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Chapter 5. SNMP data retrieval with Shooters

About Shooters

Monitor one distinguishes from other network monitoring software in its revolutionary and powerful approach of querying and processing SNMP information!

A Shooter is Monitor one terminology for what in other NMS products is called a "sensor" or a "monitor". A Shooter is in fact nothing more or nothing less than an SNMP request definition that can be saved to disk and can be read and executed whenever needed. A Shooter is defined at the Class level. Once created, you can use a Shooter to retrieve SNMP data for all devices of the same Class as the Shooter was defined for.

A Shooter defines which object values to retrieve from the SNMP agent of the device being monitored (OID + Instance), how to process these values (calculations) and how to display them (Table, Pie, Graph, Threshold etc…).

A Shooter is built of two parts; the Shooter-body (container) and targets (requests). The Shooter-body has a number of properties that control how the Shooter behaves and how the output is showed.

The most important Shooter properties are:

• Name
• The Class (for which it is created)
• The type (Table, Graph, Meter, Pie, Threshold, History…)
• The polling interval (one shot or each 1, 10, 60, 100, 600 or 1000 seconds)

The most important Target properties:

• The Object Identifier (OID) of the SNMP field to retrieve.
• The Instance (hard coded as in .1, .9 etc or one of the keywords At runtime, All instances)

You can build Shooters that:

• Read one or more SNMP MIB fields from a device and show them in a table.
• Show SNMP counters in 3 dimensional graphs in real-time.
• Monitor thresholds and trigger alarms
• Allows you to SET or WRITE SNMP fields
• Retrieve SNMP values and save them directly into the database as historic data for trending and long term analysis

Detailed information about Shooters: how they work, what you can use them for, what they do, how you can use them and how they are build or configured can be find in Appendix A., at the end of this manual!

Shooter Types

Currently Monitor one supports 9 different Shooter types, all developed for a specific task. The different types available are:

Table shooter

A Table Shooter can be used to retrieve individual SNMP fields or complete SNMP tables with a Get or Get-Next SNMP command. All retrieved data is displayed in a two- or multicolumn table structure depending on whether a GET or a GET-Next (walk) request was used.

A simple two-column table.

A device’s Connections table displayed in a multi-column table as the result of a GET-Next (walk) request.

Graph shooter

Graph Shooters can be used to retrieve and show numeric SNMP fields in real-time graphs. The number in the upper-left corner of the Shooter icon indicates the polling interval.

If the "At runtime" keyword is used (in the Shooter definition) as the Target instance, the Graph will prompt for selecting the desired instance at runtime. This option makes it easy to zoom-in on different ports of a multi-port switch when trying to find performance bottlenecks.

The Inst control lets you choose the instance at runtime!

If the "All Instances" keyword is used in the Shooter definition then the values of ALL instances of the OID specified as the Target are shown in one Graph! The All Instances option makes it easy to show - for example - the load of all ports of a switch in one Graph!

The output of a Graph Shooter in which the All Instances keyword is used.

Graph types

The current version of Monitor one supports 4 different graph-types: an 2 dimensional line-graph, the same line-graph but with a 3 dimensional look, a bar- and an area-graph. You can select the desired graph-type by clicking one of the Graph type speedbuttons

Raw/Delta

Use the Raw and Delta speedbuttons to select how to display the retrieved SNMP values. Use Raw for displaying utilization or percentage statistics. Delta displays the difference between the last retrieved values and the previous ones. Delta is usually used for showing Bytes/sec, Frames/sec etc...

Lin/Log/Automatic UpDown scaling

Use the Lin (Linear) or Log (Logarithmic) speedbuttons to set the desired y-axis scaling. If you select Options|Automatic UpDown scaling then Monitor one automatically scales the Y-axis up/down each time new data is added to the graph. In web mode Automatic UpDown scaling is always ON.

Top-20 series only

If an "All Instances" graph is shown, it might happen that there are so many series to show that the size of the graph does not fit into the window/screen. This is where the Top-20 switch is meant for! Click the Show Top-20 series only speedbutton to limit the number of displayed series to the top-20 only.

Title and Axis/Background color

Right-click somewhere on the graph and choose the desired menu-item in order to change the Title and Axis of a graph or change the background color.

