Create Task

To create a new Synthetic Monitoring task, please follow these steps:

1. Click Synthetic tasks in the top menu bar to enter the task maintenance page.
2. Click the Create Task button in the upper right corner to enter the task configuration page.

3. Configure basic information.
4. Configure required parameters.
5. Configure monitoring period.
6. Configure node scope.
7. (Optional) Configure advanced parameters.
8. Click the Save button to complete task configuration. Click the Save and Enter Alert Settings button to continue setting alerts.

Basic Information

Basic information includes: network type, task type, and creation method. For introduction to network type and task type, please refer to the relevant documentation. There are three creation methods: manual creation, batch creation, and batch import.

• Manual Creation: Create a single task.
• Batch Creation: Can create multiple tasks by clicking Add inside Required Parameters to add tasks.
• Batch Import: First download the task template file, fill in the task configuration file according to the template format, then upload the task configuration file.

Required Parameters

• Service Package: Configurable task types, each task type has a default service package. Service package is part of the monitoring service contract, managing monitoring tasks with the same attributes. Monitoring tasks are associated with service packages and are constrained by the service package in the setting of some key attributes.
• Task Name: Used to identify monitoring tasks in reports. Special characters are not allowed in the name. It is recommended to use an easy-to-remember name.
• Monitoring Address: The domain name or IP address that the monitoring task needs to monitor. Ensure it can be accessed through a browser. Click Validate to test whether the entered domain name or IP address can be accessed normally.
• Bind Tasks: Check the Create New Bound Task checkbox and enter a binding name. This method allows binding multiple tasks together. The system will dispatch multiple tasks in the binding to the same Probes, making it convenient to compare multiple tasks.
• Browser Options: Refers to the browser type of the monitoring client. (Now supports Edge browser)
• Industry: Used for comparing industry metrics. Select None when industry metric comparison is not needed.
• Streaming Media Type (Streaming Media Monitoring): Includes streaming media files, streaming media pages, loaded via scripts.
• Streaming Media Protocol (Streaming Media Monitoring): VLC, Flash, etc.
• uvmos: Indicates whether it is Huawei U-vMOS video monitoring. Close by default.
• Video Clarity (Streaming Media Monitoring): Standard definition, high definition, ultra-high definition.
• Feature Code Matching (Streaming Media Monitoring): Used to match feature codes.
• Byte Matching (Streaming Media Monitoring): Used to match bytes.

Monitoring Period

The monitoring period refers to the time period and monitoring frequency for task monitoring. There are two modes: time range and date mode.

• Time Range: Set the validity period of the task. Monitoring of the task will stop after this date. Users can set directly in the first date component, or quickly select a fixed time in the second drop-down menu. The date in the date component will change accordingly. When Service Package Validity is selected, the validity period will display the end time of the service package purchased in the contract.
• Date Mode: Click Time Range to set the start time and end time of the task.
• Monitoring Frequency: The time interval required for a monitoring client to execute this monitoring task again after completing one monitoring task. Minimum is 1 minute, maximum is 24 hours. When Do Not Execute is selected, the task will not be executed again after completing one execution.
• Custom Execution Plan: When fixed frequency cannot meet monitoring needs, a custom monitoring plan can be set. Supports setting different monitoring frequencies for different times and dates. Custom execution plan has higher priority than default monitoring frequency. Time periods not set in the plan will be executed according to the default monitoring frequency.

Node Scope

Node scope is used to configure monitoring nodes (Probes) that execute tasks, usually configured in the form of node groups. Each node group can contain nodes with different city-ISP-connection type combinations. For how to create node groups, please refer to Create Node Group.

Advanced Parameters

Different types of tasks have different configurable advanced parameters. Please configure according to the actual situation on the product page.

End Conditions

• Task Timeout Time: This is the timeout time for the entire monitoring task, in seconds. If the monitoring Probe does not complete the task within the set timeout time during one monitoring execution, the current monitoring of the task will be terminated and a timeout error code will be returned. The default task timeout time is 120 seconds.

• Extra Wait Time: The time to wait for delayed loading content (such as Flash, streaming media data, etc.) after the page loads. The default value is 0, indicating no wait.

• Client Redirect Count: If the page content contains Meta Refresh or JavaScript redirection, be sure to set this item correctly, otherwise it may result in incomplete data download.

  Redirection technology can be divided into two categories: client-side redirection and server-side redirection. Client-side redirection can be achieved by setting specific HTTP headers or writing JavaScript scripts. In a specified monitoring task, if the monitoring task contains server redirection, no attributes need to be set, and the monitoring client can handle it automatically; but for monitoring tasks that contain client redirection, this option must be set. When the set value is less than the client redirect count in the monitoring task, it will result in incomplete data download.

