PRTG Manual: System Health Sensor
The System Health sensor monitors the status of the probe system. It checks various system parameters that can affect the quality of the monitoring results.
PRTG automatically creates this sensor. You cannot delete the sensor if it was created automatically. If you manually create the sensor, you can delete it.
System Health Sensor
For a detailed list and descriptions of the channels that this sensor can show, see section Channel List.
- Dutch: System Status
- French: État du système
- German: Systemzustand
- Japanese: システム正常性
- Portuguese: Funcionamento do sistema
- Russian: Работоспособность системы
- Simplified Chinese: 系统健康状况
- Spanish: Salud de sistema
- This sensor has a very low performance impact.
Click the Settings tab of a sensor to change its settings.
Basic Sensor Settings
Setting |
Description |
|---|---|
Sensor Name |
Enter a name to identify the sensor. |
Parent Tags |
Shows tags that the sensor inherits from its parent device, parent group, and parent probe.
|
Tags |
Enter one or more tags. Confirm each tag with the Spacebar key, a comma, or the Enter key. You can use tags to group objects and use tag-filtered views later on. Tags are not case-sensitive. Tags are automatically inherited.
The sensor has the following default tags that are automatically predefined in the sensor's settings when you add the sensor:
|
Priority |
Select a priority for the sensor. This setting determines the position of the sensor in lists. The highest priority is at the top of a list. Choose from the lowest priority ( |
Usually, a sensor connects to the IP Address/DNS Name of the parent device. See the device settings for details. For some sensors, you can explicitly define the monitoring target in the sensor settings.
Sensor Display
Setting |
Description |
|---|---|
Primary Channel |
Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel is always displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.
|
Graph Type |
Define how different channels are shown for this sensor:
|
Stack Unit |
This setting is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so. |
By default, all of the following settings are inherited from objects that are higher in the hierarchy. We recommend that you change them centrally in the root group settings if necessary. To change a setting for this object only, click 
under the corresponding setting name to disable the inheritance and to display its options.
For more information, see section Inheritance of Settings.
Click to interrupt the inheritance.
Scanning Interval
Setting |
Description |
|---|---|
Scanning Interval |
Select a scanning interval from the dropdown list. The scanning interval determines the amount of time that the sensor waits between two scans. Choose from:
|
If a Sensor Query Fails |
Select the number of scanning intervals that the sensor has time to reach and to check a device again if a sensor query fails. Depending on the option that you select, the sensor can try to reach and to check a device again several times before the sensor shows the Down status. This can avoid false alarms if the monitored device only has temporary issues. For previous scanning intervals with failed requests, the sensor shows the Warning status. Choose from:
|
Click to interrupt the inheritance.
Access Rights
Setting |
Description |
|---|---|
User Group Access |
Define the user groups that have access to the sensor. You see a table with user groups and group access rights. The table contains all user groups in your setup. For each user group, you can choose from the following group access rights:
|
Click to interrupt the inheritance.
Channel Unit Configuration
Setting |
Description |
|---|---|
Channel Unit Types |
For each type of channel, select the unit in which PRTG displays the data. If you define this setting on probe, group, or device level, you can inherit these settings to all sensors underneath. You can set units for the following channel types (if available):
|
Which channels the sensor actually shows might depend on the monitored device, the available components, and the sensor setup.
Channel |
Description |
|---|---|
Available Memory |
The amount of free memory available on the system. This value should not fall below 500 MB. This way, PRTG can still request resources during report generation or auto-discoveries, for example. |
Available Memory % |
The available memory in percent |
CPU Load |
The CPU load in percent on the probe system with a predefined upper warning limit (50 %) and upper error limit (90 %). Extensive CPU load can lead to false, incomplete, and incorrect monitoring results. This value should usually stay below 50%. |
Downtime |
In the channel table on the Overview tab, this channel never shows any values. PRTG uses this channel in graphs and reports to show the amount of time in which the sensor was in the Down status in percent. |
Health |
The sum of the system status as a value between 100% (healthy) and 0% (failing). Investigate frequent or repeated health values below 100%.
|
Knowledge Base
What security features does PRTG include?
For more information about sensor settings, see the following sections:
