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PRTG Manual: System Information

<%NUMBERING1%>.<%NUMBERING2%>.<%NUMBERING3%> PRTG Manual: System Information

The System Information is a great feature to see at a glance what is going on on the systems you have in your network. You get

basic system data of your device like BIOS serial number or MAC and IP addresses,
all connected hardware types as well as their states and properties,
the software you have installed, including version and vendor information,
the users connected to your system and their domain,
a list of all active or stopped Windows system services plus their properties, and
a list of all processes running on your system, including their ID and start time.

Together with your everyday monitoring, you will receive a really profound knowledge about your IT infrastructure from only one single source—your PRTG Network Monitor!

System Information Tab on a Windows Device

System Information is available for all devices that you add to PRTG and run with an officially supported Windows version. You can also retrieve system information from Linux, Unix, or other devices that have Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) enabled.

Some of the above listed system information may not be available depending on the request method you use (Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) or Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)). To get all available information, activate both request methods (Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)), as far as possible.

Find and Use System Information

Go to the overview page of a device and click the System Information tab to see available information.

Basically, it is not necessary to configure anything special to use the System Information feature, if you already monitor a network device with WMI and SNMP sensors. The PRTG System Information uses the same technologies. So, you already meet the main prerequisites for retrieving system information for your device. The data will automatically be displayed in the corresponding System Information table and you can analyze your system directly. If you are not using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) or Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) sensors yet, see section Prerequisites below that shows in detail what you need to get system information.

System Information is enabled by default. To retrieve the data, PRTG will automatically use Credentials for Windows Systems and Credentials for SNMP Devices as defined in the device settings or as inherited from a parent object like the Root group. Please consider this when you monitor devices outside the local network, especially when using SNMP v1 or v2c that do not provide encryption.

System Information is not supported by the Enterprise Console. Please use the PRTG web interface to access the system information of a device.

System Information for your devices is for informational purposes only. We cannot guarantee that the data displayed in PRTG Network Monitor fully corresponds to the device parameters.

You cannot use this feature on the Hosted Probe of a PRTG hosted by Paessler instance. You can use this feature on remote probes.

Prerequisites

Fulfill the following requirements to show all available system information data for a device. It is not necessary to meet every single prerequisite but then some tables will not show all data or may even remain empty. For example, if you do not configure SNMP on the target device, you will get less information for the System table.

Valid credentials in the device settings (or inherited): Enter correct settings for the target device in the sections Credentials for Windows Systems and Credentials for SNMP Devices.
Remote Registry Windows service: Enable the Remote Registry Windows service on the target computer, for example, via services.msc, and set the start type to automatic.
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Windows service: Enable the RPC Windows service on the target computer, for example, via services.msc, and set the start type to automatic.
WMI on probe and target computer: Configure Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on the target computer and on the computer that runs the PRTG probe with the device. Especially configure the firewall of the target computer to allow WMI. For more details, see manual section Monitoring via WMI and the Knowledge Base article General Introduction to WMI and PRTG.
SNMP on target computer: Configure Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) on the target computer. For more details, see manual section Monitoring via SNMP and the Knowledge Base article General Introduction to SNMP and PRTG.

Usually you will see data coming in after a few minutes, depending on the protocols you use (WMI takes longer than SNMP). A System Information table will show an error message if PRTG cannot get data, for example, because of misconfiguration.

For details about error messages, see this Knowledge Base article: How can PRTG get data for System Information tables?

No Data Available: Check the Preconditions

System Information (Device Tab)

Probe, group, device, and sensor pages have tabs that you can use to navigate between the different options. For example, you can view your network's status, view monitoring results, or change settings.

Tabs Bar on Device Level

On the details page of a device, click the System Information tab.

If you do not see a System Information tab for your device, you need to enable System Information in section Advanced Network Monitoring in the device settings (or inherit it from an object higher in the hierarchy). System Information is enabled by default. If System information is disabled, the System Information tab is not available for the device.

Analyze Your Systems

On the System Information page, PRTG displays a table for each system information category about this device: System, Hardware, Software, Users, Services, and Processes.

Category	System Information	Request Method
System	Shows information about the device like BIOS serial number, IP addresses, MAC addresses, and Windows version.	WMI SNMP
Hardware	Shows hardware that is connected to the device like disk drives, CD/DVD, video controllers, processors, network adapters, sound devices, printers, and memory. You can see Class and Caption of a hardware device. In the Properties column, you get more information about the hardware (for example, the description).	WMI SNMP
Software	Shows installed software and the Version number on the device. In the Properties column, you get more information about the software (for example, the size). PRTG uses Uninstall registry keys to retrieve the list of installed software, so the displayed software might differ from the software that the target Windows system shows under Programs and Features. The System Information scan for software on the probe device uses the credentials the probe runs with and ignores credentials from the Settings tab.	WMI SNMP
Users	Shows the user accounts connected to the device and their Domain.	WMI SNMP
Services	Shows the available Windows services on the device. This table shows the State of the service (running, stopped) and the start type (Startmode automatic, manual, or disabled). In the Properties column, you can get more information about a service (for example, the description).	WMI SNMP
Processes	Shows the processes that are currently running on the device as listed on the Processes tab of the Windows Task Manager. You can also see the Start Time (only WMI) and Process ID of a process.	WMI SNMP

Click the refresh button in the upper-right corner of a table to retrieve current information for this System Information category. The timestamp shows the time passed since the last table refresh.

Table Refresh

PRTG automatically retrieves data for all tables, including System, Hardware, and Software, once every 24 hours. The tables Users, Services, and Processes refresh each time you open the System Information tab. PRTG also updates all system information tables when the PRTG server is restarted, for example, after an update.

PRTG can perform up to 24 system information scans simultaneously so it may take some time until the tables are filled after a server restart.

You can sort each table by clicking the column headers. See Working with Table Lists section for more information.

PRTG user accounts with read-only access rights to a device can view system information on this device but they cannot refresh tables manually.

Data Storage

PRTG stores data files with the retrieved system information in the corresponding \System Information Database subfolder of the PRTG data folder.

If you delete a device in PRTG, the system information files of this device will remain in these folders unless you delete them manually.

PRTG uses the following subfolders for System Information data.

System Information Database: Data Folders
hardware	Data for the Hardware table
loggedonusers	Data for the Users table
processes	Data for the Processes table
services	Data for the Services table
software	Data for the Software table
system	Data for the System table

Knowledge Base: How can PRTG get data for System Information tables?

https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/67824

Knowledge Base: General Introduction to WMI and PRTG

https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/1043

Knowledge Base: General Introduction to SNMP and PRTG

https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/46863

Knowledge Base: Why do I get DoS Alarms on my QNAP?

https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/80421

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