Diagnostic

• Traceroute Test

  Yes, AlertBot offers emailed traceroute reports when failures occur. The traceroute may not be available with all plans. Please contact sales@alertbot.com to figure out the plan that best meets your needs.Few readers

Specifications

• The Difference Between Form Methods

  The Method determines how data should be sent to the server. The GET method sends data as part of the Query String portion of the URL. The Query String portion of the URL is everything that comes after the question mark “?” in the URL. The POST method attaches data as a file attachment to the HTTP request. This attachment is not visible to typical website users. For information on selecting the proper Method for your page or submission form, please see the Related Article below. RelaSome readers

• Post Data & QueryString Special Char. Substitution

  If you need to use an Ampersand, Equals sign or other special character as part of the Values in the Query String or Post Data, you will need to replace them with the ASCII equivalents so that they do not interfere with standards for HTTP data formatting. This substitution will have no affect on the value you are passing. As a matter of fact, web browsers automatically do this behind the scenes too. Here is a complete list of special characters and their ASCII equivalents that you needSome readers

• Encryption of Customer Data

  AlertBot takes various precautions to secure and encrypt sensitive customer data as follows: Encryption in Transit - all data is always encrypted in transit via SSL encryption. Encryption at Rest - Customers can turn on Encryption at Rest for any information in their test scripts (including, but not limited to, usernames and passwords) that they deem sensitive by using our encryption features. Simply enable the Encryption options in the Advanced Options section of tSome readers

Security

• Does AlertBot Accept Self-Signed SSL Certificates?

  Currently, AlertBot only recognizes SSL certificates that come standard in Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. Because of this, AlertBot cannot recognize self signed SSL certificates. If your site uses a self signed SSL certificate, the tests run on the monitor for that site will fail because it will be unable to verify the certificate. This is a feature that will most likely become available in the future.Some readers

Concerns

• Receiving an Alert and Discovering Your Site is Fine

  To be able to narrow down the potential causes of this issue, you should first start by understanding how our system eliminates false alerts. Please first take a moment to read the related article at the bottom to learn about this. After having read about how we eliminate false alerts, we hope it allowed you to you feel confident about the accuracy of our service. If not, we welcome you to email us and we will look into your false alert concern. From our experience, there are varioPopular

• How Does AlertBot Eliminate False Alerts?

  When a test failure is first detected at one of our Test Station, a follow up test is scheduled one minute later to validate the failure from a different test station in a different geographic region of the world. If that second Test Station also reports the same test failure, then our systems consider it a confirmed failure and start the alerting process. Since these two Test Stations run completely independently of each other and are located in different regions of the world, our systSome readers

• Client-Side JavaScript or VBScript Scripts

  Just to be very clear, this answer is very specific to client-side script and not server-side script. In other words, a client-side script is code that gets sent to the user's browser as part of the HTML content. Typically, the user's web browser will run this client-side JavaScript or VBScript code on their computer. While AlertBot will accept client-side JavaScript and VBScript when it tests your website, it will regard it just like any other text on the page and not execute any of thSome readers

• My Host Provides Monitoring; Why Use AlertBot?

  There are many reasons why you should use a third-party monitoring system, and not the one provided by your hosting company. The following outline describes them in detail: Conflict of Interest - There is a conflict of interest with having your hosting company monitor your servers. Your hosting company wants you to believe that they provide you with excellent, uninterrupted service. This gives them a strong incentive not to disclose all failures to you. There is a good chance thSome readers

• How Monitoring Affects Your Bandwidth Usage

  Every time your website is tested, the web page it tests is downloaded from your server just as if a normal user was downloading it. For this reason, monitoring your web site will consume some of the bandwidth that your hosting company allocates to your hosting plan. To calculate how much bandwidth monitoring your site will consume, use the following calculation: Determine the HTML page size that is being tested by opening the page in a browser and viewing the file properties.Some readers

• What Happens if AlertBot Goes Down?

  Our monitoring systems have been designed with a high level of redundancy to safeguard against all types of failures. For more information about these safeguards, see the Related Articles listed below. As a precautionary measure, we internally monitor all of our systems so that as soon as any of them go down, our administrators are immediately notified. Once our system administrators are notified, they immediately start troubleshooting the problem and begin restoring our service. WSome readers

• Removing AlertBot Traffic from Website Log Reports

  Since AlertBot hits your website in the same way a regular user does, AlertBot monitoring will register as regular hits in your traffic reports. This poses an issue when attempting to accurately measure and report your website's traffic for real users. Some log-based website traffic reporting programs allow you to exclude log rows based on IP, Host, or Browser's User Agent. Using this feature, you can remove the effects of AlertBot monitoring from your log reports. While AlertBot's IP aSome readers

• Supported Platforms

  AlertBot is platform independent. It will monitor all types of servers including Linux, UNIX, Apache, IIS, Windows, and MAC. AlertBot can also test all types of web pages including HTML, PHP, ASP, ASP.Net, CGI, JSP, and more. There are absolutely no platform limitations.Some readers

• How Does AlertBot Affect a Site's Hit Counter?

  AlertBot acts like a normal user when testing your site. For this reason, each test will be recorded in your server's log files just like a normal user. If you are running a web site stats program that works off of your server's log files, then you should keep in mind that every monitoring test will show up as a page-view in your stats. On the other hand, if you are running a JavaScript-driven hit counter on your site, our monitoring will have no affect on it because it does not run theSome readers

• How Does AlertBot Affect Site Performance?

