<%NUMBERING1%>.<%NUMBERING2%>.<%NUMBERING3%> PRTG Manual: System Administration—Administrative Tools

To open the system administration, select Setup | System Administration from the main menu bar. Select the various tabs to change the different settings.

System Administration Bar

System Administration Bar

You can define the following aspects of your PRTG system setup:

With the administrative tools, you can start system-specific processes for debugging purposes. Use them if the Paessler support team advises you to do so. You can start the respective processes by clicking the Go! button.

If you use PRTG on premises and open the system administration page from a different administration page, PRTG asks you to enter your credentials again for security reasons if 15 minutes (900 seconds) have passed since your last credential-based login. A dialog box appears. Enter your Login Name and Password for PRTG in the corresponding fields and confirm to continue.

Core Administrative Tools

PRTG Core Administrative Tools

PRTG Core Administrative Tools

Administrative Tools For The Core Server

Create Configuration Snapshot

Create a snapshot of your PRTG configuration. This action can take up to 100 seconds. Once finished, you find a .zip file that contains a *.dat file in the \Configuration Auto-Backups subfolder of the PRTG data directory. The .zip file follows the name pattern PRTG Configuration (Snapshot YYYY-MM-DD HH-MM-SS).zip.

icon-i-round-blueIf you run PRTG in a cluster, this action is executed on the cluster node you are logged in to.

icon-prtg-on-demandThis option is not available in PRTG hosted by Paessler.

Write Core Status File

Create status files of your PRTG core server. You find the two text files in the \Logs\debug subfolder of the PRTG data directory. The files are named Core State (Global Debug Data).txt and Core State (Memory Debug Data).txt. New files are created each time you click this button.

icon-i-round-blueIf you run PRTG in a cluster, this action is executed on the cluster node you are logged in to.

icon-prtg-on-demandThis option is not available in PRTG hosted by Paessler.

Clear Caches

PRTG caches tiles for Geo Maps, user data for Active Directory Integration, and the Active Directory Group list. Use this button to delete the cache if you encounter broken Geo Maps tiles, if you changed a user's password in the Active Directory, or if you added groups in the Active Directory.

icon-prtg-on-demandThis option is not available in PRTG hosted by Paessler.

Load Lookups and File Lists

(Re)load the lookup files from the \lookups\custom subfolder of the PRTG program directory. In this subfolder, your customized lookup files are stored. If you have created a new lookup file or changed something in a lookup file, it might be necessary to load or to reload these files.

With this option, you can also manually reload file lists in the PRTG web interface. If you have added new device icons, device templates, report templates, .oidlib files for the SNMP Library sensor, or language files to the PRTG program directory on the PRTG core server system while the server was running, reloading the file lists might be necessary to display new files in the PRTG web interface.

icon-i-round-blueUsually you do not have to reload file lists manually. A list is automatically reloaded when opening the according settings page with a latency of 10 seconds. If you save new device templates via the PRTG web interface, the template list is refreshed immediately.

icon-prtg-on-demandThis option is not available in PRTG hosted by Paessler.

Recalculate PRTG Graph Data Cache

PRTG constantly writes monitoring data to disk and keeps the graphs for your graph tabs in memory. If PRTG is ended unexpectedly, the graph cache might become corrupted. In this case, graphs might be empty or show wrong data.

If you experience graph display problems, a graph recalculation fixes the problem. Click Go! to delete the data cache file and recalculate it automatically.

icon-i-round-redIf you apply recalculation, PRTG needs to restart the PRTG core server. Because of this, all users of the PRTG web interface, of PRTG Desktop, or of Mobile Apps are disconnected. After clicking the Go! button, a dialog window appears that asks you to confirm the required restart. Click OK to trigger the restart.

icon-i-round-redDirectly after this action, your graphs are empty. They are refilled successively while recalculation in the background progresses. Until recalculation is finished, performance of the PRTG web interface might be affected because of high disk input/output (I/O) activity.

Restart PRTG core server service

Restart the PRTG core server service manually. Click the Go! button for this purpose.

icon-i-round-redIf you restart the PRTG core server service, all users of the PRTG web interface, of PRTG Desktop, or of Mobile Apps are disconnected. Clicking the Go! button immediately restarts the PRTG core server service.

icon-i-round-blueIf you want to schedule an automatic restart of Windows services for both PRTG core server service and PRTG probe service, you can do this in the corresponding probe settings.

icon-prtg-on-demandThis option is not available in PRTG hosted by Paessler.

Reload Logging Configuration

For debugging reasons, it might be necessary to change the log levels of your PRTG core server. The Paessler support team takes you through the necessary steps that are required to change your logging configuration. The log level changes vary according to your PRTG instance, its setup, and the solution of your issue.

To apply the changes, load them by clicking Go!.

Probe Administrative Tools

PRTG Probe Administrative Tools

PRTG Probe Administrative Tools

Administrative Tools For Probes

Write Probe State Files

Create status files of your probes. PRTG writes status files for the local probe running on the PRTG core server (in a cluster, on the cluster node you are logged in to) as well as for all configured remote probes (if any).

On the respective systems, you find six text files in the \Logs\debug subfolder of the PRTG data directory. The files are named Probe State (Global Debug Data).txt, Probe State (Memory Debug Data).txt, Probe State (Scheduler Debug Data).txt, Probe State (Syslog).txt, Probe State (Trap).txt, and Probe State (xFlow Debug Data).txt. New files are created each time you click this button.

Restart All Probes

Restart all probes as well as the local probe Windows service. If you have remote probes, the probe Windows services on the remote probe systems are restarted as well. To restart single probes only, see below.

icon-i-round-blueYou cannot restart disconnected probes here. Use the PRTG Administration Tool on the probe system to start a disconnected probe.

icon-i-round-blueIf you run PRTG in a cluster, this action is executed on the cluster node you are logged in to.

In this case, remote probes are only restarted if you are logged in to the primary master node. The cluster probe Windows service of failover nodes is not restarted if you execute this action on the primary master node. If you want to restart the cluster probe Windows service of a failover node, log in to PRTG web interface of this failover node and click the Go! button there.

Probe [#Number] "[Name]"

This section shows information about the connection status. If the probe is connected, the field shows the source IP address and port number used by the probe. For the local probe, the IP is always 127.0.0.1. You also see information about the date when the last data packet was received from the probe.

If you want to restart a single probe, click the corresponding Restart Probe button. Entries for every single probe follow.

icon-i-round-blueYou cannot restart disconnected probes here. Use the PRTG Administration Tool on the probe system to start a disconnected probe.

icon-prtg-on-demandThis option is not available on the hosted probe of a PRTG hosted by Paessler instance.

Others

There are some settings that you must make in the PRTG Administration Tool. For more details, see the sections: