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Help for Foxhound 5.0.5500a
Table of Contents [RisingRoad]
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The Foxhound Options page lets you change a variety of Foxhound settings and perform a variety of Foxhound-specific tasks.Settings in this page are global in nature: any changes you make will apply to all Foxhound users and sessions running on this copy of the Foxhound engine.
The Foxhound Options Menu 4. Mini-Backup
The
button is a context-sensitive link to this Help topic.
This button appears in many locations, each of them a link to a different Help topic in this frame.
The New Menu link opens the Foxhound Menu page in a new browser window or tab. This link appears on every Foxhound page to make it easy to look at multiple databases at the same time.
The Monitor Options link opens the Monitor Options page in a new browser window or tab. That page lets you specify default options for new Monitor sessions, and change options for existing Monitor sessions.
The About link opens the About Foxhound page in a new browser window or tab.
The Help link opens the Table of Contents.
The "Mmm Dd yyyy Hh:nn:ss AA Foxhound5" field tells you the current time, and that you're looking at Version 5 of Foxhound... which might be helpful if you print or capture the screen.
the Login / Logout link appears if the Administrator Authentication feature has been enabled. Login means you're in Read-Only mode and you can switch to Administrator mode, and Logout means the opposite. If you don't see either link, you're (effectively) in Administrator mode.
This section lets you quickly (and temporarily) turn off certain features without changing (or affecting) the dozens of other settings that otherwise control how those features work.
The Enable Emails checkbox lets you turn off the Alert email facility for all target databases being monitored by Foxhound. This checkbox does not affect any other email settings (for example, that you normally want Alert emails for database A but not database B, and you have set that up using the Monitor Options page), but it does override their effect when you uncheck this checkbox. When you check this checkbox again, all the other email settings take effect.
The Enable Schedules checkbox lets you turn off all the Schedule facilities for all target databases being monitored by Foxhound. This checkbox does not affect any other Schedule settings (for example, that you normally want to turn Alert emails on and off at certain times of the day for database A but not database B, and you have set that up using the Monitor Options page), but it does override their effect when you uncheck this checkbox. When you check this checkbox again, all the other Schedule settings take effect.
The Enable AutoDrop checkbox lets you turn off the AutoDrop facility for all target databases being monitored by Foxhound. This checkbox does not affect any other AutoDrop settings (for example, that you normally want to drop connections that are blocking other connections to database A but not database B, and you have set that up using the Monitor Options page), but it does override their effect when you uncheck this checkbox. When you check this checkbox again, all the other AutoDrop settings take effect.
You must click if you want your changes saved. Any one the Save buttons will save all the changes you have made anywhere on this page.
How To Configure Foxhound To Use The SendGrid SMTP Relay Service For Sending Email Messages
See also Monitor Options - 7. Email Setup.
How To Configure Foxhound To Use The SendGrid SMTP Relay Service For Sending Email Messages
1 Create an API key - My First Api Key Name
"Foxhound" was successfully created and added to the next step.
SG.xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
2. Configure your application Configure your application with the settings below. Server smtp.sendgrid.net Ports 25, 587 (for unencrypted/TLS connections) 465 (for SSL connections) Username apikey Password SG.xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
SMTP Sender: your.name@email.com
SMTP Server: smtp.sendgrid.net
SMTP Port: 587 use 25 for standard SMTP, 587 for smtp.sendgrid.net
SMTP Timeout: 60 in seconds; 60 is recommended
SMTP Authorization User Name: apikey
SMTP Authorization Password: SG.xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Use HTML in emails: [checked]
Attach files to emails: [checked]
Protocol://host:port for URLs in emails: [...]
Send Alert emails: [checked]
Email address(es) for Alerts: [your.name@email.com]
[Send Test Alert Email] Test result:
Send AutoDrop Notice emails: [checked]
Email address(es) for AutoDrop Notices:
- or - Same address(es) as for Alerts: [checked]
[Send Test AutoDrop Email] Test result:
[Send Test Alert Email] Test result: OK
Administrative Tip: Turn SendGrid Click Tracking off. Here's why (and how):
By default the SendGrid service modifies the URLs embedded in email messages to point to SendGrid's own servers in order to enable tracking of user clicks.If you don't want this to happen to Foxhound email messages (and you probably don't), you can turn it off as follows:
Login to your SendGrid.com account - Settings - Tracking - Click Tracking - Off
Check Use SMTP to send emails to specify that SMTP will be used to send all alert emails, instead of MAPI.
See also How To Configure Foxhound To Use The SendGrid SMTP Relay Service For Sending Email Messages.
The SMTP Sender: holds the email address of the sender; e.g., your.name@gmail.com will appear in the email "from" field as "Foxhound Alert <your.name@gmail.com>".
The SMTP Server: is a server domain name or IP address of the SMTP server; e.g., smtp.sendgrid.net for sending emails via SendGrid.
