## Theory of Operation

Although the general concept of what NetSaint does is relatively easy to understand, its internal workings can sometimes be difficult to understand. In order to help you better understand how the NetSaint code works, I've provided some notes here. This isn't very extensive yet, but will be improved in later versions once everything stabilizes a bit more and I have time to catch up.

Determining Status and Reachability of Network Hosts

Click here to read up on how NetSaint determines the status and reachability of networked hosts in the process of its monitoring. This document also describes what "parent" hosts are (as defined in host definitions), and how they affect the way in which host reachability is determined.

Network Outages

Click here to read up on how NetSaint determines what hosts are causing outages on your network. This mainly pertains to the way in which the network outages CGI works, but it is still worth a quick read.

Notifications

Click here to read up on how service and host notifications work. It describes when and how notifications occur, as well as the various filters that must be passed before they can actually be sent out to individual contacts.

Service Check Scheduling

Click here to read up on how service checks are scheduled, and how scheduling differs from when checks are actually executed and their results processed.

State Types

Click here to read up on what "soft" and "hard" states are, when they occur, and the importance of the role that they play in the monitoring logic.

Time Periods

Click here to read up on how the use of time periods affects service checks, service notifications, and host notifications. This document also describes potential problems you may run into when using time periods. If you are using time periods that don't cover a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week span, you need to read this!