<%NUMBERING1%>.<%NUMBERING2%>.<%NUMBERING3%> PRTG Manual: WMI Security Center Sensor
The WMI Security Center sensor monitors the security status of a Windows client computer via Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). It can monitor all security products that are controlled by Windows Security Center / Windows Action Center.
WMI Security Center Sensor
For a detailed list and descriptions of the channels that this sensor can show, see section Channel List.
Sensor in Other Languages
Dutch: WMI Security Center
French: Centre de sécurité (WMI)
German: WMI Sicherheits-Center
Japanese: WMI セキュリティーセンター
Portuguese: Centro de segurança (WMI)
Russian: Центр безопасности WMI
Simplified Chinese: WMI 安全中心
Spanish: Centro de seguridad (WMI)
Remarks
This sensor has a high performance impact. Try to stay below 200 WMI sensors in total per probe. Above this number, consider using multiple remote probes for load balancing.
This sensor requires WoW64 (Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit) for target systems that run Windows Server 2016.
This sensor requires at least Windows Vista on the target computer.
This sensor does not run on Windows Server operating systems (Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016) because the Windows Security Center / Windows Action Center is only available on client Windows versions.
This sensor supports the IPv6 protocol.
This sensor uses lookups to determine the status values of one or more channels. This means that possible states are defined in a lookup file. You can change the behavior of a channel by editing the lookup file that the channel uses. For details, see section Define Lookups.
You cannot add this sensor to the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance. If you want to use this sensor, add it to a remote probe device.
Add Sensor
The Add Sensor dialog appears when you manually add a new sensor to a device. It only shows the settings that are required to create the sensor. You can change nearly all settings on the sensor's Settings tab after creation.
The settings that you select in the Add Sensor dialog are valid for all sensors that you create when you finish the dialog.
WMI Security Center Specific
Setting
Description
Security Center Product
Select the security center products that you want to monitor. PRTG creates one sensor for each product that you select.
You see a list showing the Name and Type of all security products that the sensor finds in the Windows Security Center on the target device. If there are no products, you see a corresponding message.
You can also select all items or cancel the selection by using the check box in the table header.
Basic Sensor Settings
Click the Settings tab of a sensor to change its settings.
If the name contains angle brackets (<>), PRTG replaces them with braces ({}) for security reasons. For more information, see the Knowledge Base: What security features does PRTG include?
This setting is for your information only. You cannot change it.
Tags
Enter one or more tags. Confirm each tag with the Spacebar key, a comma, or the Enter key. You can use tags to group objects and use tag-filtered views later on. Tags are not case-sensitive. Tags are automatically inherited.
It is not possible to enter tags with a leading plus (+) or minus (-) sign, nor tags with parentheses (()) or angle brackets (<>).
For performance reasons, it can take some minutes until you can filter for new tags that you added.
The sensor has the following default tags that are automatically predefined in the sensor's settings when you add the sensor:
WMISecurityCenter
Priority
Select a priority for the sensor. This setting determines the position of the sensor in lists. The highest priority is at the top of a list. Choose from the lowest priority () to the highest priority ().
Usually, a sensor connects to the IP Address/DNS Name of the parent device. See the device settings for details. For some sensors, you can explicitly define the monitoring target in the sensor settings.
WMI Security Center Specific
WMI Security Center Specific
Setting
Description
Display Name
Shows the display name of the security center product that this sensor monitors.
PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.
Type
Shows the type of the security center product that this sensor monitors.
PRTG shows this value for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.
Debug Options
Debug Options
Setting
Description
Result Handling
Define what PRTG does with the sensor result:
Discard result: Do not store the sensor result.
Store result: Store the last sensor result in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file name is Result of Sensor [ID].Data.txt. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites this file with each scanning interval.
In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.
Sensor Display
Sensor Display
Setting
Description
Primary Channel
Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, the last value of the primary channel is always displayed below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.
You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.
Graph Type
Define how different channels are shown for this sensor:
Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.
Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic. You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).
Stack Unit
This setting is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.
Inherited Settings
By default, all of these settings are inherited from objects that are higher in the hierarchy. We recommend that you change them centrally in the root group settings if necessary. To change a setting for this object only, click under the corresponding setting name to disable the inheritance and to display its options.
For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Scanning Interval.
Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window
You cannot interrupt the inheritance for schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. The corresponding settings from the parent objects are always active. However, you can define additional schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. They are active at the same time as the parent objects' settings.
Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window
For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window.
Access Rights
Access Rights
For more information, see section Root Group Settings, section Access Rights.
Channel List
Which channels the sensor actually shows might depend on the target device, the available components, and the sensor setup.
Channel
Description
Downtime
In the channel table on the Overview tab, this channel never shows any values. PRTG uses this channel in graphs and reports to show the amount of time in which the sensor was in the Down status
Status
The status code of the monitored security product
Up status: Running - Up To Date (status code 4)
Warning status: Running - Out Of Date (status code 2)
Down status: Not Running - Out Of Date (status code 1), Not Running - Up To Date (status code 3), Unknown (status code 0)