• Monitoring Duration (Streaming Media Monitoring Tasks Only): This is the monitoring time for the entire streaming media monitoring task, in seconds. For HTTP FLV format streaming media, during the monitoring process, the monitoring end will first check the movie time of the streaming media. For example, if the movie time of a 20M FLV file is 10 minutes (600 seconds), then the monitoring end will end the monitoring after downloading one-tenth of the movie data 2M (20M*60/600). If the network speed is fast, the actual monitoring time may be less than 60 seconds. If the network speed is slow and the monitoring time has reached 60 seconds before downloading this 2M data, the monitoring end will also end the monitoring.

• Page Timeout Time (Streaming Media Monitoring Tasks Only): The timeout time to wait for streaming media to load within the page. If no streaming media is found within this timeout period, a "Streaming Media Not Found" error will be triggered. When directly configuring streaming media files as URLs, the page timeout time is invalid.

Diagnostics

These attributes are generally used when an error occurs during the execution of a monitoring task by a monitoring Probe. To understand the network situation of the monitoring Probe at that time, the monitoring Probe performs Ping, TraceRoute, Nslookup, screenshot, uploads HTML source code, retains HTTP headers, and returns the results together with the errored monitoring.

1. Ping

• Execute When Page Error Occurs: Execute only when a page error occurs.
• Always Execute: Execute under any circumstances.
• Ping Packet Size: Refers to the size of each Ping packet sent, default is 32 bytes.
• Ping Count: Specifies the number of Ping task executions, default is 4 times.
• When executing Ping task, if ICMP packets cannot be sent normally, decide whether to use TCP Ping based on the setting. If the checkbox is checked, TCP Ping will be used. When TCP connection is reset (TCP Ping), check the sub-checkbox to consider Ping as reached.

2. Nslookup: A command-line tool for monitoring whether DNS servers can correctly resolve domain names. You can choose whether to use it and when to use it.

3. Trace Route: Choose whether to use it and when to use it.

4. Screenshot Options: Normal screenshot and dynamic screenshot (normal screenshot and dynamic screenshot are mutually exclusive):

Single Page Screenshot

• Execute When Page Error Occurs.
• Execute When Page Error or Content Error Occurs.
• Always Execute: Execute under any circumstances.

Dynamic Screenshot

• Dynamic screenshot supports execution when page error occurs, when page error or content error occurs, and always execute.
• The frequency of dynamic screenshot is determined by the LCP value range.

• Start screenshot from DOM Content Loaded (DOMContentLoaded)
• 0-2.5 seconds: Execute screenshot every 200 milliseconds
• 2.5-4.0 seconds: Execute screenshot every 300 milliseconds
• Above 4.0 seconds: Execute screenshot every 3000 milliseconds
• Above 120 seconds: Execute screenshot every 5000 milliseconds

5. Upload HTML Source Code: When the task encounters an error, the HTML source code can be uploaded. Upload methods include: upload when error occurs, always upload, and upload when error or content error occurs.

6. Retain HTTP Headers: If retain HTTP headers is enabled, you can see HTTPS request header information and HTTP response header information in the element waterfall chart. There are three states for retaining HTTP headers: retain only main element and error element headers, retain all main element response headers, retain all element request and response headers.

7. Packet Capture: Indicates that packet capture can be performed on this task. Packet capture content can be downloaded and viewed.

