Navigation
The navigation bar is an important aspect of the ASM platform. It allows users to easily find all of the features offered within ASM. This article provides an overview of the different pages which can be accessed from the top navigation bar.
Clicking on the ASM image to the left of the Overview menu item will always bring you back to the main Dashboard.
Overview
Dashboard
See Dashboards for more information.
Apica Panels
The “Apica Panels” menu item allows users to view their configured Apica Panels instances. Apica Panels is a feature which allows users to integrate Apica data into Grafana dashboards for easier viewing; see Using the Apica Panels Dashboards for a complete overview of the feature. The “Apica Panels” menu item contains two sub-items: “Panels” and “About”.
Panels
Clicking the “Panels” link will bring you to the Panels page, on which you can see a high level overview of your Panels dashboards and open or delete an individual Panels dashboard.
The default Panels version available in the ASM SaaS portal is called “Apica Panels (v2)”. There are two major versions of Apica Panels; one version is based on Grafana version 4, and the other (Panels v2) is based on Grafana version 8. Apica Panels (v1) is only available to customers who had ASM Panels enabled before the major version change and have a need to maintain their older dashboards.
If you do not see “Apica Panels (v1)” on your dashboard, it means you do not have legacy Apica Panels configured on your account. Proceed with using only Panels v2 panels.
About (Apica Panels)
Clicking on the “About” sub-menu item will bring you to the “About” page, which provides a high-level overview of the Apica Panels feature.
Tools
The Tools section provides access to a number of different system features, such as Impersonate, API settings, Maintenance, Journal, Trace Route, and Messages.
Menu
Impersonate
With the Impersonate tool you can view Synthetic Monitoring from a different user's perspective. This feature can be very useful for troubleshooting or assisting your users with any problem they may encounter.
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Filter | Search for user accounts by name. |
Customer | Customer the user account belongs to. |
User Name | Account user name. |
Roles | List of roles associated with the account. |
Last Activity | Clear the settings. |
| Switch from current user and impersonate. |
Start Impersonation
The Impersonate tool allows Admin users to use Synthetic Monitoring with the permissions and settings of another user.
Impersonate User
To impersonate a user:
Open the Tools menu
Click Impersonate
Use the Filter to search for users
Find the user in the table
Click Impersonate
Drop Impersonation
When you want to stop impersonating, you can drop the impersonation without logging out and in again.
Drop Impersonation
To stop impersonating a user:
Open the User menu
Click Drop Impersonation
The user context is switched back to the original one.
Maintenance
The Maintenance view lets you modify or delete result records for individual checks and recalculate any associated consolidation records. The table shows a list of previous maintenance tasks and information about them:
Button | Description |
|---|---|
Show entries | Number of rows to display per page. |
Refresh History | Reload and update the table display. |
Column | Description |
|---|---|
Created | Timestamp for when the task was created. |
Action | Action(s) performed by the task. |
Status | The task status ( |
Records | Number of items affected by the task. |
Maintenance Tasks
Maintenance tasks can be created by selecting relevant checks and applying the appropriate action.
Apply Action
The apply action section lets you select what action to apply to the selected checks and queue the task for processing.
Option | Description |
|---|---|
Update | Change the Check Result Status to this severity. |
Set Value to NULL | Exclude the check from all calculations. |
Delete | Remove the results. |
Press Process Selected Records to remove the results.
Selector View
The selectors allow you to pick which checks to include in the task.
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Type | List of check types. |
Checks | List of checks of the selected type. |
 | Check result Colors to include. |
From | Start date and time for the period. |
To | End date and time for the period. |
Refresh | Reload and update the table display according to settings. |
Display records | The number of rows to display per page. |
Search | Search for checks by message text. |
Create A Maintenance Task
Maintenance tasks can be created by selecting relevant checks and applying the appropriate action.
