This article applies as of PRTG 20
Important: The following article will no longer be updated. For up-to-date-information, see the PRTG Manual: Data Storage and the respective section in the PRTG Desktop Manual.
PRTG Network Monitor writes data to several locations:
- Into the program directory (core installation)
- Into the data directory (monitoring configuration, monitoring data, logs, etc.)
- Into the registry (license key, admin login, IP settings, etc.)
Program directory
By default, the PRTG setup program stores the core installation in one of the following directories:
%programfiles%\PRTG Network Monitor
or
%programfiles(x86)%\PRTG Network Monitor
Tip: To directly open an Explorer Window showing the respective directory, click on "Run..." in the Windows Start Menu (shortcut Windows+R), paste the path above into the "Open:" field and click "OK".
However, the default setting can be changed during setup. To find the right path for your PRTG installation, please look it up in the Properties of your Start Menu's PRTG icons.
Note: The Windows ProgramData folder is hidden by default. To show it, open the Windows Explorer, open the View tab, and select Hidden items (on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012, works similar on other Windows versions).
Data directory
The default setting of the data directory depends on the PRTG Network Monitor version you are using (deprecated versions 7/8, or version 9 and later), as well as on your Windows version. The paths are also different if you have upgraded from a deprecated version 7/8 versus installed a new version 9 and later.
The default data folder is located as follows, depending on your Windows version:
Windows Server 2012 (R2), Windows Server 2016, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2:
%programdata%\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor
The path is the same for Windows Vista (deprecated).
Windows XP, Windows 2003 (these Windows versions are not officially supported):
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application data\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor
Tip: To directly open an Explorer Window showing the respective directory, click on "Run..." in the Windows Start Menu (shortcut Windows+R), paste the path above into the "Open:" field and click "OK".
Note: Depending on the language and version of your Windows installation you might need to translate the substring Application data into your Windows installation's language (for example Anwendungsdaten for some German Windows versions).
However, the default setting can be changed. To find the right path for your PRTG installation, open the PRTG Administration Tool and look up the path in the Core Server tab. You can also change the path there.
Note: For the deprecated PRTG versions 7 and 8, the paths are the following:
PRTG 7 (deprecated):
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application data\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\V7
PRTG 8 (deprecated):
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application data\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\V8
Files and subfolders in the data directory
The following files and folders are stored in the file system:
| File | Description | File Format |
|---|---|---|
| Log Database.db | Only versions before 8.2: Database with the recent event history for the whole system; "Logs" in the web interface. New entries stored in Log Database sub folder. | Deprecated: SQLite 3.6.10 |
| PRTG Configuration.dat | Monitoring configuration (i.e. probes, groups, devices, sensors, users, maps, reports, etc.) | XML |
| PRTG Configuration.old | Backup of previous version of monitoring configuration | XML |
| PRTG Graph Data Cache.dat | Precalculated data for the graphs throughout the web interface (if missing, this file is automatically recalculated from the files in the "monitoring database") | Proprietary |
| ToDo Database.db | Only versions before 8.2: Database with all ToDo entries; "ToDos" in the web interface. New entries stored in ToDo Database sub folder | Deprecated: SQLite 3.6.10 |
| Folder | Description | File Format |
| \Configuration Auto-Backups | Backup versions of PRTG Configuration.dat | ZIP / XML |
| \Log Database | Database with the recent event history for the whole system; "Logs" in the web interface | Raw data format (.db) |
| \Logs (Debug) | Text file–based logs of the core and probe system Note: As of version 18.3.43, the path is Logs\debug. See section Structure of the Logs Folder for more information. | Text |
| \Logs (Sensors) | Text file–based debug logs of the sensors (files named after the ID of a sensor; logs are written only if activated in a sensor's settings) Note: As of version 20.1.56, the path is Logs\sensors. See section Structure of the Logs Folder for more information. | Text |
| \Logs (System) | Text file–based logs of the core, probe, and cluster system, the Enterprise Console, and result files for certain sensors Note: As of version 18.3.43, Enterprise Console logs are written to Logs\enterpriseconsole. Cluster and core logs are written to Logs\core. See section Structure of the Logs Folder for more information. | Text |
| \Logs (Web Server) | HTTP server logfiles of the PRTG web server Note: As of version 18.3.43, the path is Logs\webserver. See section Structure of the Logs Folder for more information. | Standard web server log format |
