Troubleshooting the internet connection check

There are a couple of common reasons why Auvik’s internet connection check (aka cloud ping) might not begin to monitor an internet connection automatically.

ICMP is blocked

Auvik’s cloud ping service uses ICMP echoes as a “heartbeat test” to determine whether or not the firewall’s WAN interface has a successful connection to the internet.

It’s common practice for network administrators—and a default setting on many firewalls—to block ICMP echo requests from hosts on the Internet (i.e., from publicly addressable address space).

Therefore, to make use of Auvik’s internet connection check, you’ll need to allow ICMP from Auvik’s network address translation (NAT) gateway.

The firewall isn’t fully discovered

Your Auvik collector is deployed on a LAN. Therefore, it initially only associates your firewall with (possibly one of) its private LAN IP addresses.

Auvik attempts to discover your firewall’s WAN IP address(es) using data returned from SNMP. If we're unable to retrieve the address, the Internet connection won’t be checked automatically.

Workaround

Explicitly set up the cloud ping check to ping your firewall’s WAN IP address(es). See the image below for an example where your public static IP address is 1.2.3.4.

If your firewall has multiple WAN IP addresses, you’ll need to create a separate cloud ping service for each.

How SNMP relates to the Internet Connection Check

SNMP does not perform the public IP connectivity test itself. The Internet Connection Check uses ICMP probes from Auvik’s cloud to test whether the monitored public IP address is reachable from the internet.

SNMP helps Auvik identify and provide context for the connection being monitored. For example, SNMP can provide:

• The firewall’s WAN or internet-facing interface
• Interface link status
• Interface errors and other health counters
• Interface and topology relationships that help correlate device health with cloud reachability results

Use the two monitoring methods together:

• SNMP: Helps identify the correct interface and provides local interface health information.
• Internet Connection Check: Validates whether the public IP address responds to reachability checks from Auvik’s cloud.

For example, a failed cloud check combined with WAN interface errors or an interface-down status can help distinguish an ISP or firewall-interface issue from an issue affecting only the cloud check path.

Clearing alerts after an Internet Connection Check target changes

If the public IP address monitored by an Internet Connection Check changes, an alert associated with the previous target may remain active even though that target is no longer being monitored. This can make the alert appear orphaned.

Update the Internet Connection Check

1. Open the site or tenant where the Internet Connection Check is configured.
2. Locate the Internet Connection Check service.
3. Edit the service and replace the old target IP address with the current public IP address.
4. Save the change.
5. Confirm that the new target is responding and the check is reporting normally.

For more information, see How do I start, stop, add, edit, or delete monitoring for services?.

Dismiss the previous active alert

After confirming that the new target is being monitored:

1. Open All Alerts.
2. Filter or search for the affected Internet Connection Check alert.
3. Confirm that the alert refers to the previous target or no longer represents an active condition.
4. Select the alert and click Dismiss.
5. Confirm the dismissal.

Do not dismiss the alert until you have confirmed that the new Internet Connection Check is configured and reporting normally.

For more information, see How do I dismiss notifications?.

Verify the new check

After updating the target:

• Confirm the new IP address reports as available.
• Review the check history or current service status.
• Confirm that new alert notifications are generated and cleared as expected.
• If the site has multiple Internet connections, verify that each connection has the correct target and alert scope.

If the old alert cannot be dismissed, or alerts continue to reference a target that no longer exists, contact Auvik Support with the site name, old and new target IP addresses, alert name, and alert timestamps.