Using the Server Activity Monitor

The Caching Proxy's Server Activity Monitor displays server and network performance statistics, server and network status, and access log entries. The monitor can be used remotely and does not need to be on the same machine that is running the proxy server. The Server Activity Monitor is enabled by default and requires no configuration.

There are two ways to open the Server Activity Monitor:
  • In any connected web browser, enter the following URL, by using your server's full name where indicated.
    http://                     your.server.name
                      /Usage/Initial
  • In the Configuration and Administration forms, select Server Activity Monitor.
Unlike other forms in the configuration client, the forms in this category do not set configurations for the server, but display data about server usage. These forms provide considerably more information than can be displayed in a single console window.

The following sections show the type of information that the Server Activity Monitor provides, and suggest how to use the information to tune performance.

Several Server Activity Monitor pages are available:
  • Activity Statistics
  • Network Statistics
  • Access Statistics
  • Proxy Access Statistics
  • Cache Statistics
  • Cache Refresh Summary
Each of the pages has a Refresh field, which can be used to update the information.

Activity Statistics

Table 1 shows an example of the Activity Statistics page.
Table 1. Activity Statistics
Activity Statistics
Connections 1 Active, 431 maximum
Response time Not available
Throughput 0 connections/second
Requests processed today 0
Total requests processed 114
Request errors 3
These server activity statistics can be used to monitor the server traffic in terms of number of access requests, response time, throughput, requests processed today, total requests processed, and errors. The following configuration changes affect the statistics on the Activity page.
  • Number of active threads—This specifies how many threads to use for server requests. You can increase or decrease the number of threads available, depending on how much memory you have. To change the number of active threads, in the Configuration and Administration forms, select Server Configuration –> Server Management –> Performance, or edit the MaxActiveThreads directive in the configuration file.
  • Persistent connections—Whether the proxy allows persistent connections with a client can have an effect on network throughput. To change this setting in the Configuration and Administration forms, select Proxy Configuration –> Proxy Performance to enable or disable persistent connections, and select Server Configuration –> Server Management to define how to maintain the connections. To alter these settings by using the configuration file, see the reference sections for the following directives:

Network Statistics

Table 2 shows an example of the Network Statistics page.

Table 2. Network Statistics
Network Statistics
Outgoing data: 1 K bytes/second
Incoming data: 1 K bytes/second
Bandwidth saved: 3 K bytes (0 K bytes/second)
Bandwidth saved today: 0 K bytes (0 K bytes/second)

The Network Statistics form provides information about the network the proxy is running on, including the data speeds for bytes sent and received.

Access Statistics

The Access Statistics page displays the 20 most recent entries in the access logs. This page displays recent entries in the Proxy Access log (in black type) and the cache access log (in blue type). You can customize what is displayed by customizing what is logged.

Proxy Access Statistics

The Proxy Access Statistics form provides information on the proxy activity, such as which URLs were requested and whether they were served from the cache. Following the URLs are the return codes that are given to the clients and the file size in bytes. The following settings can improve the proxy access statistics:
  • Use automatic cache refresh to increase the likelihood that a requested document is in the cache.
  • Increase the minimum hold time for cached files.
  • Do not cache files that are served from your local domain. Although this setting tends to decrease the number of requests that are served from the cache, there is no loss of performance if files are served from your local intranet as quickly as they are served from the cache (in some cases, it is faster).

Cache Statistics

If caching is enabled, the Cache Statistics page shows recent cache access information. It provides information on the cache and index, including the following:
  • Whether the cache is operational or is being reindexed from a server start
  • Whether garbage collection is running
  • Cache hit rates
Many cache configuration options change the cache statistics results.

Cache Refresh Summary

If the cache agent is configured to preload files in the cache, the Cache Refresh Summary page shows information on the most recent run of the cache agent. The cache agent must have run at least once to display any information. To change the way the cache refresh agent works, consider the following:
  • If most of the traffic on your intranet is not to local websites, consider disabling caching for the local domain.
  • If many clients request a page that does not appear in the cache access log, you can manually configure the URL to be loaded.
  • Adjust the number of URLs to preload.
  • Specify the maximum time the cache agent can run.

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Timestamp icon Last updated: March 23, 2018 0:18
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