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<article class="faq">
<articleinfo>
	<author>
		<firstname>Jacek</firstname>
		<surname>Konieczny</surname>
		<email>jajcus@jajcus.net</email>
	</author>
	<title>Frequently Asked Questions about Alarm Pinger</title>
</articleinfo>
<qandaset>

<qandaentry>
	<question><para>
		What is <application>Alarm Pinger</application>?
	</para></question>
	<answer><para>
		Alarm pinger is a tool for network monitoring. It test
		periodically reachability of one of more network devices and the
		quality of their network connections.
	</para></answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
	<question><para>
		Can <application>Alarm Pinger</application> be user to monitor services?
	</para></question>
	<answer><para>
		No. The only way Alarm Pinger monitor things is sending ICMP
		echo-requests and analyzing ICMP echo-replies. So only host
		reachability is tested.
	</para></answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
	<question><para>
		Can <application>Alarm Pinger</application> use TCP/UDP/anything
		instead of ICMP for pinging?
	</para></question>
	<answer><para>
		No. It just do plain ICMP echo queries.
	</para></answer>
</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>
	<question><para>
		Why can't I use host names for target names?
	</para></question>
	<answer><para>
		Because it would be very hard to interpret results if the
		host name resolves to more than one IP address.
	</para></answer>
</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>
	<question><para>
		I don't want any messages mailed to me. How can I turn them off?
	</para></question>
	<answer><para>
		Just comment out <command>mailto</command> and
		<command>mailfrom</command> lines in
		<filename>apinger.conf</filename> file.
	</para></answer>
</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>
	<question><para>
		How can I graph <command>apinger</command> measurements?
	</para></question>
	<answer>
	<para>You will need <command>rrdtool</command> installed on
	the system, where <command>apinger</command> is running. Make
	sure <command>apinger</command> will find it. You may pass the
	path to the <command>configure</command> script before
	<command>apinger</command> compilation. </para>
	<para>To make <command>apinger</command> actually store the
	measurements, you need to set <command>rrd interval</command> global
	configuration option to some time interval and <command>rrd
	file</command> target configuration option to path of the database which
	will be written by <command>apinger</command>. The database should be
	writable by user set with <command>user</command> option.</para>
	<para>To graph the stored measurements you can use
	<application>rrdcgi</application> script generated by
	<command>apinger</command> with <option>-g</option> option followed by
	path to a directory where the graphs will be stored. Usually you will
	also need to pass <option>-l</option> followed with location of those
	graphs as seen on the HTTP server.</para>
	</answer>
</qandaentry>

</qandaset>
</article>

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