| \Monitoring Database | Results of all monitoring requests for all sensors (required for historic reports) | Proprietary |
| \Report PDFs | Older PDF reports stored in the file system | Adobe PDF |
| \reporter | Screenshots created for reporting issues to support | PNG |
| \Screenshots (Fullpage Sensor) | Screenshots stored by the PhantomJS browser engine of the HTTP Full Web Page Sensor | JPG (in sub folders) |
| \StreamLog | Data logfiles for Packet Sniffer and flow (NetFlow, sFlow) sensors (only available if activated in sensor settings) | CSV |
| \Support Data | When using the Send Logs to Paessler functionality, logfile data will be collected and compressed into a ZIP file. These files are stored in this folder. | LOG / TXT / ZIP |
| \Syslog Database | Received Syslog messages | Proprietary |
| \System Information Database | Retrieved system information for the categories hardware, users (loggedonusers), processes, services, software, system in according subfolders | Proprietary (in JSON format) |
| \ToDo Database | Database with all ToDo entries | Raw data format (.db) deprecated as of PRTG 14.1.8 |
| \Ticket Database | Database with all tickets (ticketdata.dat); Backup created with the last successful integrity check (ticketdata.old; available as of PRTG 16.x.26) | Raw data format (.dat) |
| \Toplist Database | Database for historic Toplists for Packet Sniffer and flow (NetFlow, sFlow) sensors | Raw data format (.top); Deprecated: SQLite 3.6.10 (.dat) |
| \Trap Database | Received SNMP Trap messages | Proprietary |
Structure of the Logs folder
As of version 18.3.43, the structure of the Logs\ subfolder is as follows.
| Folder | Description | File Format |
|---|---|---|
| \appserver | Not currently in use. | N/A |
| \core | Text file–based logs of the core system and cluster system. | Text |
| \debug | Text file–based debug logs of the core system and probe system, and core cache recalculation. | Text |
| \desktopclient | Not currently in use. PRTG Desktop logs are written to Users/AppData/Roaming/Paessler/PRTG Desktop/data. | N/A |
| \enterpriseconsole | Text file–based logs of the Enterprise Console. | Text |
| \probe | Text file–based logs of the probe system. | Text |
| \reporter | Text file-based logs of creating PDF reports and screenshots for support. | Text |
| \sensordeprecation | Text file–based log of deprecated sensors. | Text |
| \sensors | Text file-based logs of sensors. | Text |
| \serveradmin | Text file–based logs of the administration system. | Text |
| \webserver | HTTP server logfiles of the PRTG web server. | Text |
Registry
All system settings (except license keys and Enterprise Console settings) of PRTG Network Monitor are stored in the registry under one of the following nodes. The exact location depends on both the kind of system you're running and the installed PRTG version (or which version was installed previously).
32-bit systems:
PRTG 9 or later:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor
PRTG 7 (deprecated):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\V7
PRTG 8 (deprecated):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\V8
64-bit systems:
PRTG 9 or later:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor
PRTG 7:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\V7
PRTG 8:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\V8
Enterprise Console (PRTG 9 through 19)
Important notice: The Enterprise Console is unsupported and deprecated as of version PRTG 19.4.53. Please switch to PRTG Desktop, our new alternative interface that you can use to connect to the PRTG core server and manage your entire network.
All settings of the Enterprise Console are stored under the following node:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Paessler\PRTG Network Monitor\WinGUI
For example, you will find all configured PRTG core servers there.
PRTG Desktop
By default, the PRTG Desktop setup program stores the core installation in one of the following directories:
%programfiles%\Paessler\PRTG Desktopor%programfiles(x86)%\Paessler\PRTG Desktop
User data, certificates, and database, for example, are stored in the following data folder:%appdata%\Paessler\PRTG Desktop\data
Qt WebEngine caching and storage files are stored in the following data folder:%localappdata%\Paessler\PRTG Desktop
Registry
All settings of PRTG Desktop are stored under the following node:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Paessler\PRTGDesktop
HTTP Full Web Page sensor
If you use the HTTP Full Web Page sensor, files might also be stored in the following cache folder on the probe system:
C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
Note: To see this directory, you might have to edit folder options to see hidden files.
Auto-update
Downloaded software versions are automatically saved in the PRTG program directory in the \download subfolder. The prtg.zip that contains all necessary files is also cached in this folder.
Note: If you receive the error "Error reading ZIP-File" while updating your PRTG version, this could be because the file has been corrupted by a virus scanner. To avoid such issues, we recommend that you make the appropriate exclusions for the PRTG program directory.
How can I change the data directory of my PRTG installation?
