Our script sample suggests writing output like this:

"Success(DeviceName)=My Long Event Text Goes Here

To work around the problem just use the Write-Host method instead, as follows:

Write-Host "Success(DeviceName)=My Long Event Text Goes Here

With that simple change you can have event text of any length you choose. For the next release we’ve updated the sample script to use Write-Host as well.

While I’m here, I’ll add reminder for a frequently asked question: To include multiple lines in the event text you should still keep your output to a single line but and use
markers to tell Tembria Server Monitor where to insert the new lines.

Posted by Don

When configuring the task bar utility, getting the path to the main installation is a bit challenging. That’s mostly because the settings dialog could use some additional help, and we’re going to correct that in the next release, but in the mean time here is some guidance:

For the path enter the HTTP path to your main installation but only include the folder name, not any page name.

Here is an example:

http://tembria.company.local:8080/tembria

That will allow the task bar notifier to connect properly but don’t forget to enter your Tembria user name and password in the settings dialog because they are also required to connect.

Posted by Dave

Apart from this one issue IE9 works great with Tembria Server Monitor and Tembria Multi-Site Monitor. And best of all, with IE9 you can take advantage of our new network diagram dashboard to design your own network diagrams and illustrations with highlights based on monitoring status.

Update: As a part of the changes we happy to also introduce rotated text titles for Firefox and Google Chrome.

Posted by Dave

Posted by Tim

We’ve been testing with the new IE9 release candidate and it’s looking pretty good. Our new network diagramming abilities that have only be available on Firefox are now working perfectly in the IE9 release candidate. Microsoft has also corrected an issue in the IE9 beta that wrecked the formatting of our light panel dashboard. With the release candidate it displays more nicely but the top level titles have much too much whitespace in them. We’re developing a workaround for that in case Microsoft doesn’t fix it in the official IE9 release. So with that exception, if you’ve been itching to try out our new diagram dashboards but can’t use Firefox then get your hands on the latest IE and you can start to have some fun.

Posted by Don

We often get error reports from users who are getting the message “Error: A referral was returned from the server” when first setting up our Active Directory event monitor.

This happens if distinguished name value in the event monitor’s settings has not been specified correctly. We load the field with the value “DC=domain, DC=com” but that’s just a place holder that needs to be changed to the correct values for the domain that will be checked. For example, on our test network we use “DC=tembriatest, DC=local”.

Once you have the correct distinguished name then the event monitor will successfully connect and start monitoring the values you have selected.

In the next release we will be updating the event monitor settings page to warn if the default DN field has not been updated.

Posted by Don

The problem started when we noticed that our WSUS server was missing entries for a large set of systems. We verified that they were up and running and correctly listed in the Active Directory. Looking in the Application event log on the systems involved we found errors from the “Userenv” source indicating that “Windows cannot obtain the domain controller name for your computer network”. Of course all the domain controllers were up and running and we could easily access them with pings and UNC shares.

Hunting around with Google we found this article on the Microsoft site that described how to enable logging for Userenv:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221833

With the logging enable we were getting “DSGetDCName failed with 59″ which then helped us to track it down to a timing issue that can affect some XP and Windows Server 2003 systems when running in VMs.

The solution is to create the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

In that key create a new DWORD with value zero and this name: GroupPolicyMinTransferRate

Then run “gpupdate /force” from the command line and then check the Application event log to make sure the group policy update was successful. Repeating that on the affected system set everything straight. In our case only Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 systems were affected.

Posted by Tim

We also have a hotfix ready so if you need this repaired now then drop us a note at support@tembria.com and we’ll send over the hotfix along with instructions on how to install it.

Posted by Don

A number of people have noticed that in v6.0 dashboard elements show horizontal and vertical scroll bars even if there is enough room to display their contents. It might not sound like a big issue but the change can wreck a nicely designed dashboard where everything has been positioned just so. We have a fix for this coming in v6.0.1 but it’s easy to make the change to an existing v6.0 installation. Just navigate to “C:\Program Files\Tembria\Server Monitor\Templates\Dashboards”. Then look for the file called “frame-3.html” and edit it using Notepad. Search for the text “overflow:scroll” and replace it with “overflow:auto” and then save the file. Repeat the process for the file called “frame-3-read-only.html”. After that the scroll bars will only appear if there isn’t room in and element for its contents.

If you upgrade from v6.0 to v6.0.1 you may notice that the problem persists because by default we don’t replace your template files (in case you have customized them). The solution is to go through the same steps outlined above.

Posted by Dave

If you are using PHP for your web site or intranet sites then calling the Tembria API is a breeze. Here is a bit of sample code that shows how to use it to retrieve a list of all paused network devices:

class authentication_header
{
    private $User;
    private $Password;
    public function __construct($user,$password)
    {
    $this->User=$user;
    $this->Password=$password;
    }
}

$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$ns = "tembria";
$wsdl_url='http://localhost:8182/Devices.asmx?wsdl';

$auth = new authentication_header($username,$password);
$var=new SoapVar($auth,SOAP_ENC_OBJECT,'authenticate');
$header=new SoapHeader($ns,"authenticate",$var);
$tembria = new SoapClient($wsdl_url, array("trace" => 1) );
$params = array("siteId" => "1");

$response = $tembria->GetPausedDevices($params,null,$header);

var_dump($response);

Drop that into one of your PHP pages inside the usual block and you’ll get a list of paused devices in an array. You could, for example add that in your intranet status page and even include links or buttons to resume and pause devices again.

Posted by Don