Graph/Data tabs

The Graph and Data tabs speak for themselves. The Data tab lists besides the Min, Max and AVG of the retrieved values also the most recent 5 retrieved values. See the screenshot below

The real-time Graph windows are available in native- as well as in web mode. In native mode, all graph settings as: graph type, colors, window size, Abs/Rel etc... are saved to the database and are restored again the next time you start the same Graph Shooter. You can also change the look and feel of the Graph window in web mode but these modifications are not saved to the database!

Threshold shooter

A Threshold Shooter can be used to monitor numeric values and compare them with a threshold value. An event is generated if the value of the value exceeds a defined threshold.

History shooter

Use a History Shooter to collect and log history information from devices to the database for trending and long-term analysis purposes. Monitor one saves History information into two different databases, the native Monitor one databases and RRD databases.

RRD is the Acronym for Round Robin Database. RRD is a system to store and display time-series data (i.e. network bandwidth, machine-room temperature, server load average). It stores the data in a very compact way that will not expand over time, and it presents useful graphs by processing the data to enforce a certain data density.

An RRDTool graph of the load (in bytes/sec) of a company’s internet-feed measured over the last 7 days.

RRD (and the key program, RRDTool) is a very powerful and popular system, written by Tobi Oetiker and available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Monitor one can be used as a front end for RRD and RRDTool. More information on RRDTool can be found here: http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/

Set shooter

A Set Shooter allows you set/write SNMP fields. You can use Set Shooters to create simple configuration forms for managing network devices.

Meter shooter

The AnalogMeter Shooter (also called just "Meter") can be used to show a value on an old-fashioned VDO-like meter. The Meter is especially useful to display Utilization and Usage etc. Be aware that a Meter Shooter is not able to show more than one value at a time because the Meter has only one needle!

A Meter Shooter showing the CPU-Utilization.

The real-time Meter windows are available in native mode as well as in web mode. In native mode, all Meter settings as: Colors, window size, Abs/Rel etc… are saved to the database and are restored automatically the next time you use the same Meter again.

You can also change the look and feel of the Meter in web mode but these modifications are not saved to the database!

Raw/Delta

Use the Raw and Delta speedbuttons to select how to display the retrieved SNMP values. Use Raw for displaying utilization or percentage statistics. Delta displays the difference between the last retrieved values and the previous ones. Delta is usually used for showing Bytes/sec, Frames/sec etc...

Title, Meter appearance and Needle colors

Right-click somewhere on the Meter and choose Set Meter properties. This lets you customize the look of the Meter.

SnipMon Gauge and SnipMon Graph shooters

SnipMon Shooters appear as small images below a device icon on the network map. They are updated in real-time and are especially useful if you want to have important or critical device information always directly at hand.

A SnipMon Gauge (a small meter) can for instance be used to display CPU- or memory utilization, temperature or used disk space.

A SnipMon Graph is very useful for displaying interface utilization, number of running processes etc over a short period in a graph. If the mouse moves over a SnipMon, detailed information such as a description of the SnipMon and the last/most recent value is shown.

The example SnipMons above (from left to right) show: CPU utilization, interface utilization and percentage used disk space of a certain drive.

Pie Shooter

A Pie Shooter is useful for displaying things like the Top-talkers or the Top-5 busiest ports etc. The Pie graph is available in native mode as well as in web mode. In native mode, all Pie settings as: Number of slices, colors, window size, Raw/Delta etc… are saved to the database and are restored automatically again the next time you use the same Pie Shooter.

You can also change the look and feel of the Pie window in web mode but these modifications are not saved to the database!

Raw/Delta

Use the Raw and Delta speedbuttons to select how to display the retrieved SNMP values. Use Raw for displaying utilization or percentage statistics. Delta displays the difference between the last retrieved values and the previous ones. Delta is usually used for showing Bytes/sec, Frames/sec etc...

#Slices

The #Slices control lets you adjust how many slices to show. For example: If you select 5 slices then the Top-4 is shown and slice #5 (labeled "Other") shows the summation of all other slices not in the top 4!

Title and Axis/Background color

Right-click somewhere on the graph and choose the desired option to customize the Title and Axis of a graph or in order to change the background color.

The top-8 most "talking" ports of a backbone switch

Shooters – Glossary and terms

In order to get full understanding about how Shooters work, how they are built and what properties they have, below a short explanation of the used terms.

