Check for a Running Process on a Remote Windows Machine

Checking for a running process on a remote Windows machine is an ideal way to check availability of essential production services. Using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) this is straight forward, and can be quickly set up as an AppDynamics for Databases custom command alert.

The following steps guide you through this process:

1. Run the WMI VBScript file from <AppD4DBInstallDIr>/agent/check_proc.vbs as follows:

   cscript.exe check_proc.vbs servername username password
   

   It returns the list of running processes from the remote server, for example:

   

    
2. Once you know the name of the process you are looking for, then you can call the script with an additional parameter of the process name.
   

   For example this command checks for the Carbonite backup process running on the remote machine:

   cscript.exe check_proc servername username password CarboniteService.exe

3. Create a new Custom Command Alert.

cscript //Nologo c:\<install_home>\agent\check_proc.vbs homer administrator password CarboniteService.exe

The cscript command has a //Nologo parameter too, which means that if the process is found to be running then it returns nothing, but if it is missing then it triggers the alert. Make sure you check that you can call the script from the command line ok before creating the alert. Also, if you have any directories containing spaces (Program Files etc.) then you will need to double quote them.