I’ve been playing around with various network monitor apps that will send me an alert via email when one of the monitored devices goes offline. Most of the alerts I’ve set up thus far are ping monitors that check internet, network and device status. The monitor software I’m using is pretty robust for being free and downloaded from Cnet. See attachment for various protocols it’s capable of monitoring.
What I’d like to do is set up a monitor for the Wiznet and Vera so that it will notify me with an email if the connection drops unexpectedly. What I’m not sure of is what protocol or settings I need to set the alert up with - ie IP or serial connection or a port monitor etc without interfering with the Wiznet/Vera/Alarm Panel communication.
I’ve got ProtoMon on an old laptop I keep running at the house so I can remote desktop and monitor/repair network issues. I thought I’d ask if someone (maybe guessed 
) can assist me in configuring the monitor alert with the proper settings, if it’s possible and you think it will accomplish my goal.
(@ guessed - the plugin has been error free for quite some time now, I’m not using the IP config b/c once I deleted the serial port plugin and just entered the IP and port info it kept giving the error missing port. Ive been using the IP to serial plugin and it’s been working just fine. I assumed that there is something amiss with my plugin config and that I would need to DL a new plugin to make it work, it seems to work just fine with the IP to serial plugin so I figured I’d save myself the work of redoing all the devices and scenes etc - thanks again for your help btw, and I hope this post is easier on the eyes )
The best you’ll be able to do, when monitoring with this tool, is ICMP (aka “Ping”).
The WIZnet won’t allow multiple “protocol-level” things connecting to it on it’s data port (5000, by default). Given that Vera is connected to this port, all other attempts to connect to it will be rejected by the WIZnet… or, if they succeeded, could potentially Block Vera from connecting (during one of Vera’s many restarts, for example)
WARNING: A lot of network devices will respond to Ping when they’re effectively non-functional in all other respects. This is going to be a very basic validity/availability check.
I'm not using the IP config b/c once I deleted the serial port plugin and just entered the IP and port info it kept giving the error missing port. Ive been using the IP to serial plugin and it's been working just fine.
Sounds like the IP Serial Port wasn't correctly detached from the DSC Alarm Panel device, prior to the specification of the IP:Port combination. Changing this should never change the DeviceId's of the children, since they're effectively statically defined by the other DSC AP config parameters.
It should be benign to run it through IP Serial either way, so it shouldn’t matter (but I like systems with less moving parts, esp when you’re trying to debug them)
I hope this post is easier on the eyes
It is, thanks!
Hi guessed
Thanks for the speedy reply. I somehow figured that might be the case that if Vera was connected you couldn’t or shouldn’t interfere with that relationship. I’ll try the ping monitor and just see if it happens to alert me when it’s down. It’s only happened 3 times in the 9 months we’ve had Vera so it’s really not all that often given its 24/7 uptime.
Glad to hear I am ok continuing with the current alarm IP serial setup - much less work this way!
Thanks again!