PRTG Manual: HTTP v2 Sensor

Smart URL replacement

This sensor supports smart URL replacement.

Performance impact

This sensor has a low performance impact.

Lookups

This sensor uses lookups to determine the status values of one or more channels.

Credentials

You can define credentials for HTTP in the settings of an object that is higher in the object hierarchy.

Scanning interval

• The minimum scanning interval of this sensor is 1 minute.
• The recommended scanning interval of this sensor is 1 minute.

Multi-platform probe

You can add this sensor to a multi-platform probe.

Knowledge Base

Knowledge Base: Which HTTP status code leads to which HTTP sensor status?

Timeout per Request (Sec.)

Enter a timeout in seconds for the request. Enter an integer. The maximum timeout value is 900 seconds (15 minutes).

If the reply takes longer than this value, the sensor cancels the request and shows a corresponding error message.

The timeout is per request, not per sensor scan. If a request is redirected, the timeout begins again.

Maximum Number of Redirects

Enter the maximum number of times the sensor scan will follow an HTTP redirect request. The sensor will display the status of the last page before the number of redirects is exhausted. The default number of redirects the sensor will follow is 16. The maximum number of redirects the sensor will follow is 100. Enter 0 if you do not want the sensor to follow any redirects.

URL

Enter the URL that the sensor connects to.

If you enter an absolute URL, the sensor uses this address independently of the IP Address/DNS Name setting of the parent device. You can enter the URL of a web page (to measure the loading time of the page's source code), or enter the URL of an image or of a page asset to measure this element's availability and loading time.

The URL must be URL encoded.

If you monitor an image or a page asset, this can create a high amount of memory load. We recommend that the size of the elements that you want to monitor does not exceed 200 MB.

The default URL is https://%host/. PRTG replaces %host with the IP address or DNS name of the parent device. PRTG does not display the value in the sensor log or the sensor's settings.

Request Method

Select an HTTP request method to determine how the sensor requests the URL:

• GET (default): Directly request the website.
  We recommend that you use this setting for a simple check of the web page.
• POST: Send post form data to the URL.
  If you select this setting, you must enter the data in the POST Body field below.
  If a POST request is redirected, all further requests are GET (default) requests.
• HEAD: Only request the HTTP header from the server without the actual web page.
  Although this saves bandwidth because it transfers less data, we do not recommended that you use this. This is because the measured request time is not the one that your users experience and you might not be notified of slow results or timeouts.

Content Type

This setting is only visible if you select POST above.

Define the content type of the POST request. The default content type is application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

POST Body

This setting is only visible if you select POST above.

Enter the data part for the POST request.

No Extensible Markup Language (XML) is allowed here.

Custom Headers

Enter a list of custom headers with their respective values that the HTTP request of the sensor contains. The syntax of a header-value pair is header1:value1.

If you enter more than one header-value pair, enter each pair in one line:
header1:value1
header2:value2
header3:value3

Make sure that the HTTP header statement is valid. Otherwise, the sensor request cannot be successful.

Primary Channel

Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, PRTG displays the last value of the primary channel below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.

You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.

Graph Type

Define how this sensor shows different channels:

• Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.
• Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
  You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).

Stack Unit

This setting is only visible if you select Stack channels on top of each other above.

Select a unit from the list. PRTG stacks all channels with this unit on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

Result Handling

Define what PRTG does with the sensor result:

• Discard result (default): Do not store the sensor result.
• Store result: Store the sensor result and the last response in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file name is Result of Sensor [ID].log. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites this file with each scanning interval.

This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance.

Bytes Received

The number of bytes received

Downtime

In the channel table on the Overview tab, this channel never shows any values. PRTG uses this channel in graphs and reports to show the amount of time in which the sensor was in the Down status.

Loading Time

The web page or element loading time

This channel is the primary channel by default.

Response Code

The response code of the target server