See how PRTG Works for you
See the key features and essentials of Paessler PRTG in action
Live demonstration of installation, configuration, and dashboards
Real-time answers to your questions from our experts
Tips and recommendations to get the most out of your monitoring setup
Set up PRTG
We want to support you in the best possible way while you take the first steps with PRTG. Once it is set up correctly, you will benefit from it every day. Please note that you might get a lot of notifications and alerts when you start your PRTG experience. But don’t worry – we’ll help you configure thresholds and notification triggers they way you need them.
Quick Overview
Get a first introduction to PRTG, including device tree settings, the alerting and reporting system, the PRTG map editor, or different user interfaces.
System Requirements for PRTG
We recommend that you run the central PRTG server directly on x64 server hardware or in a properly configured virtual environment.
Feature Overview
Maps and dashboards, alerts and notifications, customizable reporting, or distributed monitoring – PRTG comes with all the features you need for comprehensive monitoring.
Basic Monitoring Technologies
To get you started, see a short introduction on bandwidth monitoring with SNMP and WMI:
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- Monitoring via the Simple Network Protocol (SNMP): Monitoring via SNMP is the most basic method of gathering bandwidth and network usage data. It is useful if you are responsible for servers and network devices such as routers, switches, hubs, or firewalls.
- Monitoring via Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI): WMI is the Microsoft technology for monitoring and managing Windows-based systems. PRTG uses WMI and Windows performance counters to collect data such as Windows configuration parameters and status values.
- Monitoring via Secure Shell (SSH): Monitoring via SSH enables you to gather performance and system data from many Linux and Unix distributions, as well as certain Mac OS X systems.
- Flow-based monitoring (NetFlow , jFlow, sFlow, IPFIX): With flow monitoring, you can analyze network traffic in more detail and also determine which device, protocol, or user is consuming the most bandwidth in your network.
PRTG Architecture & User Interfaces
Find out about what a PRTG core server or a probe is and what tasks they perform, or which user interfaces you can use to view and manage your monitoring data.
Smart Setup
After you logged in to PRTG for the first time, you start with the smart setup. Our setup assistant guides you through your firs steps with PRTG.
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PRTG Manual: Step 2: Smart Setup
Access Rights Management
With PRTG’s granular access rights management, you can define which user in which user group can access which objects in your PRTG installation.
Device Tree Overview
The device tree is the main structure with which to navigate through your monitoring setup. You can use it to drill down to the sensor settings level or to directly add new sensors to a device.
Notifications in PRTG
PRTG uses notifications to send you alerts whenever it discovers a defined status or when channels breach threshold values. You can define an unlimited number of notification templates for different escalation levels, including notification contacts and notification methods such as email, SMS, or push notification.
Notification Setup
PRTG monitors your network 24/7/365. This does not mean, however, that you need to constantly check the PRTG web interface for new warnings or alarms. Here, notifications come into play. Set up notifications and notification triggers so that PRTG informs you about issues that are really important for your monitoring.
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- Notification delivery settings: First, you need to check and fine-tune the notification delivery settings. These define how PRTG sends messages.
- Notification contacts: Check and set up notification contacts for different user accounts. These define where to send notifications.
- Notification templates: Check and set up various notification templates that combine, notification triggers, contacts, and methods.
- Notification triggers settings: PRTG can trigger notifications for specific sensor states and values. Notification triggers are set for specific sensors or sensor groups.
Read more in the PRTG Manual: Notification Triggers Settings
To get you started with notifications, see a short introduction and a step-by-step guide here:
Defining Sensor Limits
Sensor limits enable you to set threshold values for almost any data that PRTG collects. They then trigger notifications if the given threshold values are breached. This way, PRTG can alerts you to an impending issue in time.
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Notification Use Cases
You are not really sure what use you have for different notification methods? We’ll help you collect some ideas.
Dependencies and Notifications
Using dependencies in PRTG to effectively monitor a VPN connection to receive as few notifications as possible only takes a few steps.
Miscellaneous
PRTG is a powerful, affordable, and easy-to-use network monitoring solution. This page gives you an overview of everything you can monitor with it, from firewalls, ports, and servers, to LAN and network traffic monitoring, as well as distributed monitoring, and much more.
Add Devices and Sensors
Adding devices and sensors to your monitoring setup is very intuitive. There are different methods you can use.
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Read the PRTG Manual: Add a Device
Preconfigured Sensor Types
We offer more than 250 sensor types for monitoring your entire infrastructure out-of-the-box for you, using the most common monitoring technologies and covering the most important vendors and manufacturers.
See the PRTG Manual: Available Sensor Types
Custom Sensor Types
Additionally, we have many custom and script sensor types available for your individual monitoring needs.
Dashboards & Maps
Maps (or dashboards) in PRTG not only show devices and connections, but also deliver status information. Detect problems at a glance and troubleshoot network issues effectively.
- Geo maps: Include geo maps to stay on track with the global status of your network.
- Map rotation: Have your maps rotate on one page and keep your eye on everything.
- PRTG map designer: Create your own dashboards via drag-and-drop and use custom HTML to build multi-layer maps.
- Share maps: Make maps and dashboards public with a unique URL.
