Setting Up and Starting Watchdog Services

After you install the Watchdog module, you should configure the settings common for all Watchdog services, and then switch on each specific type of service you need.

To configure Watchdog settings common for all services:

1. Click the Modules shortcut in the navigation pane > Watchdog. A list of Parallels Plesk Panel services will be displayed.
2. Click the Preferences icon in the Tools group.
3. Specify the following settings:
   • Interface language. Select the language in which Watchdog should show and send e-mail notices and alerts. By default, the language set for your Parallels Plesk Panel administrator's account is selected.
   • Automatically refresh pages. Leave this option selected, if you wish to have the information presented on the screens automatically updated on each poll.
   • Monitor all services started by administrator. Leave this option selected if you wish the module to monitor all the Parallels Plesk Panel services that you start. If you install a new system service later on, the module will automatically start looking after it. Deselect this check box, if you are going to shut down some of the Parallels Plesk Panel services and you do not want the module to bring them up automatically or bother you with any alert messages.
   • Polling interval. Specify the interval between service status queries in seconds.
   • Store resource usage statistics. Leave this option selected if you wish the system to keep reports on CPU and RAM usage for the amount of time you specify.
   • Repeat security scanning. Specify how often Watchdog should scan the server for malicious code.
   • Send reports. Specify how often Watchdog should send you consolidated reports on CPU and RAM load, monitored services, disk space partitions and security scanning results.
   • Send e-mail to. Specify the e-mail address where Watchdog should deliver alerts and reports. By default, the Parallels Plesk Panel administrator's e-mail address is used.
   • Send e-mail from. E-mail address on behalf of which the reports and alerts should be sent. By default, this e-mail address is watchdog@your-host-name.
   • SMTP server for sending alerts. Specify local or remote SMTP servers that should be used for sending alert messages. You can specify several host names or IP addresses separated by commas. Leave the localhost entry to use your server's SMTP service. If your Parallels Plesk Panel server is not running SMTP service, be sure to specify another remote mail server, otherwise, Watchdog will not be able to send you alerts.
4. Click Apply to submit the settings.

You have specified the general settings, and now you can further customize and run the Watchdog services you need: monitoring of system services and monitoring of disk space usage require fine tuning before you can start them, however, regular security scanning requires no additional setup and therefore will start immediately after you have specified the general settings. By default, security scanning is started at 2 a.m. local time at the beginning of the specified time period.