PRTG Manual: Ping v2 Sensor

Enabled Beta Sensors experimental feature

This sensor requires that the Beta Sensors experimental feature of PRTG is enabled.

For more information, see the Knowledge Base: What are beta sensors and how can I use them?

Inverted Error Status

Select Enable if you want that the sensor shows the Down status if the target is reachable. Choose between:

• Disable (default): Show the Down status if the target is not reachable.
• Enable: Show the Down status if the target is reachable.

To change this behavior after sensor creation, open the channel settings of channel Status and change the Lookup. Select prtg.standardlookups.paessler.icmp.reachability_state if you want that the sensor shows the Down status if the target is not reachable. Select prtg.standardlookups.paessler.icmp.reachability_state_reversed if you want that the sensor shows the Down status if the target is reachable.

If you enable Inverted Error Status, Status is the primary channel.

Sensor Name

Enter a name to identify the sensor. By default, PRTG shows this name in the device tree, as well as in alarms, logs, notifications, reports, maps, libraries, and tickets.

If the name contains angle brackets (<>), PRTG replaces them with braces ({}) for security reasons. For more information, see the Knowledge Base: What security features does PRTG include?

Parent Tags

Shows tags that the sensor inherits from its parent device, parent group, and parent probe.

This setting is for your information only. You cannot change it.

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.

It is not possible to enter tags with a leading plus (+) or minus (-) sign, nor tags with parentheses (()) or angle brackets (<>).

For performance reasons, it can take some minutes until you can filter for new tags that you added.

The sensor has the following default tags that are automatically predefined in the sensor's settings when you add the sensor:

• icmp
• ping
• pingsensor

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 () to the highest priority ().

Timeout (Sec.)

Enter a timeout in seconds for the ping. If the reply takes longer than this value, PRTG cancels the request and shows an error message. Enter an integer. The maximum timeout value is 300 seconds (5 minutes).

Packet Size (Bytes)

Enter the packet size for the ping in bytes. You can enter any value between 1 and 10000. Enter an integer.

We recommend that you use the default value.

Ping Method

Define the kind of ping check that the sensor performs with each scanning interval:

• Send one single ping: Send a single ping only. The sensor then shows the ping time only.
  This setting is useful for monitoring availability.
• Send multiple ping requests (default): Send multiple pings in a row. The sensor then also shows the minimum and the maximum ping time as well as the packet loss (in percent).
  This setting is useful if you want to create reports about average ping times out of a series of ping requests.
   
  If you select this setting, all of the ping requests must be lost for the sensor to show the Down status. For example, if only one ping request is answered in a series of five, the sensor still shows the Up status.

Ping Count

This setting is only visible if you select Send multiple ping requests above. Enter the number of pings that the sensor sends in a row in one scanning interval. Enter an integer. The default value is 5.

Ping Delay (ms)

This setting is only visible if you select Send multiple ping requests above. Enter the time in milliseconds (ms) that the sensor waits between two ping requests. Enter an integer. The default value is 5.

Increase the value if the target device drops ping packets because of denial of service (DoS) suspicion.

Time to Live (hops)

Define the time to live (TTL) for the request. You can limit the number of network hops that the request can traverse before it is dropped. The default value is 64.

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.

You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.

Graph Type

Define how different channels are shown for this sensor:

• Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.
• Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
  You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).

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.

Result Handling

Define what PRTG does with the sensor result:

• Discard result: Do not store the sensor result.

• Store result: Store the last sensor result in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file names are Result of Sensor [ID].txt and Result of Sensor [ID].Data.txt. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites these files with each scanning interval.

This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance.

In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.

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

Maximum Response Time

The maximum ping time when using more than one ping per interval

Minimum Response Time

The maximum ping time when using more than one ping per interval

Packet Loss

The packet loss when using more than one ping per interval (%)

Response Time

The ping time

This channel is the primary channel by default.

Status

The target status

• Up status: Reachable
• Down status: Unreachable

This is the primary channel if you enable Inverted Error Status.