Node Filtering

• Check Monitoring Probe DNS Settings: Indicates whether tasks can be dispatched to monitoring Probes with incorrect DNS settings. When this option is checked, only Probes whose primary DNS province or ISP matches their IP will be selected. Monitoring Probes may have DNS configuration that does not match the ISP they are located in. At this time, if the Probe is monitored, the submitted data will cause some charts (host distribution related) to be inaccurate. If users are not concerned about host distribution, this option can be unchecked. The default is checked.
• Probe IP Protocol Selection: IPv4 only, IPv6 only, IPv4/IPv6 hybrid Probes.
• DNS Protocol: Includes two selection modes: DNS Protocol Auto, DNS Protocol Matches Probe Protocol (IPv4 tasks use IPv4 DNS resolution, IPv6 tasks use IPv6 DNS resolution). Default is DNS Protocol Auto.
• Internal Network Monitoring: Indicates whether this task is an internal network monitoring task. If marked as an internal network monitoring task, it will not consider whether DNS configuration is correct, and target hosts with internal network addresses will not be filtered. Otherwise, monitoring data will be defined as abnormal data during upload validation. Be sure to check this item when testing internal network applications.
• Bandwidth Selection: If a specific bandwidth range is selected, Probes within this bandwidth range will be used to run tasks.
• TLS Version: You can specify the TLS version. Currently, unlimited, 1.0-1.3 four versions are provided.
• Exclude Monitoring Probes: Exclude monitoring Probes with specified IDs and IPs. Excluded Probes will no longer perform specified monitoring tasks.
• Include Monitoring Probes: Specify Probe IDs and IPs that should perform tasks. These Probes will participate in task execution.
• Filter Monitoring Probes by OS/Browser: Users can filter Probes by operating system version and corresponding browser version. After configuration, monitoring Probes with the following operating system and browser versions will no longer be used in the monitoring task. Supports exclude and include two filtering methods.
• Smart DNS Optimization: When enabled, there will be improvement for issues with long DNS resolution time and resolution failures. (After ldns resolution fails, public DNS will be used for resolution)
• Only Select Monitoring Probes with Specified Client Plugin Installed: Only monitoring Probes with the specified client plugin installed will participate in task execution.

Client Behavior

• Dispersed Monitoring: Indicates whether monitoring tasks are concentrated at specified period time points or smoothly distributed at various time stages within the period when dispatched. Default value is No.

• Collect SpeedIndex Performance Metrics: Whether to collect SpeedIndex performance metrics. Not collected by default. Currently only Chrome supports this.

• Use LocalStorage: Whether to use local storage. Not used by default.

• Support Scrolling: Whether to support scrolling.

• Disable Monitoring Probe DNS Client Service: Whether to disable the local DNS Client service of the monitoring machine. The main function of DNS Client service is that when accessing a URL, after finding the destination host IP address of the URL for the first time, the queried name and IP address are recorded in the machine's DNS cache. Next time if the URL is accessed again, it will be directly retrieved from the cache. This way, if Windows DNS client service is configured to be enabled, the DNS time of the monitoring task may be 0.

• First Element as Main Element: By default, the first element with status code 200 is defined as the main element. When enabled, the first element is defined as the main element, applicable when there is 302 redirection, for example.

• Allow Client to Run Scripts: This option is one of the security policy options to ensure the security of monitoring Probes. It refers to whether to execute scripts (such as JavaScript, VBScript) in the page when executing monitoring tasks. This setting is to prevent some malicious scripts in web pages.

• Allow Pop-up Windows: When the monitoring task page contains pop-up windows and this monitoring task does not care much about these pop-up windows, this item can be set to No. Then when the monitoring Probe executes this monitoring task, it will not monitor the pop-up windows. The purpose of this parameter is to prevent some pop-up window content from being too large, such as some Flash advertisements, etc. If these pop-up windows are allowed, the monitoring results may produce "Element Timeout" errors or the total download time will be too long, thus affecting the performance of the monitoring task itself.

• Ignore Client Time: Whether to add the time spent on the client during monitoring to the total time. For some transaction monitoring tasks, consider setting this to No.

  • If unchecked: Total Download Time = Client Time + Network Layer Time
  • If checked: Total Download Time = Network Layer Time

• Ignore Certificate Validation: Do not validate whether the certificate is correct.

• First Screen Size: You can flexibly set the width and height of the first screen. If this item is set to 0, the default 1024*768 is used to calculate the first screen; unit is px.

• First Screen Sampling Interval: First screen sampling interval time.

• Custom Hosts: Resolve specified domain names to fixed IPs. One domain name can specify multiple IP addresses, separated by English commas ",". Format is: IP Domain Name, for example:

  • IPv4 protocol: 192.168.1.5,192.168.2.1 www.networkbench.com
  • IPv6 protocol: 2400:A480:aa:400:a1:b2:c3:d4 www.tingyun.com

  When multiple custom domain name resolutions need to be configured, separate them with line breaks.

Smart Noise Reduction

Smart noise reduction refers to when task SLA is insufficient, task has error data, or performance is poor and other abnormal data, temporarily do not display these abnormal data, re-dispatch these abnormal data to the client, and let the client re-execute. Enabling smart noise reduction will additionally increase point usage. The specific quantity depends on the threshold setting and the overall Availability of the task.

Smart noise reduction function supports three noise reduction methods:

• When SLA is insufficient for a city-ISP, dispatch to the provincial capital city ISP in the same province (dispatch to the same country for foreign countries).
• Resend when page error occurs (resend once).
• Resend when performance metrics exceed threshold (resend once). Performance metrics and threshold can be set according to actual needs.