The SMTP Port: specifies the TCP/IP port to use for SMTP messages. Use 25 for standard SMTP servers and 587 for sending emails via SendGrid.
The SMTP Timeout: specifies how long to wait, in seconds, before giving up on an attempt to send an email.
The Foxhound Database Monitor sends email alerts asynchronously so a long timeout doesn't adversely affect the monitoring process.
However, the Send Test Email button does work synchronously; i.e., it waits until the email is send, so you can use it to determine how long the timeout should be.
The SMTP Authorization User Name: holds the user name when the SMTP server requires authentication; e.g., your.name@gmail.com
The SMTP Authorization Password: holds the password when the SMTP server requires authentication.
Strong encryption is used to store this value in the Foxhound database, and the value is not redisplayed on this page.
In other words, this field is input-only; just because no value is displayed doesn't necessarily mean there's no password stored.
The SMTP Certificate Filespec: is required when the SMTP server requires an SSL certificate; for example:
C:\ProgramData\RisingRoad\Foxhound5\Equifax_Secure_Certificate_Authority.cer
Check Use MAPI to send emails to specify that MAPI will be used to send all alert emails, instead of SMTP.
The MAPI User Name: holds the MAPI login name; e.g., postmaster@xyz.com
The MAPI Password: holds the MAPI login password.
Strong encryption is used to store this value in the Foxhound database, and the value is not redisplayed on this page.
In other words, this field is input-only; just because it's empty doesn't necessarily mean there's no password stored.
You must click if you want your changes saved. Any one the Save buttons will save all the changes you have made anywhere on this page.
The button may be used to erase the values currently stored in SMTP Authorization User Name and the SMTP Authorization Password.
This button is necessary if you switch from using an SMTP server that requires authorization to one that doesn't; Foxhound doesn't redisplay the values entered in those fields so you can't just "blank them out" to erase them, you have to press this button.
The Erase Authorization button takes effect immediately; you don't have to press the Save Values button.
Note: More information is required to complete the email setup:
Protocol://host:port for URLs in emails: See Monitor Options - 7. Email Setup.
Email address(es) for Alerts: ...ditto
Email address(es) for AutoDrop Notices: ...ditto
The Connection Sampling Threshold radio buttons let you specify when (and if) Foxhound will stop recording detail information about individual connections. Here are your choices:
The new value takes effect immediately, for all sampling sessions, as soon as you save it.
Here are the main reasons you might want to set a threshold other than All:
The threshold is an "all or nothing" setting. I.e., if you set a threshold other than zero or All, Foxhound will stop gathering any detail information about any connections when the ConnCount database property exceeds the threshold. When ConnCount drops back to the threshold or lower, Foxhound will start gathering detail information about all the connections again.
Note that ConnCount is retrieved before the detail connection information so there may be a change in the number of connections by the time the detail information is retrieved. For example, if you set the threshold to 100, you may see detail information about more than 100 connections for a short period if new connections are being created.
You must click if you want your changes saved. Any one the Save buttons will save all the changes you have made anywhere on this page.
A Mini-Backup is a compressed encrypted text file containing all the data from Foxhound activation, options and settings tables but not any sample-related tables.
A new Mini-Backup file is automatically created by Foxhound shortly after you make any changes to those activation, options and settings tables, and it is written to the C:\ProgramData\RisingRoad\Foxhound5\backup folder.
The Take a mini-backup [xxx] after an option or setting change text box specifies an elapsed time duration of 1m or more, using the "d h m s ms" input format; e.g., 1m for 1 minute, 10m for 10 minutes and so on. This is the lag time that Foxhound waits after you make a change to any of the options and settings, before it creates a mini-backup.
Old Mini-Backup files are deleted when new files are created.
The Keep no more than [xxx] recent mini-backup files text box specifies how many versions of the mini-backup files will be retained before Foxhound deletes old copies. The minimum value is 1.Note: Foxhound will delete old copies regardless of the build number. In other words, if you upgrade to a new build of Foxhound, mini-backup files created with the previous build will be included in the deletion process... which is a good thing because they can't be used in a Mini-Restore.
You must click if you want your changes saved. Any one the Save buttons will save all the changes you have made anywhere on this page.
These two values are also displayed in this section:
Administrative Tip: This field is recorded in the currently running copy of the Foxhound database. Be careful if you have recently restored the database from a full backup or renamed copy. In that case the disk may currently contain other, more recent, Mini-Backup files that were created for the lost or replaced database. In other words, be careful which Mini-Backup file you chose to perform a Mini-Restore.
Administrative Tip: If you pick the "wrong" Mini-Backup file when performing a Mini-Restore, it will "work" as long as the file and database build numbers agree. In other words, the Mini-Restore will not fail but the resulting Foxhound database may contain a different set of options from what you expect.
