Q: How to setup the program to send notifications to my cell phone or pager?
A: There are three ways to receive Alchemy Eye notifications to the cell
phone or pager:
Most of the cellular/paging providers provide their clients with a special
e-mail boxes that automatically forward all incoming mail to the customer's
cell phone (SMS) or pager. All you need in this case is to set up the
program to send e-mail notifications to this email address. Please contact
your cellular/paging provider for assistance.
You can use special plugins for Alchemy Eye which allow to send alerts
directly to your pager or cell phone with the help of an ordinary modem
connected to your computer using various protocols. As an example of such
a plugin, you can try Alchemy Alert plugin.
You can also use Alchemy Eye ability to launch external programs or
batch files on events and pass server name, address, state, error message,
etc. to such program in the command-line parameters. In this case you can
use any 3D-party software that is able to dial the provider's SMS center
with the help of modem and send a notification as SMS or pager message.
If you do not have such program, please have a look at the NotePage
(www.notepage.com), it has a trial version so you can try it before you
buy.
Q: The program does not seem to send notifications, launch external programs,
etc on events. Why?
A: Please understand that normally the program sends notifications, launches
programs, etc only when server state changes. It means that if the server
was down when the program started and the check verified it is down now,
no notification will be sent.
To check that notifications are really working please:
Start the program.
Create a server record and set it up to send you notifications when the
server goes up or goes down (both actions).
Force the program to check the server. Suppose it is up; no notification
is sent at this moment.
Stop the server.
Force the program to check it again. The program will understand that
the server is down and it will send you a notification about this event.
Start the server and force the program to check it again. Another
notification is sent at this moment.
Q: Our antivirus program detects that this program is infected. Is it really so?
A: No, definitely not. An explanation of how the antivirus programs
work:
An antivirus program normally consists of two parts:
1. Virus database, i.e. the database with virus signatures. This
database contains pieces of code (sequences of bytes) that can
identify the virus as an executable program.
2. Engine, i.e. an executable that can scan the file being checked and
compare it with the virus database.
When an antivirus development company receives a virus, it retrieves
the virus signature, adds this signature to the database and sends
the database update to its customers.
For example, imagine that the antivirus development company receives a
virus that is compressed with the help of one of the EXE packers. In
this case the antivirus developers will add the packer signature to the
database instead of the virus signature, and this virus database will
start detecting a "virus" in any file compressed by this EXE packer.
It is exactly what has happened to your antivirus program and
Alchemy Eye. The Alchemy Eye executable was compressed by the best
compression/protection system we were able to find - by ASProtect
(www.aspack.com/asprotect). Neither ASProtect nor Alchemy Eye contains
any viruses! Please forward this message to the developers of the
antivirus software program that is used in your office and you'll receive
an update of the virus database from them.
Q: I run the program as a service, but it does not seem to send alerts or
carry out any other actions. When I run it as an application in the GUI
mode, it works fine. Why?
A: Please understand that there is no "separate service module" and "separate
GUI module" for this program. Apart from this, you run the same program
(EXE) either in service mode or in the GUI mode. It means that if you are
running the program in service mode and then launch the GUI at the same
time, you simply run two instances of the same program, and they do not
negotiate one with another. Probably, in your case the .KHW file is not
loaded in the service mode.
To make sure that the .KHW file is loaded, please follow these steps:
- Stop the service.
- Run the program in the GUI mode.
- Load .KHW file that you need to be run in the service mode.
- Check that the "Automatically open last document" option is selected in
the File -> Preferences -> Misc. tab.
- Set up the web interface in the File ->Preferences ->Web tab.
- Close the GUI.
- Start the service.
- Use the web interface to see if the service loads your .KHW file and
works.
Point your web browser to the following URL: http://server:port where server
is the IP address of the monitoring server port is the port number that you
have specified in the preferences.
Also, in the Services applet, please specify the Administrator account as
the Alchemy Eye service account. This is strongly recommended
for correct operation of the service.
Q: What are the trial limitations of the program?
A: The trial version has the following limitations:
- It does not allow opening the .KHW files.
- It requires restarting every 24 hours.
- It cannot be run as a service.
- The server import function is limited.
Q: I am not able to modify the .KHW file or change settings when running as a
service. Any ideas?
A: To modify the .KHW file or change setting in this case, please follow these
steps:
- Run the program as an application in the GUI mode.
- Make necessary changes in the configuration or in the server list file.
- Close the GUI.
- Run the service.
Q: How can I view the current status of the program running as a service?
A: To view the service state, please use the web interface. You can set it up
in the File -> Preferences -> Web tab. Please note that the web interface
is the only way to monitor the service state. If you run the GUI while
running the service, it will create a new instance of the program and will
not show the current status of the service.
Q: I cannot setup the program to send me email notifications. I've set SMTP
server address to mail.company.com:25 in the Program Preferences dialog.
Is this correct?
A: No, you should not use port number in this case. Correct value for the
SMTP server address in this case will be smtp.company.com.
Q: How can I change the SMTP port if it differs from the default value (25)?
A: To change the SMTP port, please close the application or stop the service
and open the eye.ini file in any text editor. Then, find the
[Mail settings] section and change 25 to other value in the Server string.
Q: My reports only contain the recent data. I would like to get information
for longer period of time. How can I do that?
A: The reports are based on the stat.csv file. By default, it is truncated to
2048 KB. If you want to get data for longer periods, you can change this
value in the File -> Preferences -> Misc. tab in the Truncate to box.
Please note, however, that too large stat.csv file is undesirable, because
it can slow down the program and make it unstable.
Q: Is there a way to get access to the web interface via IIS?
A: No, Alchemy Eye has its own web engine that is independent from any
other web servers.
So, the Alchemy Eye web port must differ from the IIS port and other
web ports in your system.
Q: I have some issues with the email alerts sending. Can you help to determine
the reason of the problem?
A: To analyze the email problem, please follow these steps:
- Check the sender address in the File -> Preferences -> E-Mail tab.
In most cases, it must be an address from your email domain.
- Select the Log all server events item from the What to log list box in
File -> Preferences -> Logging tab.
- Check that the recipient address is correct in the Server Properties ->
Actions -> Alerts tab of any of your checks.
- Press the Preview button to generate a test message. Close the Properties
dialog.
- Go to the View -> Log file.. menu item and look for the entries regarding
your test message at the end of the log file.
Normally, these entries can help to determine the errors with your SMTP
server.
Q: I am trying to monitor an MS SQL server and receive the following error
message when trying to connect: server is down: Failed to load library
"ntwdblib.dll". Have you any idea why this would be?
A: To get the MS SQL check to work, you need to have the MS SQL client software
to be installed on your computer. The error message above means that it is
not installed on your system. Please install the client software to fix the
problem.
Q: I have created an entry in alchemy for the Oracle server and get an error
saying Oracle client is not installed. I have a client installed on the box.
Any idea?
A: To run the Oracle check, you need to install the correspondent Oracle client
software and specify the correct .dll file in the
File|Preferences|Misc.|Oracle interface library field. Since Oracle version
8.x, it is oraclient*.dll, for version 7.x it is ORA73.DLL. Please check
what interface library your Oracle client is using. Normally, this .dll file
is located in the \BIN subfolder of the Oracle client program folder, e.g.,
C:\ORACLE\BIN.