HTTP Parameters

• Specify QUIC Protocol: "Quick UDP Internet Connection" is a protocol proposed by Google for multiplexed concurrent transmission using UDP.

• This URL Requires HTTP Authentication: If the set monitoring task requires specified user and password to access, you need to enter the corresponding username and password here. Otherwise, when the monitoring Probe executes this monitoring task, it will return "Http 401, Unauthorized" error in the monitoring results.

• Enable HTTP Compression: The concept of HTTP compression is that in the information transmission between server and browser, if both parties support HTTP compression, zip compression will be adopted in the information transmission to improve performance. For specified monitoring tasks, if the monitoring task supports HTTP compression, this option should be set to Yes. Monitoring Probes executing this monitoring task will enable HTTP compression. If this option is set correctly, it will be able to reflect better performance.

• Use Network User-Agent: Refers to whether to send a text to mark that the access is from our monitoring Probes when the monitoring Probe executes the monitoring task, to distinguish from normal browser access. This allows some traffic analysis software to filter out the access of our monitoring Probes.

• Browser Language: If the set monitoring task needs to automatically return pages in the corresponding language based on the language set by the visitor's browser, you can check Use Browser Settings; when Adaptive is selected, when the monitoring Probe executes this monitoring task, it is determined according to the language set by the IE browser of the Probe itself. If the customer only wants to test pages in a specified language, the corresponding language can be selected. Currently, the system supports Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English.

• Custom HTTP Headers: When IE sends requests, add the specified HTTP header information to the request header. When multiple custom HTTP headers need to be configured, separate them with line breaks.

  Example 1: Need to monitor the download effect of a file, but this file is very large at 100M, and ordinary monitoring will task timeout. At this time, we can specify the monitoring end to download the first 1M of data before downloading the file by setting custom HTTP headers. HTTP header is as follows: Range: bytes=1-1024000

  Example 2: Need to monitor the download effect of a file (http://www.testcdn.com/123.jpg), but the server has set anti-leech verification, and ordinary monitoring will result in http 403 and other errors. At this time, we can bypass the anti-leech verification by setting custom HTTP headers. HTTP header is as follows: Referer:http://www.testcdn.com/.

Content Options

• Expected Correct Text: When a monitoring task has such a requirement to monitor whether the page source code contains certain text, you can enter the text that needs to be included here (if it is some text, you can enter the corresponding regular expression here). When the monitoring Probe executes this monitoring task, if the set text is not found, it will return "Expected page content not found" error in the monitoring results.
• Error Text: Trigger "Found Content Indicating Page Error" error when the page source code contains expected error text content. Supports regular expression matching.
• Exclude Following Element URLs During Monitoring: Exclude some URLs unrelated to the specified monitoring task. One URL per line. Requests for elements that match the rules in the list will be blocked during the monitoring process. Supports complete URLs and regular expressions.
  When using regular expressions, non-numeric and non-alphabetic parts in the URL need to use escape character "", for example, the expression to exclude all URLs with domain name www.google.com is: www\.google\.com.
• Only Access Following Element URLs During Monitoring: Specify some URLs that must be included. One URL per line. Requests for elements outside the list will be blocked during the monitoring process. Supports complete URLs and regular expressions.
  When using regular expressions, non-numeric and non-alphabetic parts in the URL need to use escape character "", for example, the expression to exclude all URLs with domain name www.google.com is: www\.google\.com.
• Element URL Merge Rules: Used to clarify elements in the page. If elements in the page contain question marks, the system will by default truncate the parameter part (i.e., after the question mark?) in the element URL, and treat elements with the same part before the question mark as one element. If special handling is needed, you can set the corresponding regular expression, and the system will determine elements according to this regular expression. One rule per line. Only affects the element list selection in the element report (does not affect the element waterfall chart).

Hijacking Monitoring

Hijacking is a common risk on the Internet. Some operators or router devices, as well as some computer viruses, will initiate DNS hijacking (hijack to an IP address) or domain name hijacking (inject some JS files or links into the content) when users visit websites. These behaviors will seriously endanger users' network security and even cause property losses, and will also bring adverse reputation impacts to websites.

Network, based on globally distributed monitoring Probes, continuously accesses target websites. By setting up a correct content feature library, it judges whether the current monitoring data contains non-feature library content, compares the monitoring results with the content feature library, and judges whether hijacking has occurred.

Hijacking monitoring can mainly discover two types of hijacking phenomena, including DNS hijacking and content hijacking. Users can monitor DNS hijacking by setting IP whitelist, and monitor page hijacking by setting domain name whitelist.