Shooter

FineConnection terminology for "SNMP request definition" used for MIB querying. A Shooter defines which device SNMP MIB fields to query and how to process and display the results. Each Shooter contains one or more entries called "Targets" that describe the MIB fields to retrieve.

Foreground and Background Shooters

Looking at the way they work, Shooters can be divided into Foreground and Background Shooters. Users can start foreground Shooters at any time when they need real-time information by double-clicking a Shooter’s icon. Table, Graph, Meter, Pie and Set Shooters are Foreground Shooters. Background Shooters do their job in background. They are used to periodically collect SNMP information for threshold monitoring or history logging. Background Shooters cannot be used interactively. The work like background jobs on mainframe computers. Threshold, History and SnipMon Shooters are Background Shooters.

Object identifier

An Object Identifier is the identification value of an object that is defined in a MIB. Object identifiers are arranged in a hierarchical tree structure that is compliant with Internet standard and that consists of roots and branches. An object identifier is written as a sequence of sub-identifiers, starting with the tree root, in dotted decimal notation. For example, the Cisco branch of the MIB naming tree is expressed as 1.3.6.1.4.1.9.

Instance

An instance specifies the row in which an object that is part of a table is located. The instance is appended to the object identifier and has a format that is similar to the latter. For objects that are not part of a table, the instance is zero. For more flexibility and enhanced features, Monitor one also allows you to replace an instance by one of the keywords: At runtime or All instances.

Starting Shooters

Starting Foreground Shooters

1. Right-click the device on the map from which you want to retrieve SNMP information, and choose Shooters/Properties from the popup-menu.
2. The "<Devicename> a closer look" window opens.
   
   
   
3. Select the Foreground Shooters tab.
4. Double-click the icon of the Shooter to start.

Using SpeedShooters

A SpeedShooter is a Foreground Shooter from which the "SpeedShooter" property is set to "True". SpeedShooters appear as menu-items in a device’s right-click menu. The SpeedShooter option provides easier access to the most frequently used Shooters. Foreground Shooters can be started by right-clicking the device from which to retrieve SNMP information and selecting the desired SpeedShooter.

A snapshot of a device’s right-click menu. The last 7 menu-items at the bottom are all SpeedShooters. The SSH menu-item is a "Custom menu-item" defined for the device at the Class level!

Setting the "SpeedShooter" property of a Shooter

The default setting for the "SpeedShooter" property can be set at the Class level and an exception on the default can be set at the Device level. To turn the SpeedShooter property on or off at the Class level:

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click a device on the map belonging to the Class from which you want to access a Shooter to set its SpeedShooter property and choose Define Shooters (Manually)
3. Right-click the Shooter from the Shooters box and choose Modify this Shooter
4. Check the Add this Shooter to a device’s right-click menu

To make an exception at the Device level:

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click a device on the map belonging to the Class from which you want to access a Shooter to set its SpeedShooter property and choose Shooters/Properties
3. Select the Foreground Shooters tab
4. Right-click the Shooter and choose either "For this device, this Shooter is a SpeedShooter" or "For this device, this Shooter is no longer a SpeedShooter" to make an exception at the device level.

Starting Background Shooters

Background Shooters can be started at two different levels. If you start a Background Shooter at the device level, the Shooter only runs for that specific device. If a Background Shooter is started at the Class level, the Shooter runs for all devices (on the map) of that Class!

Each time Monitor one is restarted, all Background Shooters that were running the moment Monitor one was shut, are restarted automatically!

Starting a Background Shooter at the device level

1. Right-click the device on the map for which to start a Background Shooter and select Shooters/Properties.
2. The "<Devicename> a closer look" window opens.
3. Select the Background Shooters tab.
4. Select the Shooter to start from the Available box.
5. Right-click the Shooter and choose Start this Shooter...
6. The shooter-icon moves from the Available to the Launched box.

Starting a Background Shooter at the Class level

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Select Edit|Manage Classes from the menu on the main window
3. Select and right-click the Class for which to start the Shooter and choose Start/Stop Shooters at the Class level
4. The "Start/Stop Shooters for Class: <ClassName>" window opens.
5. Select the Shooter to start from the Available box.
6. Right-click the Shooter and choose Start this Shooter for all ...
7. The Shooter-icon moves from the Available to the Launched box.

Every time a new device is added to a map, all Background Shooters defined to run at the Class level, are also started automatically for the new device!

