time. It can definitely skew reports. I'm also not a fan of having custom alerts for a specific monitor. Depending on the size of the environment and how things are configured, that could become a management nightmare.

The main downside with this approach is the alert will automatically resolve after the time window if its bad. I want to say you could something like (not tested, just off the top of my head):

For the Sunday between 12 and 1 (assuming midnight, but swap the 0 with a 12 if its noon)

$Date = Get-Date

If (($Date.DayOfWeek -eq "Sunday") -and ($Date.Hour -eq 0)) {

#File check logic and branch another If statement for your Up vs Critical/Warning

} Else {

#report your trigger condition as up

}

Then on your weekday one, you could something like

$DayActive = "Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"

If (($Date.DayOfWeek -in $DayActive) -and ($Date.hour -eq 19) -and ($Date.Minute -ge 30)) {

#File check logic and branch another If statement for your Up vs Critical/Warning

} Else {

#report your trigger condition as up

}

If the file stays in the SFTP folder, you could potentially do some kind of age calculator

martian_monster

Thank you!! I am going to have a look at this and let you know how it goes.