IP Input Format (DNS Hijacking):

During the monitoring process, the host IP will be compared with the IPs in the whitelist. If it is not in the whitelist, the monitoring is defined as a DNS hijacking error.

• Specify IP address, IPv4 example: 192.168.1.1, IPv6 example: 2400:A480:aa:400:a1:b2:c3:d4.
• Wildcard matching (IPv4), such as: 192.168.1.* means all IP addresses from 192.168.1.1~254. Only the last digit of the IP address (dotted decimal) supports wildcard configuration.
• Wildcard matching (IPv6), such as: 2400:A480:aa:400:a1:b2:c3:* means 2400:A480:aa:400:a1:b2:c3:0~FFFF.

CNAME Input Format (CNAME Hijacking):

• Specify domain name address, such as: www.tingyun.com. Can be matched by wildcard, such as: *.tingyun.com.
• • means match all, when no content is entered, it means *.

Domain Name Input Format:

During the monitoring process, the loaded element domain name will be compared with the domain names in the whitelist. If it is not in the whitelist, the monitoring is defined as a content hijacking error.

• Specify domain name address, for example: www.tingyun.com.
• Wildcard matching, for example: *.tingyun.com.
• • means match all, when no content is entered, it means *.
• When entering IP address, please do not add port number, for example: 192.168.1.1.

IP Blacklist (DNS Hijacking)

IP Input Format (IP Hijacking):

• Specify IP address, (IPv4) such as: 192.168.1.1 (IPv6) such as: 2400:A480:aa:400:a1:b2:c3:d4
• Wildcard matching, such as: 192.168.1.* means all IP addresses from 192.168.1.1~254
• Wildcard matching, such as: 2400:A480:aa:400:a1:b2:c3:* means 2400:A480:aa:400:a1:b2:c3:0~FFFF

Check if 302 Element is Successful

302 Element Input Format

• http://www.example.com (302 element: supports regular configuration, if there are multiple, take the first element)
• https://www.example.com/url1 (first element after 302 element)
• https://www.example.com/url2 (second element after 302 element)
• Minimum 1 element after 302, maximum 2 elements, supports regular configuration, regular uses whole string matching mode

Page Task Supports Element Blacklist Configuration

Blacklist Configuration Input Format

• One URL per line, supports multiple complete URLs and wildcard configuration
• Complete URL: http://www.tt.com
• Wildcard setting, such as: *.tt.com, .png, http://www.*.com

Streaming Media Playback

• Playback Mode

  Users can choose from on-demand or live, live, on-demand, DVR four modes. Live mode is usually used for broadcasting live events, entertainment programs, etc. at radio stations, TV stations, website sports channels, etc. Incorrect setting of this parameter will cause video playback failure.

• Whether Element Error Affects Availability

  Default configuration: element error does not affect Availability.

• Minimum Buffer Time Before First Playback

  This option is only valid for FLV format and MediaPlayer format. Default value is 3 seconds.

  Buffer time is a number that specifies the number of seconds of the movie to buffer in memory before playing the video stream for the first time. For FLV files streamed via RTMP (which only buffer in memory), setting this value is very important. For FLV files progressively downloaded via HTTP, increasing this value will only bring small benefits, although it can improve the viewing effect of watching high-quality videos on old, slower computers.

  For example: FLV monitoring buffer time is set to 5 seconds. When playing an HTTP streaming media file with a bit rate of 400Kb, the player will download at least 5*400Kb=2000Kb of data before starting to play. The time required to download this 2000Kb of data is determined by the bandwidth of the user's network ISP. At 1Mb network speed, buffer for at least 2 seconds before playing. At 10Mb network speed, buffer for more than 0.2 seconds before playing.

• Player Feature Code

  Function is similar to streaming media file identification code.

• Use Custom Network Streaming Media Player

  The page URL path to complete special streaming media monitoring. When streaming media uses anti-leech functions such as verifying pageurl, token, etc., using a local player will result in monitoring failure. At this time, you can write a page containing a custom player and monitoring code, deploy this custom page to a website under a domain name that can pass the anti-leech verification. "Network Player" is the URL path of the custom page.

  For example: Streaming media under http://www.streaming.com/contains token verification, this rule cannot be opened to the outside, but the streaming company can provide a custom player tokenPlayer.swf. At this time, we can write a custom page http://www.net.com/streaming/s.htm, inside the page embed tokenPlayer.swf to complete the monitoring function. When configuring the task, specify "Network Player" as http://www.net.com/streaming/s.htm.

Estimated Point Consumption

After configuring the task, click the Estimated Point Consumption button to calculate the points required for this task.