A Mini-Restore is the process whereby an empty Foxhound database is copied, activated, restored and restarted using a previously-created Mini-Backup file.
When you run a Mini-Restore, the current foxhound5.db and foxhound5.log files are renamed:
C:\ProgramData\RisingRoad\Foxhound5\ foxhound5.db.RENAMED-AT-yyyy-mm-dd-Thh-nn-ss foxhound5.log.RENAMED-AT-yyyy-mm-dd-Thh-nn-ss
Old renamed files are automatically deleted after new ones are renamed.
The Keep no more than [xxx] recent renamed database files text box specifies how many versions of the old RENAMED-AT files will be retained before Foxhound deletes old copies. The minimum value is 0 which means "keep no copies".
You must click if you want your changes saved. Any one the Save buttons will save all the changes you have made anywhere on this page.
These two values are also displayed in this section:
Administrative Tip: This field is recorded in the currently running copy of the Foxhound database. If you have recently restored the database from a full backup or renamed copy, this field may correspond to an event which occurred long ago, and the disk may currently contain a completely different and more recent set of Mini-Backup files.
Administrative Tip: Be careful if you have recently restored the database from a full backup or renamed copy. In that case this list may show other, more recent, Mini-Backup files that were created for the lost or replaced database. In other words, be careful which Mini-Backup file you chose to perform a Mini-Restore.
Administrative Tip: If you pick the "wrong" Mini-Backup file when performing a Mini-Restore, it will "work" as long as the file and database build numbers agree. In other words, the Mini-Restore will not fail but the resulting Foxhound database may contain a different set of options from what you expect.
Foxhound's internal purge process frees up space in the Foxhound database by deleting data you don't need any more:
The purge process can be run manually or automatically according to a schedule.
The purge process runs independently from all other Foxhound processes, including the Foxhound Monitor processes and the web service that displays this Foxhound Options page.
The Enable automatic purge schedule checkbox lets you tell Foxhound when to run the scheduled purge process.
You can edit the schedule to pick any times you want. Here are two examples; the first example was set up by using the "Hourly" button for each day, and the second used the "Midnight" button:
Scheduled Purge Set Up With The "Hourly" Button"
AM PM Y,y for yes, P,p for ping, other for no 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Mon YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YyY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY. All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Tue YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YyY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY. All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Wed YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YyY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY. All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Thu YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YyY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY. All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Fri YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YyY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY. All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Sat YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YyY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY. All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Sun YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YyY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY. All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly
Scheduled Purge Set Up With The "Midnight" Button"
AM PM Y,y for yes, P,p for ping, other for no 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Mon YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.............^.......................................................... All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Tue YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.............^.......................................................... All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Wed YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.............^.......................................................... All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Thu YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.............^.......................................................... All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Fri YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.............^.......................................................... All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Sat YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.............^.......................................................... All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight Hourly Sun YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.............^.......................................................... All Clear <Shift Shift> Midnight HourlyHere's how it works:
- Each line represents one day of the week, Monday through Sunday.
- Each character represents one 15-minute period, from 12:00 midnight to 12:14:59.999 AM, 12:15 AM to 12:29:59.999 AM, and so on, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- A scheduled purge process will start when the first "Y" is reached after a string of one or more "." characters.
- Once started, a scheduled purge will continue to run until it is complete or a "." is reached.
- The next scheduled purge will not start until then next "Y" is reached after the next string of "." characters.
For example, if a scheduled purge started at 5:00 AM on Monday and finished normally at 5:05 AM, the next purge would start at 6:00 PM.The same is true for scheduled purges that are cancelled by the user or when Foxhound is shut down; the next purge won't start right away, but after one or more "." periods have passed.
- The Hourly button sets up scheduled purges to start every hour, on the hour, and run for up to 45 minutes: "YYY.YYY.YYY. etc."
- The Midnight button sets up scheduled purges to start once a day, at midnight, and run for up to 6 hours: "YYYYYYYYYYYY etc."
- The characters "y" and "^" are displayed to show you the current time, but otherwise are the same as "Y" and "."
- Only one purge can run at a time.
For example, if a manual purge is already running, a scheduled purge will not start, and vice versa: if a scheduled purge is already running a manual purge will not start.
The Enable purging of all data checkbox lets you tell Foxhound to delete old data after [nnn] days when a scheduled or manual purge process is run.
Note: The "after [nnn] days" is applied when each purge starts running; i.e., it relative to the current time at that point.
Note: The data used for the Purge Run Report (see below) is preserved for at least one year. After that, it is subject to deletion by the purge process.The same is true for the exception data displayed in section 7. Diagnostics; it is preserved for at least one year, and subject to purging after that.Administrative Tip: Even if the Enable purging of all data checkbox is turned off, orphaned data will still be deleted whenever the purge process is run. Orphaned data is inaccessible sample data that is not immediately deleted when you delete a sampling session.
