A number of our customers have asked if it is possible to monitor some of their systems by the DNS name rather than by IP address. The reason for this is that the IP address of peripatetic devices and some other workstations may change (perhaps because of DHCP) whereas the DNS name will remain constant. In order to maximise efficiency, protocols such as ICMP (ping) and SNMP need to use the raw IP address at the packet level meaning that address lookup cannot easily be done on the fly.
We have now added a new Agent to Mutiny Version 6.1 that is simply called “Track DNS changes”. It works like this:
- Ensure that the system you wish to monitor is registered in the DNS and that the DNS servers will activity track the IP addresses handed out by DHCP (e.g. Microsoft DNS + Active Directory).
- Check that Mutiny can resolve the IP address from DNS name using the “[Test Node]” button in “[Nodes]=>Manager”.
- Set the Node Name of the device in Mutiny to be the DNS name.
- Add the “Track DNS Changes” Agent.
- Make sure that “Monitor Agents” is “On” in the Agents Panel.
- The Agent checks the DNS server regularly to ensure that the IP address in Mutiny corresponds with that resolved from the Node Name. If they differ, then the Agent changes the IP address of the node in Mutiny to match the entry in the DNS and the monitoring will continue. Any changes can be seen by using the [Show] button next to “Track DNS Changes” in the Agents panel.