Category Archives: Generator Labs

Generator Labs Nagios and Zabbix Plugins for Blacklist and Certificate Monitoring

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Generator Labs Nagios plugin GitHub repository

If you run Nagios or Zabbix, Generator Labs monitoring data can now flow directly into your existing infrastructure monitoring stack. Updated plugins for both platforms are available on GitHub, adding support for certificate monitoring alongside the existing blacklist monitoring checks.

Nagios Plugin

The Nagios plugin is a bash script that calls the Generator Labs API and maps the response to standard Nagios exit codes:

  • OK when no issues are detected
  • CRITICAL when active listings or certificate errors are found
  • UNKNOWN on API or configuration errors

Two check types are supported:

  • rbl: checks for active blacklist listings on a host
  • cert: checks for active certificate errors on a monitor

Install by copying check_generator.sh to your Nagios plugins directory and adding the command and service definitions. A complete example configuration is included in the repository.

Zabbix Plugin

The Zabbix plugin uses the same API and exposes the same check types as Zabbix external checks. Import the provided template, set your Account SID and API token as macros, and hosts are automatically discovered and mapped to Zabbix items and triggers.

Both plugins replace the legacy RBLTracker plugins. If you were running the old versions, remove them and install the updated ones. The check syntax is unchanged, so existing service definitions don’t need to be updated.

Documentation

Query Your Generator Labs Monitoring Data from Any AI Assistant

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Generator Labs MCP server documentation page

Generator Labs now runs a hosted MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, which means any MCP-aware AI tool can read your monitoring data and run on-demand checks directly from the chat interface. No switching tabs, no copying host names, no manual lookups.

What You Can Ask

Once connected, your AI assistant has access to your full account data and can answer questions like:

  • “Which of my hosts are currently listed on any RBL?”
  • “Show me certificates expiring in the next 30 days.”
  • “Run a check on mail.example.com and tell me what flagged it.”
  • “What alerts went out this week, and to which contacts?”

The AI translates your request into tool calls, returns results in plain language, and can chain follow-up queries without leaving the conversation.

Supported Tools

Area What’s Available
Blacklist Monitoring List and inspect hosts, active listings, profiles, check history, run manual checks
Certificate Monitoring List monitors, view expiring certs, inspect errors, run compliance audits
Notifications View contacts, groups, webhooks, and recent alerts
Account Summary, balance, and server health

Connecting

The MCP endpoint is at https://api.generatorlabs.com/4.0/mcp. For Claude Desktop, add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "generator-labs": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://api.generatorlabs.com/4.0/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Basic <base64 of AccountSID:AuthToken>"
      }
    }
  }
}

For Claude.ai, ChatGPT, and other tools that support OAuth 2.1, add a custom connector with the endpoint URL and complete the browser-based auth flow.

Full setup instructions are in the MCP documentation.

Monitor Your Email Reputation and Certificates in Prometheus

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Generator Labs Prometheus exporter GitHub repository

If your team already runs Prometheus, you can now pull Generator Labs monitoring data directly into your metrics stack. The Generator Labs Prometheus exporter exposes blacklist listing status and SSL certificate expiry as standard Prometheus metrics, making it straightforward to build Grafana dashboards or set up alerting rules alongside the rest of your infrastructure.

What It Exports

The exporter surfaces metrics for both products:

  • Blacklist monitoring: active listing status per host, listing counts by source type, last check timestamps
  • Certificate monitoring: days until expiration per monitor, active error status, chain and hostname validation results

These map cleanly to Grafana panels: a certificate expiry countdown per domain, a listing status heatmap across your host inventory, or a single alert rule that fires when any host gets listed or any cert drops below 14 days.

Installation

Three options are available depending on your environment:

Pre-built binary: download from the GitHub releases page and run directly. No dependencies.

Docker:

docker run -e GENERATOR_LABS_ACCOUNT_SID=your_sid \
           -e GENERATOR_LABS_AUTH_TOKEN=your_token \
           -p 9090:9090 \
           ghcr.io/generator-labs/prometheus-exporter:latest

Build from source: requires Go 1.21 or later.