Creating Shooters

As said before, SNMP data retrieval is based on the Shooter concept - a powerful SNMP MIB query manager. You are not only limited to using the standard, predefined Shooters to retrieve SNMP information but you can also create them yourself with just a few mouse-clicks.

The reader is expected to have good knowledge of the SNMP protocol to get all out of it. Because it is unrealistic to believe that this is always the case, Monitor one provides 3 ways to build new Shooters, varying in level of complexity and flexibility.

Generally spoken, building a new Shooter takes three steps:

1. Create the Shooter body. Define the name, type and the polling interval and define whether you want to work with the RAW counter values or that you are interested in the DELTA of the counter values.
2. Choose the Shooter targets (OID & Instance) and add them to the Shooter.
3. Fine-tune the Shooter by defining how to process the SNMP data. Add one or more Formulas, define and set Threshold values or set a Graph’s Title, X- and Y-axes.

Creating a Shooter with the wizard

The Shooter wizard guides you step-by-step through the process of creating some basic Shooters. The number of Shooters built with the wizard is of course limited but in case the wizard is not able to help you building the precise Shooter of your choice, then you could possibly build one that comes close and modify it afterwards until it meets your needs.

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click the device for which you want to build a new Shooter and choose Define Shooters (Wizard) As you’ll understand, the Shooter is not built for the right-clicked device but of course for the Class the device belongs to.
   
   
3. Follow the instructions on the screens that follow.

Note that:

• The wizard sends SNMP requests to the device in order to find out which MIB nodes the device supports! Which Shooters can be build depend on which MIB fields are supported by the device!
• The wizard uses the Community and IPaddress of the right-clicked device. It is obvious that devices that do not support SNMP cannot be used!
• Shooters are always defined at the Class level. The Class of the right-clicked device determines the Class type the Shooter is build for.
• Some Shooter types (i.e. SnipMons and Meters) only support "hard-coded" instances, others also support At Runtime and All instances.

Creating a new Shooter directly from the MIB tree

First, open the Define <ClassName> Shooters window…

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Select Edit|Manage Classes from the menu on the main window.
3. The "Manage classes" window opens
4. Right-click a Class icon and select Define Shooters from the menu.
5. The Shooter configuration window opens.

OR

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click a device on the map and select Define Shooters from the right-click menu.
3. The Shooter configuration window opens.

…then, start building the Shooter container…

1. Enter the IP address and Community name of a test-device into the appropriate fields of the Test and Inspect box (if not already automatically provided by Monitor one)
2. Browse through the MIB tree and select the MIB node from which to create a Shooter.
3. Right-click the node and choose Inspect from the popup menu in order to verify whether the test device supports the selected MIB node.
4. The MIB node turns green if the test device supports the MIB node. Only green nodes can be used in Shooters!
5. Right-click the node again and use the menu items to select the desired Shooter-type and the Polling interval. See the snapshot below.
   
   
   
   
6. The "New Shooter properties" window opens.
   
   
   
   
7. Use this window to assign a Shooter name, to select the desired table type or to select how integer and counter values are to be processed. If you select RAW, Monitor one leaves all numeric values as they are. If you select DELTA, Monitor one computes and uses the difference between the last and the previous sample for further processing! You usually use RAW for things like CPU utilization, Temperature or power-provisioning etc. DELTA is used for things like transmitted/received bytes/sec, errors/100 sec etc.
8. Click the Ok button. The "Add/Modify a <Shooter name> Shooter-target" window opens.
   
   
   
   
9. Use this window to set the Shooter-target properties. Select the instance to use from the OID/Instance box. In the example above, we selected the All instances keyword. This means that the Graph will show the number of etherStatOctets of all instances (ports) of the device in one graph! If you select the Provide at Runtime radio-button, the Graph window will prompt you for an instance when it opens. You can also check the Append radio-button and enter a "hard-coded" instance directly into the edit box. The Show this field on screen checkbox allows you to show or to hide series in the Shooter. If you choose to hide the series, then you can still use the retrieved values in a formula. If you are building a new Threshold Shooter, you can use the controls in the Threshold settings box to define additional threshold parameters.
10. Click the Add/Modify button to save the new Shooter into the database. The icon of the new Shooter appears in the Shooters box and its targets in the box under it.
    
