Mars Network Monitor / News: Recent posts

Mars 2.2.7 is now available. This is a bugfix release. The Mail Notification plugin now operates properly with all mail servers (previous versions had trouble with some servers, primarily from Microsoft). The tcp-connect and JDBC probes now work properly, and problems with XMPP notification recipient addressing have been fixed. All existing Mars 2.2.6 users are urged to upgrade to Mars 2.2.7.

Mars 2.2.6 is now available. This is primarily a feature enhancement release. Two new plugins, XML Snapshot and the Client Debugger, have been added. Plugins may now display their own tabs in the Mars main window.

Mars 2.2.5 is now available. This is a primarily a bugfix release. Opening configuration files from the command line (broken in 2.2.4) works again. The XMPP notification plugin now handles client connections properly. Minor fixes were made to the open/save configuration file dialogs, and to configuration file opening on Mac OS X. Also, Mars' user interface has undergone a minor overhaul; Mars now has a menu bar, and the host/service tree is completely keyboard editable. All existing Mars 2.2.4 users are urged to upgrade to Mars 2.2.5.

Mars 2.2.4, a feature enhancement release, adds an XMPP (Jabber) notification plugin by Robert Fuller, a JDBC probe extension by Jon Steele, and a Mac OS X integration plugin (with an accompanying Mac OS X "native" distribution).

Mars 2.2.3 is now available, thanks to the work and suggestions of community members Scott Ahten, Richard Gill, Noel Bergman, Robert Fuller, Stefan Svensson, and Ivica Loncar (and with apologies to Jon Steele, whose contributed probe extension will ship with 2.2.4). Mars 2.2.3 fixes a bug where Mars would send LF where CRLF is required, and adds features including regular expression search in HTTP responses, HTTPS probing via an included probe extension, and expand/collapse buttons to show and hide all monitored services quickly.

Mars 2.2.3 is nearing completion and should be released within a week or two, once the documentation is done and several contributed probe extensions have been tested integrated into the distribution.

The Mars 2.2.2 release includes several feature and user interface enhancements, including per-service notification configuration, enhancements to the mail notification plugin, and a new plugin for logging probe events to a CSV file for offline analysis. Also fixed is a bug that kept mail notification from working with certain SMTP servers.

The Mars community now has two mailing lists for discussion of the Mars network status monitor. leapfrog-mars-users@lists.sourceforge.net is for general discussion of interest to the Mars user community, while leapfrog-mars-devel@lists.sourceforge.net is for discussion of Mars plugin, probe, and core development.

Mars 2.2.1 is now available. Mars is now capable of dynamically loading probes and plugins at startup, allowing full use of the extension mechanisms that have been around (in limited form) since 2.1. Additional probe extensions and plugins will be available on this page as they are made available. This version also includes a status bar (so you can watch Mars work) and enhancements to the notification plugins.

Mars 2.2.0 is now available. Mars is a simple services-oriented network status monitor written in Java. The Mars engine now allows probes for text-based TCP services to be defined at runtime via an XML file, which lets users add new service types without resorting to writing Java code. Also added is a new "tcp-connect" service type, for testing services whose protocols Mars doesn't speak yet. This version fixes a bug in SMTP probing, as well.