NSClient++ Help (#1) - Roundtrip respone time from CheckCounter seems slower then other commands [SOLVED] (#583) - Message List

SWEET!!!! Thanks a lot!!! Did the trick.

Thank you for that and sorry about the excessive length of this post.

I got there myself after some confusion. One problem is that I can't find any documentation on which counters require the two calls with a sleep in the middle and which do not.

One comment I would make on NSClient++ is that although the windows API and indeed the PDHQuery class allow for multiple counters to be retrieved in one query, the CheckSystem::checkCounter() method always creates separate queries (with separate sleeps) even when retrieving multiple counters in one request.

Although the scope for retrieving multiple counters in one request is severely limited by the 1024 byte limit in any case.

There do also seem to be platform-specific differences, I ran this C++ test program on windows XP and windows 2003 trying to collect a counter value with only one call to PdhCollectQueryData?. I'm assuming for this counter it is invalid (even though it is not a rate) as on 2003 the call failed - on XP it succeeded but returned garbage (which is nasty).

$ cat DLTest.cpp
#include <iostream>
#include <pdh.h>
#using <mscorlib.dll>
#using <System.dll>
using namespace System;
using namespace std;
void main(int argc, char** argv)
{
        PDH_STATUS status;
        HQUERY hQuery_;
        if( (status = PdhOpenQuery( NULL, 0, &hQuery_ )) != ERROR_SUCCESS)
            printf("PdhOpenQuery failedm status=%d\n", status);
        HCOUNTER hCounter_;
        if ((status = PdhAddCounter(hQuery_, "\\Processor(_Total)\\% Idle Time", 0, &hCounter_)) != ERROR_SUCCESS) {
        //if ((status = PdhAddCounter(hQuery_, "\\Memory\\Available Mbytes", 0, &hCounter_)) != ERROR_SUCCESS) {
            hCounter_ = NULL;
            printf("PdhAddCounter failed, status=%d\n", status);
        }
        if (hCounter_ == NULL)
            printf("Counter is null!\n");
        if ((status = PdhCollectQueryData(hQuery_)) != ERROR_SUCCESS)
            printf("PdhCollectQueryData failed: %d\n", status);
        Sleep(1000);
        if ((status = PdhCollectQueryData(hQuery_)) != ERROR_SUCCESS)
            printf("PdhCollectQueryData failed: %d\n", status);
        PDH_FMT_COUNTERVALUE data_;
        if ((status = PdhGetFormattedCounterValue(hCounter_, PDH_FMT_DOUBLE, NULL, &data_)) != ERROR_SUCCESS) {
            printf("PdhGetFormattedCounterValue failed, status=%d\n", status);
        }
        printf("Data is %f\n", data_.doubleValue);
        if( (status = PdhCloseQuery(hQuery_)) != ERROR_SUCCESS)
            printf("PdhCloseQuery failed, status=%d\n", status);
}
$

Result on windows XP (correct value is close to 50%)

Two calls plus sleep as in NSClient with "Averages=true"

=============================================
$ ./DLTestAvg.exe
Data is 45.332229
$ ./DLTestAvg.exe
Data is 45.404375
$ ./DLTestAvg.exe
Data is 47.676999
$
$

One call, no sleep as in NSClient with "Averages=false"

=============================================
$ ./DLTestNoAvg.exe
Data is 0.000161
$ ./DLTestNoAvg.exe
Data is 0.000161
$ ./DLTestNoAvg.exe
Data is 0.000161
$

With two calls and a sleep, the data looks valid but with just the one call and no sleep although the call succeeds, the data is WRONG.

Result on windows 2003 (correct value is close to 100%)

Two calls plus sleep as in NSClient with "Averages=true"

=============================================
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>DLTestAvg.exe
Data is 96.872520
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>DLTestAvg.exe
Data is 95.310060
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>DLTestAvg.exe
Data is 90.622680
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>

One call, no sleep as in NSClient with "Averages=false"

=============================================
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>DLTestNoAvg.exe
PdhGetFormattedCounterValue failed, status=-1073738810
Data is 0.000000
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>DLTestNoAvg.exe
PdhGetFormattedCounterValue failed, status=-1073738810
Data is 0.000000
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>