The Save button must be pressed to save any option changes you have made to the checkboxes and schedule settings.
The Start Manual Purge Now button is used to start the purge process manually.
This takes effect immediately, regardless of what the schedule says... as long as a scheduled purge isn't already running.A manual purge run will continue running until its work is complete or until it is cancelled for some other reason; e.g., when Foxhound is stopped.
A manual purge will delete all orphaned data, even if the Enable purging of all data checkbox is turned off.
The Cancel Running Purge button can be used to tell a running purge process to stop when it reaches a commit point.
The Refresh Display button can be used to refresh the Purge Run Report:
Purge Run Report Purge Run Started Run Time Progress / Status Rows Deleted Deleted Up To File Free Frags 12 Jan 8 2:19:32 PM 7.3s Purge done / Completed 28,660 Dec 3 2018 2:19:32 PM 3.3G 40% 4 11 Jan 8 1:52:25 PM 6.6s Purge done / Completed 27,275 Dec 3 2018 1:52:25 PM 3.3G 40% 4The Purge Run column is the sequential number 1, 2, 3 of the purge run.
The Started column is the timestamp when the purge process started.
The Run Time column is the elapsed time of the purge run.
The Progress / Status column shows how far the purge run got, with "Purge done / Completed" for a purge run that successfully ran to completion.
The Rows Deleted column is the total number of rows that were deleted from the Foxhound database.
The Deleted Up To column is displayed for "Purge done / Completed" runs, and shows the timestamps for the most recent rows that were deleted.
The File column is the size of the foxhound4.db file.
The Free column is the percentage of free space inside foxhound4.db that is available to store new data.
The Frags column is the number of fragments in the foxhound4.db file.
Free Free Foxhound File Space Space DBSpace Size In File On Drive Fragments File Specification system 3.3G 1.4G 324G 2 C:\ProgramData\RisingRoad\Foxhound5\foxhound5.db translog 17M 320k 324G 3 C:\ProgramData\RisingRoad\Foxhound5\foxhound5.log temporary 11M 1.3M 324G 8 C:\Users\Breck\AppData\Local\Temp\sqla0000.tmpThe Foxhound DBSpace column is the SQL Anywhere DBSPACE name for each Foxhound file.
The File Size column is the size of the file.
The Free Space In File column is the percentage of free space inside the file.
The Free Space On Drive column is the total free space on the drive holding this particular file.
The Fragments column is the number of fragments in the file.
The File Specification column is where the file is stored.
Administrative Tip: The purge process will free up space for future samples but it won't shrink the foxhound5.db file.
In fact, the file may grow larger during a purge, and it won't return to its original size until you stop Foxhound.For example, a purge that deleted 800,000 rows caused foxhound5.db to grow from 1.3G to 1.5G; stopping and restarting Foxhound restored the file back to 1.3G.
Administrative Tip: If you are in the habit of creating and deleting sample sessions, but you don't want to purge data "after [xxx] day(s)", try this: enable the automatic purge schedule but disable purging of all data after [xxx] days.
Here's how:
Foxhound Options - section 6. Purge check Enable automatic purge schedule uncheck Enable purging of all data after [xxx] day(s) click SaveHere's how it works: the Purge process will always remove orphan data (those rows that remain after you delete a sampling session), even when purging of all data after [xxx] days is disabled.
Orphan data is useless, and it only hangs around because the "delete sampling session" process is designed to respond quickly rather than actually delete all the rows right away.
Administrative Tip: If you want to start all the Monitor sampling sessions over again, try running a Mini-Restore instead of a purge.
A Mini-Restore will automatically
- stop and rename the current foxhound5.db file (which you can delete later on),
- create an empty foxhound5.db file that uses much less space,
- restore all your Foxhound options and settings (which is why it's called "Mini-Restore"), and
- restart all your Monitor sampling sessions that were running.
If Foxhound encounters a run-time exception, it may store diagnostic information in an internal table. Foxhound also stores some informational messages in this table.
The button lets you display the most recent diagnostic data in reverse order by timestamp.
The Export diagnostics to file: field lets you specify the file that will be written when you press the button.
You must click if you want your changes saved. Any one the Save buttons will save all the changes you have made anywhere on this page.
The button will write all the diagnostic data, sorted by timestamp, to the file specified in the Export diagnostics to file: field. If the file exists, it will be overwritten.
The button lets you delete the diagnostic data from the Foxhound database.
If all three of the above buttons are disabled, it means there is no diagnostic data to display. Press the button to see if any diagnostic data is now available.
Note: If you upgrade Foxhound to a new build, the data upgrade process will copy all the existing diagnostic data from the old database to the new one.