Advanced DNS Synthetic Monitor
Objective
This guide provides instructions on how to create a DNS Synthetic Monitor leveraging many of the more advanced features. These parameters will help you to fine tune your monitors in order to get the most out of them.
Using the instructions provided in this document, you can create a DNS Synthetic Monitor to validate and alert on the health and performance of your DNS endpoints and records. This how-to will configure a CNAME
monitor but you may select any record type for your needs.
Configuration
Configure a DNS Monitor
Step 1: Create a new DNS Monitor.
-
Log into the F5® Distributed Cloud Console.
-
Navigate to either the
Observability
workspace tile or menu.
Note: The homepage is role based, and your homepage may look different due to your role customization. Select
All Services
drop-down menu to discover all options.
Figure: Observability Tile
Figure: Observability Menu
- Select
Manage
>Synthetic Monitors
>DNS Monitors
.
Figure: Manage Menu
- Click
Add DNS Monitor
.
Step 2: Configure Metadata.
- Enter
Name
,Labels
, andDescription
as needed.
Figure: Metadata
Step 3: Configure the monitor Domain
, type
, interval
, and protocol
.
-
Enter the
Domain
that you would like to monitor. -
Select the
Record Type
of the domain you would like to monitor. -
Set the monitor frequency
Interval
for how often you would like the monitor to run from each source region configured later in the form. -
Adjust the protocol if you are not using UDP.
Figure: What to Monitor
Step 4: Configure where to monitor from.
Note: Each source
provider
andregion
added will monitor the endpoint configured for the monitor. The combined health from all regions will generate the overall monitorsglobal
health.
- In the
Sources
section, clickAdd Item
to begin adding sources for the monitor.
Figure: Empty Sources
-
Select the desired
Provider
for which you would like to source the monitor from. -
With the
Provider
selected, click theRegions
dropdown and select whichRegion
you would like the monitor run from. -
Select additional regions from the dropdown if you would like to add more
Regions
for the currentProvider
.
Figure: Provider Regions
-
Click
Apply
to add the currentProvider
andRegions
to the monitor. -
Back in the primary
Sources
section, selectAdd Item
and follow the steps above if you would like to add additionalProviders
andRegions
.
Figure: Sources
Step 5: Configure how to monitor.
Note: Custom nameservers are optional and the monitor will use its default nameservers for validation by default. Each configured
Region
will monitor each nameserver configured here.
- Click
Add Item
onCustom Name Servers
to add a specific nameserver you would like checked by the monitor.
Figure: Add Nameserver
- Fill in the
Name Server
IP andPort
to match your desired DNS infrastructure. You can clickAdd Item
again if you require additional nameservers.
Figure: Added Nameservers
-
Update the
Query Timeout (ms)
to control how long the monitor waits for a response before becoming critical. -
Update the
Number of consecutive test failures
to control how many failed monitors must happen in a row before becoming Critical. -
Update the
Number of Nameservers
to control ifANY
orALL
nameservers tested must pass to be considered Healthy. -
Update the
Number of Failed Locations
to control how many regions must fail before the global monitor becomes Critical. -
Optionally enable
Health Policy
to set a dynamic and/or static threshold when determining the health.
Figure: Completed How to Monitor
- Select
Save and Exit
to save the new DNS Synthetic Monitor.
Step 6: Setup Alerting.
-
Alerting for
Synthetic Monitoring
can be configured similar to other F5® Distributed Cloud services following the Alerting how-to guide. -
Optionally filter your
Alert Policy
to only send notifications to the receiver based on alerts coming fromSynthetic Monitoring
by either matching theGroup
toSynthetic-Monitors
or matching theAlert Name
toSyntheticMonitorHealthCritical
Figure: Alerting