Watchdog Service

Overview

The Watchdog Service monitors a configurable list of the other SBN Windows services and keeps them running. On a fixed timer it checks each service in its watch list; if a monitored service has stopped or failed, the Watchdog restarts it and sends an email alert. Repeated restart failures are tracked so that alert emails can be suppressed for a configurable period to avoid flooding. The Watchdog also logs a failure as an alarm against a designated account (CID) in SBN, and performs daily housekeeping — purging old log and report files by age and file extension.

The Watchdog requires a working SBN data-server connection and a valid SMTP server. If either is missing or invalid at start-up, the service logs the reason and stops.

Service Manager

Instructions for installing and interacting with this service is found here.

Service Properties

Only properties specific to this service are listed here. Common service properties (SBN Server connection, Logging, SMTP) are found here.

Service Monitoring

The list of SBN services the Watchdog watches and restarts. Add each service that should be kept running on this machine; the Watchdog only acts on services in this list.

Timer (In Seconds)

How often the Watchdog checks the watched services. Default is 30 seconds.

SBN Error Account (CID)

The account (CID) in SBN that a service failure is logged against as an alarm, so failures are visible in monitoring.

Suppress ‘failed restart’ emails for X Minutes

After a failed-restart email is sent for a service, further emails for that service are suppressed for this many minutes.

File Extensions

The file extensions the Watchdog is allowed to purge during daily cleanup.

File Age

Files older than this many days (of the extensions above) are deleted during the daily cleanup pass. Default is 14 days.