    

Manually creating a new Shooter

Creating a new Shooter by hand is the most complex but also the most flexible and powerful way of building new Shooters. The steps described below guide you through the steps involved.

As mentioned before, Shooters are defined at the Class level. Nevertheless, when building new Shooters, the existence and use of a test device is a requirement. Monitor one needs a test device in order to find the MIB nodes supported by that Class of device.

Step 1. Open the Define <ClassName> Shooters window…

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Select Edit|Manage Classes from the menu of the main window. The "Manage classes" window opens.
3. Right-click a Class icon and select Define Shooters from the menu.
4. The Shooter configuration window opens. If there are already devices of the selected Class on the network map, Monitor one will use one of them as the test device. The IPaddress and Community name of this test device are copied to the fields in the Test and Inspect portion of the window. If no test device could be found on the map, the fields are left blank and the IP address and community of the test device must be provided manually. Ensure that you choose a test device that is a member of the selected Class! Choosing a test device of another Class makes no sense because you would create Shooters that possibly do not work!

OR

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click a device icon on the map and select Define Shooters from the right-click menu.
3. The Shooter configuration window opens. The IPaddress and Community name of the right-clicked device are automatically copied to the fields of the Test and Inspect box. The image below shows a snapshot of the "Define <Class name> Shooters" window.
   
   
   
   The window contains 4 panes. The one at the left shows the MIB tree. The Node descriptions box (top right) is used to display information about the selected MIB node in the MIB tree. The Test and Inspect pane is used for accessing the test device and the bottom right pane provides information on the existing Shooters and their Targets.

Step 2. Start building the Shooter body (container).

1. Right-click anywhere in the Shooters box and select Add a Shooter.
2. The "Add/Modify a Shooter" window opens. See the snapshot below.
3. Enter the correct information into all boxes and press the Save button to save the new Shooter.
   
   

ShooterName

A Shooter name may consist of up to 30 characters (no spaces) and must be unique within the selected Class.

Shooter-type

Select a Shooter-type by selecting the type from the Shooter-type listbox.

Speedshooter (Add this Shooter to a Device's right-Click menu)

Speedshooters provide a way for easily accessing the most frequently used Shooters for a device. When for a Shooter the SpeedShooter property is set to true (checked) then it appears as a menu item in the device’s right-click menu. Only foreground Shooters can be marked as "SpeedShooter". Do not set the SpeedShooter property by default. Mark only the most frequently used Shooters as SpeedShooter to prevent over-configured, badly readable right-click menus!

Port to use for SNMP data retrieval.

Some vendors use alternate ports for their SNMP agents. The default SNMP port has port-number 161. By default Monitor one uses the SNMP port defined at the Class level but you can use the Port to use… box to overrule the Class setting and define an alternate port at the Shooter level.

Active Period (When will this Shooter be active)

Most networks experience different load during daytime than during the night. In order to minimize the chance of incorrect or superfluous alerting, you can fine-tune Threshold monitoring by specifying an active period for a threshold Shooter.
When the From setting is greater than the Till setting, an active period during the night is assumed.

Additional Shooter settings

The most important controls from this box are the RAW and the DELTA controls. Use these controls to define how to interpret received SNMP values. Select DELTA if you are interested in the difference between the last measured value and the previous one. Use DELTA if you - for example - want to show the traffic of an interface in bytes/sec in a graph. Use RAW if you are interested in raw values like room temperature, CPU utilization and UPS output-power.
Be aware that the Additional Shooter settings box contains two tabs: one for all native Monitor one Shooters and one for RRD Shooters!

Step 3. Define one or more Shooter targets (SNMP requests) and add them to the Shooter.

1. Browse through the MIB tree and select the MIB node to add to the Shooter.
2. Right-click the node and choose Inspect to verify whether the selected node is supported by the test device.
3. If the test turns out to be positive (the node turns green), right-click the node again and choose Add to the selected Shooter.
4. The "Add/Modify a <ClassName> Shooter-target" window opens.
5. Depending on the selected Shooter-type, fields and/or boxes are either enabled or disabled. Select the instance to use and provide valid data into all mandatory fields before pressing the Add/Modify button.
6. The Shooter-target is added to the Shooter and appears in the Shooter-targets box.

About Formulas

Formulas provide a way to manipulate SNMP values before displaying or using them. With a Formula you can for example change the format of data (from bytes/s to Mbytes/sec etc). A formula can be added to a Shooter as if it was a Shooter-target. A Shooter can contain more than one formula.

