Service Monitor doesn't communicate directly with your server applications; instead, it communicates using a network connection, just like a regular client would. Most monitors work using open Internet standards. Because of this, one type of monitor can work with any application that provides the corresponding Internet service. For example, the Web (HTTP) monitor can be used with Apple's Personal Web Sharing, 4D WebSTAR, FileMaker web publishing or any other web server.
Additionally, many applications provide more than one type of service. For example, Mac OS X Server is actually a collection of many services, including Web (HTTP), Mail Transfer (SMTP), Mail Delivery (POP3), File Transfer (FTP) and several others. You can create several monitors that each watch over one of these services.
Tip: You can also create several monitors of the same type, for example, to check multiple virtual web servers running on the same computer.
Refer to your application's documentation to determine what types of service(s) it provides. Service Monitor can watch the following types of services:
HTTP and its encrypted sibling, HTTPS, are the Internet standard protocols for the World Wide Web.
FTP is an Internet protocol for transfering files between computers.
SMTP is the most common Internet protocol for transferring mail between mail servers.
POP3 is a common standard for delivering mail from mail servers to users.
FileMaker Pro is a database creation tool that also allows sharing of databases over the network.
FileMaker Server allows you to share databases written in FileMaker over the network. It also includes Web (HTTP) serving capabilities.