PRTG Manual: Port Sensor
The Port sensor monitors a network service by connecting to its port. It tries to connect to the specified TCP/IP port number of a device and waits for the request to be accepted.
Depending on your settings, the sensor can alert you either when the monitored port is open or when it is closed.
For a detailed list and descriptions of the channels that this sensor can show, see section Channel List.
▪Dutch: Poort
▪French: Port
▪German: Port
▪Japanese: ポート
▪Portuguese: Porta
▪Russian: Порт
▪Simplified Chinese: 端口
▪Spanish: Puerto
▪This sensor does not support Secure Remote Password (SRP) ciphers.
▪This sensor supports the IPv6 protocol.
▪This sensor has a very low performance impact.
You cannot add this sensor to the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance. If you want to use this sensor, add it to a remote probe device.
The Add Sensor dialog appears when you manually add a new sensor to a device. It only shows the settings that are required to create the sensor. You can change nearly all settings on the sensor's Settings tab after creation.
Click the Settings tab of a sensor to change its settings.
Setting |
Description |
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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.
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Parent Tags |
Shows tags that the sensor inherits from its parent device, parent group, and parent probe.
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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: ▪portsensor |
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.
Setting |
Description |
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Timeout (Sec.) |
Enter a timeout in seconds for the request. Enter an integer. The maximum timeout value is 900 seconds (15 minutes).
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Port |
Enter the number of the port to which this sensor connects. Enter an integer. |
Setting |
Description |
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Transport-Level Security |
Define the security of the connection: ▪Do not use transport-level security (default): Establish the connection without connection security. ▪Use transport-level security: Establish the connection with the strongest Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)/Transport Layer Security (TLS) method that the target device provides. |
Setting |
Description |
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Goal |
Define how the sensor reports on the port: ▪Open: Show the Up status if the port is open, and the Down status if the port is closed. ▪Closed: Show the Up status if the port is closed, and the Down status if the port is open. |
Command Handling |
This setting is only visible if you select Open above. Define whether the sensor sends a command after it opens the port: ▪Do not send a command: Only check if a connection to the port is possible. ▪Send a command: Open a Telnet session to the respective port and send a command. |
Command |
This setting is only visible if you select Send a command above. Enter the command that the sensor sends to the respective port in a Telnet session. Enter a string.
|
Response |
Define if the sensor further processes the response: ▪Ignore response: Do not check the response. ▪Check response code (integer): Check if the response matches a defined response code. Define the response code below. ▪Check response text: Check if the response matches a defined response text. Define the response text below. |
Allowed Response Code |
This setting is only visible if you select Check response code (integer) above. Enter the code that the target device must return. If the target device does not return this code, the sensor shows the Down status. Enter an integer. |
Check for Keywords (positive) |
This setting is only visible if you select Check response text above. Check if the response contains a specific keyword. If the response does not contain the keyword, the sensor shows the Down status. ▪Disable: Do not check for positive keywords. ▪Enable keyword check (positive): Check if a specific keyword exists in the received value. Define the keyword below. |
Response Must Include (Down Status if Not Included) |
This setting is only visible if you select Enable keyword check (positive) above. Define the search string that the response must contain. You can enter a simple string in plain text or a regular expression (regex).
|
Search Method |
Define the method with which you want to provide the search string: ▪Simple string search: Search for a simple string in plain text.
▪Regular expression: Search with a regex.
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Check for Keywords (negative) |
This setting is only visible if you select Simple string search above. Check if the response does not contain a specific keyword. If the response does contain the keyword, the sensor shows the Down status. ▪Disable: Do not check for negative keywords. ▪Enable keyword check (negative): Check if a specific keyword does not exist in the received value. Define the keyword below. |
Response Must Not Include (Down Status if Included) |
This setting is only visible if you select Enable keyword check (negative) above. Define the search string that the response must not contain. You can enter a simple string in plain text or a regex.
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Search Method |
Define the method with which you want to provide the search string: ▪Simple string search: Search for a simple string in plain text.
▪Regular expression: Search with a regex.
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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.
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Setting |
Description |
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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.
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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. |
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 these 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.
For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Scanning Interval.
Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window
You cannot interrupt the inheritance for schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. The corresponding settings from the parent objects are always active. However, you can define additional schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. They are active at the same time as the parent objects' settings.
For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window.
For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Access Rights.
Which channels the sensor actually shows might depend on the target device, the available components, and the sensor setup.
Channel |
Description |
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Available |
The time until a request to a port is accepted in milliseconds (msec)
|
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 |
KNOWLEDGE BASE
What security features does PRTG include?