Which account shall IPNetwork monitoring service run as?
Q: My site shows different behavior when visited from actual browser and under Web Transaction Monitor! Cookies are not saved, why?
A: You should perhaps run monitoring service under a different account. See below for longer explanation.
By default, IPNetwork monitoring service runs under Local System account (displayed as SYSTEM in access control lists). To see that, open “Administrative tools > Services”, find “IPNetwork Monitor” service and choose “Log On” on “Properties”:
SYSTEM account is not a regular system account (see this MSDN article for more details): it’s not displayed in accounts list and can’t be assigned to groups. It doesn’t require password and has very high privileges on the system. However, there are drawbacks in using it.
SYSTEM account has no actual user profile (although you can use the directory
C:\Windows\System32\Config\systemprofile
for that purpose in many cases).
This is why it can behave differently from regular accounts, which have user profiles and can store account-specific settings (program data). If using SYSTEM account makes monitoring service behave differently from running same action as regular user, you can assign a different account to run the monitoring service as.
Make sure the account you would plan to use is a member of local “Administrators” group; otherwise, it may have insufficient privileges to run monitors. To change the account used by monitoring service, first stop it (from “Administrative tools” or from IPNetwork GUI client “Tools” menu)
Please note that IPNetwork GUI client may require access password (if it’s set) when run by user different from the one having installed IPNetwork.
Related links
Check out our Knowledge Base where we answer questions regarding various topics. By default, the IPNetwork monitoring service runs under the Local System account, shown as SYSTEM in access control lists. SYSTEM does not have a normal user profile, so actions that depend on profile data, stored settings, or browser-like state can behave differently than they do under a regular user account. Use a different account when monitors need a real user profile or account-specific access, such as Web Transaction Monitor behavior that depends on cookies or user-level settings.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which account does the monitoring service use by default?
Why can SYSTEM behave differently from a regular Windows user?
When should the monitoring service run under a different account?