Copying Devices by Cloning or Using Device Templates

After configuring a device with one or more sensors there are two options to copy it:

• Cloning a device: Is the best option to simply duplicate a device only a few times with all its sensors and settings.
• Using device templates: Is the preferred option if you have many similar devices and if you do not want to create all devices manually through the web interface. This is also the better option if the devices do not have the same number of ports.

Cloning a Device

Choose the context menu item "Clone" from the device's context menu. PRTG will ask you for the new parent group and well as a new name for the device. The new device will be initially be paused to give you the chance to edit sensor settings if necessary. When all sensors are configured correctly you can resume monitoring for the device with all its sensors.

Using Device Templates

In order to create a device template PRTG stores the definitions of the sensors of a device in a device template file. Later this template file can be used to recreate all sensors that can successfully be recreated for the a device. To create a device template choose the "Create Device Template" item from the device's context menu and PRTG will ask you for a filename and a template name. The template file will be stored in the 'devicetemplate' subfolder of your PRTG installation. To create new devices with the same set of sensors you now have two options:

• Create an auto-discovery group, select option "Automatic sensor creation using specific device template(s)" and choose this specific device template from the list of templates.
• Create a new device, select option "Automatic sensor creation using specific device template(s)" and choose this specific device template from the list of templates.

Limitations of Device Templates

Copying devices using device templates has the following limitations (cloning a device does not have these limitations):

• Only the following devices are supported: Generic Device (PING only), Generic Device (SNMP-enabled, Detailed), Generic Device (SNMP-enabled), VMware ESX Server, Hyper V Host Server, Printer (HP), DNS Server, FTP Server, Server (Compaq/HP agents), HTTP Web Server, Mail Server (MS Exchange 2007), Mail Server (MS Exchange 2003), Mail Server (Generic), Switch (Cisco Catalyst), Switch (Cisco Generic), Switch (Cisco IOS Based), Switch (HP Procurve), UNIX/Linux Device, UPS (APC), Windows (Detailed via WMI), Windows (via WMI), Windows IIS (via SNMP).
• Only the following sensor types can be stored in a device template: DNS, EXE, FTP, HTTP, HTTP Advanced, HTTP Full Web Page, IMAP, Ping, POP3, Port, RemoteDesktop, SMTP, SNMP Custom, SNMP Helper (discontinued), SNMP Library, SNMP Traffic, WMI Custom, WMI Disk Free, WMI Event Log, WMI File, WMI Memory, WMI Network, WMI Pagefile, WMI Process, WMI Processor, WMI Service, WMI Vital System Data, HyperV Virtual Machine.
• Credentials settings of the device are not stored in the device template file. You should enter credentials on the group level before you create devices using a device template.
• Sensors that are created based on available objects (e.g. SNMP Traffic and WMI Network Card sensors which look at available ports of a device) will be recreated from scratch for all available ports on the new device.
• Schedules, triggers, dependencies and channel settings are not stored in device templates.