Configuration

The exporter takes two credentials: your Account SID and API token from your Generator Labs account settings. Supply them as flags (--account-sid, --auth-token) or the environment variables above. The metrics endpoint is exposed on port 9090 by default.

Add a scrape config to your prometheus.yml:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'generator-labs'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:9090']

Full setup guide on GitHub.

Monitoring Your Email Reputation with Microsoft Smart Network Data Services

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Standard blacklist monitoring tells you whether your sending IPs appear on public RBLs. It doesn’t tell you how Microsoft specifically views your mail. That’s a separate reputation system, and it matters a lot: Outlook.com, Hotmail, and MSN together represent a significant share of consumer email. Generator Labs now integrates directly with Microsoft Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) inside your blacklist monitoring dashboard.

What SNDS Provides

SNDS is a free Microsoft program that gives senders data about mail flowing from their IP addresses into Microsoft’s mail infrastructure. The metrics it returns include:

  • Message volume from each IP
  • Spam complaint rate
  • Spam trap hits
  • Overall IP status (Green / Yellow / Red)
  • Filter result breakdown

A Red status from SNDS means Microsoft is actively blocking or heavily filtering mail from that IP. Yellow is a warning that reputation is declining. Most teams only discover this when customers start reporting missing mail.

Why It’s Worth Monitoring Separately

SNDS status doesn’t always correlate with your RBL status. You can be clean on every public blocklist and still have a Yellow or Red SNDS rating because of complaint rates, trap hits, or sending patterns that Microsoft’s filters flag specifically. The inverse is also true: an SNDS Green rating doesn’t mean you’re clean on all public RBLs.

Treating SNDS as a separate signal, alongside your regular blacklist monitoring, gives you a more complete picture of your sending reputation and catches Microsoft-specific issues before they escalate.

Setup

Go to RBL Monitoring > SNDS in the portal and add your SNDS access key. Microsoft issues one key per registered IP range. Once connected, Generator Labs pulls your SNDS data automatically and surfaces status changes alongside your other monitoring results.

Setup instructions are in the SNDS documentation.

SPF, DMARC, and rDNS Checks Are Now Built Into Blacklist Monitoring

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Generator Labs email deliverability checks tab showing all 13 available checks

Getting listed on an RBL is one way mail stops delivering. There’s a longer list of DNS misconfigurations that cause mail to land in spam or get silently rejected, and most monitoring tools don’t catch them. Generator Labs has added 13 email deliverability checks directly into blacklist monitoring profiles, running alongside your RBL checks and feeding into the same alert pipeline.

What Gets Checked

IP-based checks (for IPv4 and IPv6 hosts):

  • Reverse DNS (rDNS): the IP has a PTR record
  • Forward-Confirmed rDNS (FCrDNS): the PTR resolves forward back to the original IP
  • Generic PTR Pattern: the PTR doesn’t look like a dynamic or consumer hostname
  • PTR Format: the PTR has at least two labels and a valid alpha TLD

Domain-based checks (for URIBL and URI hosts):

  • MX Health: MX records exist and at least one target resolves
  • SPF Record: domain publishes a valid SPF record
  • SPF Strict: SPF uses an enforcing policy (-all or ~all)
  • SPF Lookup Limit: SPF stays within RFC 7208’s 10-lookup cap
  • DMARC Record: domain publishes a valid DMARC record
  • DMARC Strict: DMARC uses an enforcing policy (p=quarantine or p=reject)
  • TLS-RPT Record: domain publishes a TLS Reporting record
  • MTA-STS Policy: domain publishes a valid MTA-STS policy
  • BIMI Record: domain publishes a valid BIMI record

How to Enable

All 13 checks are opt-in. Go to RBL Monitoring > Monitoring Profiles > Data Sources, click the Email Deliverability tab, and enable the ones you want. None of them run unless you explicitly turn them on.

The recommended approach is a dedicated profile for your mail-sending hosts so deliverability alerts don’t mix with RBL alerts from non-mail infrastructure. Failures trigger the same notifications and webhooks as blacklist listings, so they drop straight into your existing incident workflow.

Full documentation is at docs.generatorlabs.com/email-deliverability.