  AlertBot has no impact on your site's performance. AlertBot acts like any regular user on your site. The performance impact can easily be put into perspective if you look at it in the following way: If you were to monitor your website or server at a 5 minute test frequency, AlertBot would only be accessing your website or server 12 times per hour. If you now compare this number to how many times your site is accessed by real users per hour, 12 accesses become negligible.Some readers

• Monitoring DSL or Cable Modem Hosted Websites or Servers

  If you host your website or server at home through a DSL or Cable Modem and want to monitor that site with AlertBot, please note the following compatibility issues. If your DSL or Cable Modem service provider has assigned you a static IP address, AlertBot will work just fine for you. However, if your service provider uses dynamic IP assignment, you should not use AlertBot. AlertBot thinks of IP address changes as failures. Since dynamic IP assignments result in your address being changed perSome readers

• Does AlertBot Accept Website Cookies?

  Yes, when AlertBot tests your website, it will accept all cookies it receives from your website during that session. These cookies are then disregarded after that test session is completed and will not be available for the next test time. This is usually referred to as having Session-level Cookies enabled and Persistent Cookies disabled.Few readers

• Why Use AlertBot Over Installing Monitoring Software?

  There are various reasons that make installing and running your own monitoring software a bad choice. The follow outline explains each one in detail. Server Failure Results in No Alerts - If you install and run the monitoring software on the same server that you are monitoring and the server locks up, then so will the monitoring software. AlertBot does not suffer from this problem because it does not need to install anything on your server and therefore your server failureFew readers

Firewall

• Can I Access Information About Your Test Station IP Addresses?

  Upon request, we can provide you with a list of IP addresses that you're tested from. Customers often use this list to whitelist our IPs in their firewalls or ignoring website hits from our tests in their website stats. We know that customers don't want to have to frequently update their firewalls and stats configurations every time our network changes. For this reason, we have created a "Constant IP Group". This special group only includes IPs in our network that are permanent. New IPPopular

• Monitoring Password Protected Sites

  There are various types of password protection implemented on web sites and servers. The following outline describes each one of these and how we support it. HTTP Login - This is the standard login which is part of the HTTP protocol. Standard Internet browsers popup a login box for this type of login. AlertBot completely supports this type of login. Web Page Form-Based Login - This type of login is implemented right into the web page itself. It looks like a typical web-baseSome readers

• Will Monitoring Affect My Routers, Switches, or Firewalls?

  AlertBot uses all standard protocols and communication techniques so it will not have any adverse effects on your routers, switches, and firewalls. Our monitoring imitates how normal users communicate with your servers so our monitoring service has no more impact than a normal user.Some readers

• How Will My Firewall Affect Monitoring?

  If the website or server that you wish to monitor is reachable from the Internet, then you should have nothing to worry about. AlertBot is designed specifically to monitor Internet accessible websites and servers (including the ones that are password protected). These servers include http, https, ftp, pop3, imap, smtp, snmp, and many others. In general, firewalls are meant to protect server ports that are not meant to be accessible from the Internet. If you would like to monitor one ofFew readers

• Difference Between TCP Ping and HTTP Connection

  The TCP Response Time is a measure of how long it takes a client (another computer or browser) to connect to your server by pinging your server. The HTTP Response Time is a measure of how long it takes to actually establish a connection to your server. Typically, these times are very similar for the same time span.Popular

• List of Common Port Numbers

  Here is a list of common Port numbers for your reference: 1 TCP MUX 5 RJE 7 Echo 9 Discard 11 Systat 13 Daytime 15 Netstat 17 QOTD 18 MSP 20 FTP Data 21 FTP Control 22 SSH 23 Telnet 25 SMTP 27 ETRN 29 MSG-ICP 31 MSG-Auth 33 DSP 37 Time 38 RAP 39 RLP 43 WhoIs 49 TACACS, Login Host Protocol 53 DNS 57 MTP 59 NFILE 63 WhoIs++ 66 SQL*Net 68 bootdp/dhcp 69 TFTP 70 Gopher Services 79 Finger 80 HTTP 88 Kerberos, WWW 95 supdupPopular

• AlertBot System Redundancy and Scalability Explained

  The AlertBot test systems have been engineered and developed to achieve the highest level of redundancy, scalability and distribution possible. Simply stated, our goal is "No single or multiple point of failure". This article goes on to explain some of the design decisions that have helped us achieve this goal. Please note that this article is written from a semi-technical standpoint. There are two layers of systems in our design; the first layer is the Test Stations that are located inSome readers

• Creating Form Data for Post Data or QueryString

  There is a very specific form data format that all QueryString and Post Data must be in to meet HTTP protocol standards. Here is an example of the format and an explanation of the requirements: Example Form Data Format: ProdID=053974&CustName=John Doe&CustLocal=Atlanta, GA 14902&CustType=2 The example above demonstrates the Form Data format. The format consists of name-value pairs joined together by Ampersand signs (with no spaces in-between). The first name-value pair is "ProdID=0Some readers

• Common SMS Email Formats

  Here is a list of the most common SMS Email formats for various mobile phone service providers. Please Note: that you must substitute the square brackets " ... " with the information indicated. In the US and Canada, use 10 digits for phone number. 7-11 Speakout (GSM USA) PhoneNumber @cingularme.com Alaska Communications Systems PhoneNumber @msg.acsalaska.com Alltel Wireless PhoneNumber @message.alltel.com AT&T Wireless (Former Cingular) PhoneNumber @txt.aSome readers

• How Do I Link to AlertBot?

  Thanks so much for linking to AlertBot, we greatly value and appreciate your support! Linking to AlertBot is simple. You can either use a text link or a graphic of your choice to show your support for our service. Please feel free to pick a link that will blend in with the style and content of your site. Linking to AlertBot using a text link: URL: http://www.alertbot.com Title: AlertBot Website Monitoring Description: Website monitoring servSome readers