To create a maintenance task:
Select the check results you want to modify:
Type from the list
Check from the list
Pick a period:
Enter a From date and time
Enter a To date and time
Search for strings in message texts, if needed
Click Refresh
Click Process Selected Records
A database task is placed in a queue for execution. It will run as soon as possible.
When queued, the maintenance task is visible in the Task table.
Table
The table shows the result of applying the selectors.
NOTE: The action in the task will apply to all selected checks. Make sure you have selected the correct checks before clicking the button.
Column | Description |
|---|---|
Severity | Check result status severity. |
Time | Timestamp for the check run. |
Value | Duration |
Message | The result message. (Clicking this will show the browser results). |
Attempts | Number of attempts for the check run. |
Journal
The Journal keeps a record of all user actions taken in the system.
Selectors
The journal can be filtered by a number of parameters.
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Severity | Event Severity to include. |
From | Start date and time for the period. |
To | End date and time for the period. |
Message | Event description. |
Customer | Customer account. |
User | Involved user, if any. |
IP-Address | The associated IP address for the event, if any. |
Source | Originating location. |
Category | |
Check | Involved check, if any. |
Apply Filter | Reload and update the table display according to settings. |
Entries
The Entries table shows the result of applying the selectors.
Column | Description |
|---|---|
Severity | Event Severity. |
Timestamp | Date and time when the event occurred. |
Message | Event description. |
Customer | Customer account. |
User | Involved user, if any. |
IP-Address | The associated IP address for the event, if any. |
Source | Originating location. |
Category | |
Check | Involved check, if any. |
Traceroute
The Traceroute tool allows you to easily run a Traceroute from any of our Apica Locations to any URL or IP address you choose.
Introduction
The purpose of running a traceroute is to get an indication of which way traffic takes between a source and a destination. Traceroute sends test Packet with TTL values starting at 1. The resulting ICMP Time Exceeded messages are used to discover any devices (called "hops") forwarding the packets to the destination. For each hop, the response time is recorded to indicate transmission speed. Any detected failures or packet losses on the way are also the recorder and displayed to give an idea of the transmission quality.
Configuration
The Traceroute tool configuration is fairly simple.
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Host | Target destination. |
Location | Apica Locations Locations to use as starting point. |
Execute | Perform traceroute. |
These Tracroute settings are used by default and are not configurable:
Option | Value |
|
|---|---|---|
Maximum number of hops | 30 |
|
Wait timeout per hop | 5 seconds |
|
Job execution timeout | 60 seconds |
|
Traceroute Results
The results of the traceroute run is shown in the results frame.
The first line shows information about the traceroute configuration:
Hostname and IP address, the upper limit on hops to try, and size of the test packets.
On each subsequent row, information about each hop is shown:
Hop Number, hostname and/or IP address for the hop, and ther response times for each of the three test packets.
Messages
The Messages view lets you configure system messages to display to Synthetic Monitoring users.
View
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Importance | Message importance (and display color). |
Message | Message to display |
Customer | Customer to display the message to. |
Include Sub-customers | Also display message to sub-customers. |
Active Time Period | Period during which to display the message. |
Activity | Turn message on or off. |
Configuration
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Message | Message to display |
Message is From | Sender to display |
Active Time Period | Period during which to display the message. |
Importance | Message importance (and display color). |
Enabled | Turn message on or off. |
Customer | Customer to display the message to. |
Include Sub-customers | Also display message to sub-customers. |
Test | Preview the message. |
Cancel | Close dialog. |
Save | Save the message. |
Formatting
The message can contain some formatting. You format the text by putting the text within .
Formatting | Tag | Preview |
|---|---|---|
Link: |
| |
Bold: | [ | Bold Text |
Italic: |
| Italic Text |
Bold and Italic: |
| *Italic and Bold Text* |
Create Message
Messages can be added from the Messages view.
Add New Message
Click the Add New Message button
The Add New Messages dialog is shown
Configuration
Can't find what you're looking for? Send an E-mail to support@apica.io