Windows Win Services Plug-in - Technical Reference

Introduction

GENEOS WINDOWS WINSERV Plug-in monitors Windows Services.

The plugin can present information about all services on the machine, just services named in the configuration or services that match a regular expression in the configuration.

Views

View

The universal WINSERV plugin produces a single dataview:

windows-svcs0

Table Legend

Name	Description
name	Name of the Windows Service. This corresponds to the Service name in the Windows Service manager.
description	The Service description. This corresponds to the Display name in Windows Service manager.
status	Status of the service. May be one of the following: Standard Windows defined states: Stopped, Start Pending, Stop Pending, Running, Continue Pending, Pause Pending, Paused. Additional Geneos status: Unavailable. This means that none of the services on the machine matched the configured predicate
startup	The start up mode of the service. May be one of the following: Standard Windows defined states: Boot, System, Automatic, Manual, Disabled Additional Geneos status: Undefined. This means that the service failed to return a valid start type.
sample state	'OK' if the service information was retrieved successfully. Otherwise, details of the error will be reported.

Menu Options

WINSERV has an additional set of context-menu options for starting and stopping processes. This menu can be accessed by right-clicking on a table cell in the WINSERV dataview.

The options to start or stop a process will only appear on the menu if applicable. An example of these commands is shown below:

Plug-in Configuration

Sample Configuration:

services
  service: dhcp
  service: netman
  service: rasman
  service: ghost

The following parameters can be configured for this plug-in:

services

List of Windows Services to monitor. Defaults to all Services.

Deprecated: Yes (use servicesNew)

servicesNew

List of predicates defining which services should be displayed in the view.

Not specifying any will display all services on the machine.

Mandatory: Yes (unless using deprecated services node)

servicesNew > services

A predicate matched against all services on the machine to determine what appears in the view. Composed of a serviceName and serviceDescription components to match the name and description of the service respectively.

If both are specified then the service must match both the name predicate and the description predicate to be displayed in the view.

servicesNew > service > serviceName

A predicate to match against the name of the service. Either Basic or Regex matching.

Mandatory: No

servicesNew > service > serviceName > basic

Match the service name using basic text matching.

For example:

"Test Match" would match a service called "Test Match" but not "Test Match Other"

servicesNew > service > serviceName > basic > showIfUnavailable

Displays a row for the service with the status Unavailable if the service cannot be found on the machine.

Mandatory: No

Default: False

servicesNew > service > serviceName > regex

Match the service name using Perl Compatible Regular Expression matching.

For example:

"Test.*Match" would match a service called "Test Match" or "Test Other Match" but not "Test Service"

servicesNew > service > serviceName > regex > flags

Flags to alter the behavior of the regular expression matching engine when using the regular expression specified

Mandatory: No

servicesNew > service > serviceName > regex > pattern > data > flags > i

Case Insensitive regular expression matching.

For example:

"tEst Match" would match "Test Match" or "test match" but not "test service"

Mandatory: No

Default: False

servicesNew > service > serviceName > regex > pattern > data > flags > s

Dot matches all regular expression matching.

Note: Windows Services do not have multiline names or descriptions and as such this flag serves no purpose in this plugin but is kept for consistency across regular expression definitions in Geneos configuration.

Mandatory: No

Default: False

servicesNew > service > serviceDescription

A predicate to match against the description of the service. Basic or Regex matching.

Note: The description of the service as read by the plug-in is not the same as that in displayed in the Description column in the Windows Services dialog but the Service Name column instead.

servicesNew > service > serviceDescription > basic

Match the service description using basic textual matching.

See servicesNew > service > serviceName > basic for an example.

servicesNew > service > serviceDescription > regex

Match the service name using Perl Compatible Regular Expression matching.

See servicesNew > service > serviceName > regex for an example.

servicesNew > service > serviceDescription > regex > flags

The same flags as specified in servicesNew > service > serviceName > regex > flags but applicable to the service description.

Mandatory: No

servicesNew > service > serviceDescription > regex > pattern > data > flags > i

The same flag as specified in servicesNew > service > serviceName > regex > pattern > data > flags > i but applicable to the service description.

Mandatory: No

Default: False

servicesNew > service > serviceDescription > regex > pattern > data > flags > s

The same flag as specified in servicesNew > service > serviceName > regex > pattern > data > flags > s but applicable to the service description.

Mandatory: No

Default: False