How-to Monitor a Windows Volume Mounted on a Path with GDMA

Background and the problem:

It's possible to mount a volume under Windows and reference it via a directory path, as described in this Microsoft Technet Article.  If you do that, though, you will need a way to monitor its specific disk utilization.

Solution:

If you have used GDMA, you know that you can basically run anything you can run from the command line as a plugin, including powershell scripts. There is a video that describes creating Powershell plugins that can run via GDMA here.
If we combine these two methods, we can easily monitor this type of mounted volume.

Attached is a service profile and a plugin. You can use these to monitor the Windows Mount points.

Requirements:

You need:

1. a Windows host with GDMA

   You could do this with NRPE, too, but this article doesn't cover doing it this way. It should be possible to use the same plugin and the command from the service external, though.

2. a drive mounted to a path on that system
3. Powershell installed and enabled to run scripts (see instructions here, or consult your favorite Powershell reference).
4. a GroundWork server with GDMA set up according to the instructions in Resources - Bookshelf: Home > GROUNDWORK GDMA > GDMA Quick Start Guide.

Installing:

Add the plugin to the gdma\libexec\v3 directory on the Windows host to be monitored. Note that you could also use the plugin download feature of GDMA to distribute the plugin to multiple systems. In that case, it will be in gdma\libexec, so you will want to modify the path accordingly in the service external.

Using the profile importer, upload the attached XML files to your GroundWork server:

Import the service profile called service-profile-gdma-windows-mountpoint.xml:

Edit the resulting service external called gdma_22_powershell_mountpoint (Configuration > Services > Service Externals > Modify):

Change the default "C:\volume_a" to the full path of the mounted volume to check. There is no need to add a trailing backslash. Optionally, change the warning and critical thresholds. These are descending by default, that is, they alarm when free space falls below the indicated percentile. Reversing them (Warning < Critical) will make them ascending.

Apply this service profile to the host where you installed the plugin. Note that you can have more than one service profile per host, so you have the option of adding it to whatever monitoring you are already doing there.

If you want to use the plugin download feature of GDMA, you need to set it up according to the documentation, and you also need to change the path in the service external to "c:\Progra~2\groundwork\gdma\libexec\mountpoint.ps1", which is where the plugin will end up when auto-downloaded.

Files: