Most monitoring software packages can be configured to perform an HTTP request and then look for an expected phrase in the results of that request. For this reason, you can use a monitoring software package to keep track of whether your Iguana channels are running or not.

As discussed in Viewing the Dashboard Information, when you export the dashboard information for an Iguana server in XML format, text similar to that shown in the sample below is provided for each channel that is currently running:

<Channel Name="mychannel" Status="on"

Your monitoring software can be set up to search for this string. If this string is found, channel mychannel is running.

Similarly, for each channel that is stopped, the XML text looks like this:

<Channel Name="mychannel" Status="off"

If the monitoring software searches for this string and finds it, channel mychannel is not running.

Note that this search string only detects whether a specific channel is running or not. To keep track of all of your channels, you must define a separate search string for each channel.

	If you require more flexible monitoring options, it is often easier to write scripts in Python or a similar scripting language. For an example of a Python script that sends an email notification when channel failure occurs, see Viewing Channel Status Summaries from a Python Script.