Probe

Contents

• Overview
  • Server
  • Probe

Probe

PRTG Probe images can be created by specifying the -Probe parameter to New-PrtgBuild. When building PRTG Probes, simply place a single PRTG Probe installer in the PrtgDocker folder, then run

New-PrtgBuild -Probe -Name "New York 1" -ServerUrl "prtg.example.com" -Volume

The following table describes the parameters that can be specified to New-PrtgBuild when creating a probe

Parameter	Default	Description
-Probe	False	Specifies that a PRTG Remote Probe image should be built
-BaseImage	ltsc2019	Specifies the base image to use for the image (ltsc2016, ltsc2016, etc)
-AdditionalArgs	null	Specifies additional args to be added to the call to docker build
-Force	False	Specifies to force rebuild Docker images without using the build cache
-HyperV	False	Specifies that the image should be built using Hyper-V isolation
-Repository	prtgprobe	Repository to use for the image
-Server	False	Specifies that large files should be passed to the build over a web server (reducing the size of the image)

For most users, only the parameters -Probe, -BaseImage and -AdditionalArgs will be of interest.

Config Management

To prevent the probe that is instantiated the build process from connecting to your PRTG Server, PrtgDocker automatically renames the PRTG Probe installer from PRTG_Remote_Probe_Installer_for_prtg.example.com_with_key_{12345678}.exe to PRTG_Remote_Probe_Installer_for_localhost_with_key_{12345678}.exe and then removes all identifying attributes of this probe (excluding the Access Key), providing you with a template that is ready to be duplicated for use with your PRTG Server.

As containerized PRTG Probes store their entire config in the registry (which would be lost upon the container restarting) and do not provide access to the GUI based PRTG Administration Tool, PrtgDocker PRTG Probes automatically backup and restore their registry config the container volume, by default located at C:\ProgramData\docker\volumes\<containerName>\_data\config.reg. If this file is modified while its probe is running, the probe will automatically stop the probe service, import the config, then restart the service so your changes can be applied.

Like PRTG Core Server containers, PRTG Probe containers automatically stop when the PRTG Probe.exe process is terminated and remains terminated after a 10 second delay. When the PRTG Probe container finally exits, it will export its current registry config to disk so it is ready to be re-imported the next time the container starts up.

To avoid duplicating your custom sensors between probes, it is recommended to specify a -CustomSensorsPath when creating your container, allowing you to redirect all your probes Custom Sensors folder to a single location where you manage your sensors. To ensure there are no network authentication issues when accessing your -CustomSensorsFolder, it is recommended to setup an Active Directory gMSA. For more information, please see the gMSA Configuration section below.

The following represents the full command I use whenever I create a new probe

New-PrtgContainer -Probe -Name "New York 1" -Server prtg.example.com -Volume -CredentialSpec -CredentialSpecAccount container_gmsa -CustomSensorsPath "\\fs-1.contoso.local\CustomSensors"

PrtgDocker will automatically create a credential spec for the container based on the specified -Name. If the -CredentialSpecAccount is ommitted, New-PrtgContainer will throw an exception if it can't find an existing credential spec for the container. If you don't like how PrtgDocker handles credential specs, you can take over this process yourself and specify the Docker credential spec arguments as -AdditionalArgs to New-PrtgContainer.

By default, probe images will be created using the prtgprobe repository name. Please keep this in mind when attempting to list images via Get-PrtgImage or create images manually via docker run.