Configuration of ApacheNewStatTest

This test reveals critical performance and uptime statistics pertaining to an Apache web server. This test, upon execution, accesses a specific URL on the Apache server, which contains the required metrics. Using this test, administrators can figure out how well the processes are being processed in the server, how many processes are currently idle, the processes that are in KEEPALIVE and Logging state etc. This way, this test helps administrators to identify processing bottlenecks, if any.

The default parameters associated with this test are:

• The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed.

• In the HOST text box, specify the HOST for which this test is to be configured.

• The port to which the host listens is specified in the PORT text box.

• By default, the URL to be accessed by this test for extracting the Apache web server's performance statistics will be displayed in the URL text box. The URL is: http://{Apache web server host}:{Apache web server port}/server-status.

• Whether any cookies being returned by the web server need to be saved locally and returned with subsequent requests is specified in COOKIEFILE textbox.

• The host on which a web proxy server is running is specified in the PROXY HOST text box.

• The port number on which the web proxy server is listening is specified in the PROXY PORT text box.

• Specify the username and password of the proxy server in the PROXY USERNAME and PROXY PASSWORD text boxes.

• Confirm the Password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

• Sometimes the eG agent has to parse the URL content with specific encoding other than the default (ISO-8859-1) encoding. In such a case, specify the type of encoding using which the eG agent can parse the URL content in the Encoding text box. By default, this value is set as none.

• SSL-enabled web sites are typically secured by a private key, public key, or a publicprivate key pair. If the web page configured for this test is SSL-enabled - i.e., if an HTTPS URL is specified against URL - and the contents of this web page can only be accessed using a private key, then the full path to the private key file will have to be provided against PRIVATEKEY FILE PATH and the password of the private key file should be specified against PRIVATEKEY PASSWORD. If no such private key protects the contents of the configured URL, then set the Privatekey File Path and its Privatekey Password to none.

• Some web pages (URLs) configured for monitoring may have been designed to allow access for only those requests that have certain specific properties enabled. For instance, web pages of an SSL-enabled web site may have been designed to support TLS v1.3 requests alone. In such a case, you will have to instruct the test to send connection requests to the configured URL over the TLS v1.3 protocol alone; if not, the test will fail. For this, you can use the SYSTEM PROPERTY KEYand SYSTEM PROPERTY VALUE text boxes. Specify the request property that the test needs to look up, in the SYSTEM PROPERTY KEY text box. In the SYSTEM PROPERTY VALUE text box, enter the value this property should be set to, so that the eG agent is allowed access to the configured web page. In the case of the above example, you will have to specify -Dhttps.protocol in the System Property Key text box and TLSv1.3 in the System Property Value text box. You can even provide a comma-separated list of values in the System Property Value text box. For example, if the web page supports multiple versions of the TLS protocol, then the System Property Value specification will be: TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2,TLSv1.3.

• A user agent is a computer program representing a person - for example, a browser in a Web context. Besides a browser, a user agent could be a bot scraping webpages, a download manager, or another app accessing the Web. Along with each request they make to the server, browsers include a self-identifying User-Agent HTTP header called a user agent (UA) string. This string often identifies the browser, its version number, and its host operating system.

  Some web sites may have been designed to service only those access requests that contain the User Agent (UA) string in the HTTP request header. If this test has been configured with the URL of such a web site/web page, then you have to instruct the test to include the UA string in the header of every connection request it sends to the configured URL; if this is not done, then the test will fail. In this case therefore, set the value of the INCLUDE USERAGENT IN HEADER flag to true. By default, this flag is set to false, indicating that the requests this test emulates do not contain the UA string by default.

• To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, eG embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test, by default, for a particular server, choose the On option against DETAILED DIAGNOSIS. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

  The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability.

  • Both the bad and normal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

• If multiple components of the same component type are awaiting configuration, then an APPLY TO OTHER COMPONENTS button will appear in this page. Clicking on this button will allow you to apply the configuration to all/selected components of that type.

• Once the necessary values have been provided, clicking on the UPDATE button will register the changes made.

When changing the configuration for specific servers, a “*” beside the text box corresponding to the parameter signifies that these values have to be manually configured by the user. The parameter values that require to be configured will typically be prefixed with a “$” or contain a series of “*”. A value of “none” in the parameter value indicates that the corresponding parameter value can be changed if required.