Rover is a network status monitor; it is one of a battery of tools we use to monitor key parts of Princeton's network infrastructure, as well as some of OIT's major host-based services.
Rover monitors the IP network. See An Introduction to Rover for more information.
Rover's primary mission is to test the reachability of the network infrastructure's components. It also can test the reachability of some OIT hosts, typically those providing important central services. Monitoring of higher-layer services (e.g. testing whether a host is providing a particular networked service properly) is better handled by Tivoli Monitoring , a service provided by the OIT Enterprise Systems Management group.
The IP Rover runs on the host www.net.princeton.edu, and is our primary Rover; it uses IP (the Internet Protocol) to monitor several hundred devices, including most of the campus network infrastructure, as well as some of OIT's major host-based services.
You may view the IP Rover Display in several ways:
Before trying to view the Rover Display with sound, be sure to see these instructions.
Each problem is displayed on a single line. The first field shows the Event Start or Event Age, depending on the display format you have selected. The name of the Network Device appears next; that's often (but not always) similar to the device's DNS entry-name. That's followed by the device's Net Address, normally an IP address. Following this is the Service, the name of the test which the device has failed. Sometimes a remark about the problem may be added by an OIT staff member; these terse statements are for the benefit of other members of the OIT Systems or Hardware Support staff.
Clicking on the Net Address will attempt to lookup that address in the Princeton University Host Database. (The ability to perform this lookup is restricted to those computers that are members of the Princeton.EDU DNS domain.)
The Rover Display also shows the current Cycle Time, the time it took to complete the last test of all monitored devices. Under normal circumstances, this is under a minute. The display you see is automatically updated every 60 seconds, assuming you are using a recent version of Netscape.
Clients on Princeton University networks may view the IP Rover Configuration File, a list of the devices monitored by IP Rover, along with the tests it performs on each device.
Although OIT staff regularly monitor the IP Rover Display, Rover may also notify appropriate staff under some circumstances. Notifications may be sent via paging or email. Clients on Princeton University networks may view the IP Rover Notification Configuration File, a list of those devices/tests for which Rover will send a notification. (When Rover sends such a notification, the Remark in the Rover Display looks like "*Page Sent @ MM/YY HH:MM". (It uses the word "Page" regardless of whether the notification is truly sent as a page or email.) Any Remark that begins with an asterisk inhibits Rover from sending further notification for that problem.) Members of the OIT Systems or Technical Support staff may also view the sendpage configuration file.
Rover maintains logs of the problems from the Rover Display; you may view the Rover Event Logs.