Not all Shooter types support the Formula option!

Using a formula requires entering one or more arguments. Arguments are pieces of data used as input for the formula. You can use retrieved SNMP values and constant values as arguments.

Formula's must be entered in infix notation. For instance ((a+b)/c/8)*100 or (A+(B/C))/(D-A)*35 etc. The characters A, B, C etc represent retrieved SNMP values (target data). You can also enter constant values directly, as in: (A+B)/10

Adding a formula to a Shooter

1. Right-click anywhere in the Shooter-targets box and select Add a formula.
2. The "Add/Modify formula: <Formula name>" window opens. See the snapshot below.
3. Fill out the form and press the Save button to save the new formula. The formula is added (as if it were a Shooter-target) to the target list.
   
   

Available OIDs

The Available OIDs box shows the table of available arguments that can be used in the formula.

Formula

Use the Formula box to enter the formula in infix notation. Be aware of the following limitations:

• Allowed operators: * / + -
• Allowed operands: The characters A..Z (not case-sensitive!), Positive integers.

Result name

Use the Result name box to assign a name to the result of the calculations. This name appears in the legend of the Graph or Meter etc..

Examples

In the examples described below, we use the retrieved values from:

• A = ifInOctets.3 – incoming bytes on interface 3
• B = ifOutOctets.3 – outgoing bytes on interface 3
• C = ifSpeed.3 – interface speed of interface 3 in bits/sec

1. To show the sum of incoming and outgoing bytes per second in KB/s:
--> Formula = (A+B)/1024

2. You cannot enter fractions directly into the formula box, so we need a trick. If you want to use the fraction value 0.5:
--> Formula = (A+B)*(5/10)

3. You cannot enter negative values directly into the formula box, so again a trick. If you want to use negative constant values like -1:
--> Formula = (A+B)*(0-1)

4. If you want to calculate the utilization of interface 3. Note that ifSpeed is in bits/s!
--> Formula = (A+B)/(c/8)*100 OR ((a+b)/c)*800 OR ((a+b)*800)/c

The utilization can be calculated by adding ifInOctets to ifOutOctets and dividing the result by the speed in bytes/s. After that, multiply the result by 100 to get the utilization!

In the graph below, we used a formula to negate the ifOutOctets. The result gives a perfect idea of a server’s NIC "Incoming and Outgoing byes" ratio.

We used the following formula:

Example 1. Manually building a Shooter that monitors port 7 of a switch.

This example demonstrates how to build a Threshold Shooter that monitors port 7 of a HP2524 switch. If the link on that port goes down, a "Threshold exceeded" event is generated. Port 7 only needs to be monitored during business hours (8:00 – 18:00), not during the night.

The link status of a port can be determined by verifying a port’s ifOperStatus field (a node from the mib-2 ifTable subtree). As can be seen in the MIB tree (click on the node in the tree and read its description), a value of 1 means the link="UP". Any other value means that the link is not functioning normally.

First step - Create the Shooter body.

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Select Edit|Manage Classes from the menu on the main window.
3. Right-click the Class for which to build the Threshold Shooter (In this example we use a HP2524 switch) and choose Define Shooters.
4. The "Define HP2524 Shooters" window opens.
5. Right-click anywhere in the Shooters box and choose Add a Shooter.
6. The "Add/Modify a Shooter" window opens.
   
   
   
   
7. Enter the name of the Shooter in the ShooterName box. (In this example, we use the name: "LinkDownTest")
8. Select "Threshold 10" from the ShooterType box. (The port status is polled every 10 seconds)
9. Use the "from" and "until" spin-edit controls to define when the Shooter must be active (from 8:00 until 18:00)
10. Press the Save button.
11. The "Add/Modify a Shooter" window closes. The new LinkDownTest Shooter appears in the Shooters box and has focus (See the Sel.Shooter box in the upper left corner of the screen)

Second step - Add a shooter-target to the LinkDownTest Shooter.

1. Verify the Community and IPaddress fields of the Test and Inspect box. Enter the Community name and the IP address of a test device manually if Monitor one was unable to assign these values automatically.
2. Walk through the MIB tree and right-click the ifOperStatus node from the mib-2 ifTable branch. (path: iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib-2.interfaces.iftable.ifEntry.ifOperStatus)
3. Right-click the ifOperStatus node and select Inspect.
4. An SNMP request frame is sent to the test device. The MIB node turns green if the test device returns a valid response. Note that only green MIB nodes can be used as Shooter-targets.
5. Right-click the green node again and choose Add to the selected Shooter.
6. The "Add/Modify a LinkDownTest shooter-target" window opens.
   
   
   
   
7. Check the Append radiobutton from the OID/Instance box and enter .7 in the edit box. (.7 means port 7 from the switch)
8. Select the "not equal to" sign (<>) from the Threshold settings box, enter "1" (=UP, see the nodes description) into the edit box and check the RAW radiobutton.
9. Optionally, check also the Custom message radiobutton and enter a warning message (i.e. "The link on port 7 is down!"). This message is shown in the event message if a "link-down" event occurs!
10. Check the Show this field on screen control.
11. Press the Add/Modify button. The shooter-target is added to the LinkDownTest Shooter. See the snapshot below.
    
    

Third step - Start the threshold Shooter.

1. Right-click the device on the map for which to start the threshold Shooter and choose Shooters/Properties.
2. Click the Background Shooters tab. The LinkDownTest Shooter appears in the Available box.
   
   
   
   
3. Right-click the LinkDownTest Shooter and choose Start this Shooter for device <DeviceName>
4. The LinkDownTest Shooter icon moves to the Launched box.
5. The LinkDownTest Shooter is now started. You can verify its status by selecting Options|Threshold control from the menu on the main window. If port 7 is "up" then the "Threshold control" window shows:
   
   
   
   and if port 7 goes down:
   
   

Modifying or Removing Shooters

Modifications to a Shooter can be made at two levels: You can make changes to one or more properties of the Shooter body OR you can make changes to one or more Shooter-targets.

First, Open the Define <Class name> Shooters window...

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Select Edit|Manage Classes from the menu of the main window to open the Manage Classes window.
3. Right-click a Class icon and select Define Shooters from the menu.
4. The Shooter configuration window opens.

OR

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click a device object on the map and select Define Shooters from the object’s right-click menu.
3. The Shooter configuration window opens.

Then, Select the Shooter to modify...

1. Select the Shooter to modify from the Shooters box and click its icon
2. The selected Shooter now appears in the Sel. Shooter portion in the upper left corner of the window and the list of Shooter-targets is shown in the Target box at the bottom right corner of the window.

If you right-click the Shooter in the Shooters box, a popup menu appears. Use these menu-items to modify or remove a Shooter.

You can also right-click one of the Shooter-targets. The popup menu that appears allows you to modify or remove a Shooter-target.

Shooter-targets that are used in a formula cannot be removed without the formula being removed first.

If you make changes to a running Background Shooter then this Background Shooter is restarted the moment you close the "Define <Class name> Shooters" window.

Foreground Shooters can be renamed. Background cannot!

Using SNMP for status polling

Normally, Monitor one monitors the status of devices by sending a "ping" periodically. There are, however, situations in which you would like to use another protocol, for instance if a device does not reply to a ping echo-request because of a firewall blocking this protocol.

If the device does respond to SNMP requests, you can also use SNMP for status polling. The only requirement is that you define and run a background Shooter with a 10 seconds polling interval!

To use SNMP polling for status monitoring follow the steps described below:

Step A. enable the option

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Select Options|Global configuration from the menu on the main window.
3. Click the StatusPoller tab
4. Check the Use Shooter information also for Status monitoring checkbox

Step B. Start a 10 seconds background Shooter for the device

It makes no difference which background Shooter you choose as long as it uses a 10 seconds polling interval. If such a Shooter is not yet available, you must create one. If you cannot find a meaningful Shooter you can use the predefined "SNMPStatusPolling" Shooter.

To create the SNMPStatusPolling Shooter:

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Select Edit|Manage Classes from the menu on the main window.
3. Right-click the Class for which to create the Shooter and choose Define Shooters.
4. The "Define <ClassName> shooters" window opens.
5. Right-click anywhere in the Shooters box and choose Special.
6. Select the SNMPStatusPolling Shooter.
7. Right-click the device on the map for which to start the SNMPStatusPolling Shooter and choose Shooters/Properties.
8. Click the Background Shooters tab, right-click the SNMPStatusPolling Shooter and choose Start this Shooter…