[Index] [FineConnection web site]

Creating a new Project

It takes five steps to start a new project

1. Select File|New map from the menu on the main window.
2. A message box pops up. Read the information carefully and press Ok. The "New project" window opens.
   
   
   
   
3. Click the browse control of the Project Path and Name.
4. The Specify a Folder and a Name for the new Project dialog opens.
5. Enter the requested information and click Save.
6. Use the browse control of the BIN directory box to select the location of the Firebird BIN directory on your system (if not already filled in)
7. Enter the Firebird username and password into the appropriate boxes and click the Ok button.
8. Monitor one creates the initial database and opens the new project in Designer mode, showing a blank root map.

Changing the default Firebird username and password / Securing your project

The default Firebird username/password is "sysdba/password". If you do not want to use the default password, you can change it with the Firebird gsec utility, which can be found in the Firebird BIN directory. An example of the command needed for changing the sysdba password is:

For more information on how to secure Firebird database access see: http://www.firebirdsql.org/manual/qsg10-other-necessities.html

For reasons of easier access to a project's database, the username and password are written to the project's .amd file (<Project directory>\<ProjectName>.amd). If you find this unacceptable for security reasons, you can remove the username and password strings (leave the 'DBUser=' and 'DBPassword=' keywords - only remove the username and password strings) from this file. After this, Monitor one will prompt you to enter the username and password each time you start the program.

Adding, Modifying, Removing or Moving a Device- or Virtual object.

Adding a new Device- or Virtual object to the map

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Browse to the map on which to add a device object.
3. Right-click anywhere on the map and choose Add object|Add a new device- or virtual object from the popup menu.
4. The "Add/Modify a device- or virtual object window" opens. (See a snapshot of this window below).
   
   
   
   
5. Fill out all fields of the window and click the Save button.
6. The cursor of the map to which you want to add a device, changes from a normal cursor to a drag symbol.
7. Point to the right location on the map and click to add the device.

Name

Enter the device name in the Name box. A name may consist of up to 100 characters and may contain any arbitrary character. When the Name box is exited, a DNS lookup is performed in order to find the IP address of the device. If the lookup succeeds, the IP address of the device is shown in the IP address box. The IP address box is left blank if the lookup fails.

Class

Each device must be linked to a Class. Assign the Class for the device by selecting it from the Available Classes box and double-clicking its icon. The Class image appears in the Image box. Once assigned, an object’s Class cannot be modified!

Ser#/Reg#

The Ser.# and the Reg.# fields can be used for administrative and support purposes.

IP address

Enter a valid IP address of the form X.X.X.X in the IP address box. The current Monitor one release does not support IPv6. Leave the field blank if no polling should be performed.

R/W Communities

Enter the Read- and Write communities for Health monitoring via SNMP into the appropriate boxes. By default, the read-community, defined at the Class level is provided. A community string may consist of up to 16 characters in length.

Maintenance window

Use the Maintenance window box to define a maintenance plan for a device object. Within the maintenance period, all events are normally processed but Alerting for the device is suppressed. This option can be useful if - for instance - a server is scheduled to reboot nightly or weekly at a certain time in order to prevent the "Running low on virtual memory" message due to memory leaks etc.

Alert group

The Alert-group selection box can be used to assign an Alert-group to the device. By default, the "Default" group is assigned. If Alerting by email is enabled and you have set up an Alerting scheme (groups and recipients), the Alert-group specifies which people get an email alert message in case a major event occurs for the device. An alert-group can contain multiple recipients and one recipient can belong to multiple alert-groups.

If the IPaddress box is double-clicked, Monitor one automatically assigns the local-host address: "127.0.0.1". This option makes it easy to make use of Monitor one as a drawing tool for presentation purposes.

Modifying a Device- or Virtual object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click the device object to modify and select Modify this object from the popup menu.
3. The "Add/Modify a device- or virtual object window" opens.
4. Make the desired modifications and click the Save button.
5. The modified settings are immediately in effect.

Removing a Device- or Virtual object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click the object to remove.
3. Select Remove this object from the menu.

It is not necessary to remove all links of an object before removing the object itself. All links to other objects are removed automatically.

When an object is removed, all object-related data (logging, history) is also removed from the database.

Moving a Device- or Virtual object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Click the object and drag it to its new position.

Building network maps using IP-nodes found by Discovery.

You can use the Discovery utility to scan a subnet or IP range to find out which IP nodes exists. The list of found nodes can be used to easily add devices to the network map. For more information, see the chapter: Discovery and Extensive Monitoring further in this manual.

Adding, Resizing, Removing or Moving a Shared Medium object

Adding a shared medium object to a network map

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Move to the map to add a shared medium to.
3. Right-click anywhere on the map and select Add object|Add a shared medium from the popup menu.
4. Select a shared medium type.
5. The cursor of the map to add a shared medium to, changes from a normal- to a drag symbol.
6. Click on the map to add the shared medium.

Resizing a shared medium object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Click the shared medium at its right side.
3. Stretch the shared medium to the desired size by dragging.

There is a minimum size defined for a shared medium. The maximum length is undefined!

You can resize a shared medium by clicking it at the right.

Removing a shared medium object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click the shared medium and select Remove this object from the menu.

Moving a shared medium object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Click the Shared medium with the mouse somewhere in the middle and drag it to its new position.

Adding, Modifying, Removing or Moving a Free-Text object

Adding a Free-Text object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Move to the map to add a Free text object to.
3. Right-click anywhere on the submap and select Add object|Add Free text.
4. The "Add Free text" window opens.
   
   
5. Enter text in the Text box (Max 50 characters). This is the text that will be displayed on screen.
6. If you want the FreeText object to behave as a hyperlink, you need to enter the hyperlink information into the hyperlink box. The hyperlink box accepts various formats:
   • http://www.fineconnection.com --> For accessing a host on the internet.
   • mailto:bob@companyname.com --> Opens the default mail client on the system.
   • C:\images\Web\example1.jpg --> Shows a picture in a directory on your system in the system's default image viewer.
7. Press Ok to save.
8. The cursor of the map to add an object to, changes from a normal to a drag symbol.
9. Click on the map to add the object.

If no specific font is specified, the default font is used. You can set the default font by selecting Options|Global configuration from the menu on the main window and than the Various tab.

Modifying a Free-Text object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click the Free-Text object to modify.
3. Select Modify this object.
4. The "Add Free text" window opens.
5. Modify the text in the Text box. (Max 50 characters)
6. Press Ok to save.

Removing a Free-Text object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Right-click the Free-Text object and select Remove this object from the popupmenu.

Moving a Free-Text object

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Click the Free-text object and drag it to its new position.

Adding or Removing links between objects

For better readability Monitor one uses different line styles and colors for different link types. You can set the default link type for each individual map. The selected link type for a map is shown at the bottom of the map window. The default link type setting for a map is NOT saved to the database and defaults to "UTP/STP" each time Monitor one is restarted!

The current Monitor one version supports four different link types.

• UTP/STP, blue line
• Fiber, green line
• Serial, thin gray line
• "Point to point or Shared coax", thick gray line

Selecting a link type

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Move to the map from which to set the default link type.
3. Right-click anywhere on the map and select Set link type from the popup menu.
4. Select one of the available link types.
5. The status bar changes according to your selection.

Adding a link between objects

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Press and hold-down the [Ctrl] key.
3. Click the first object that will participate in the link. The cursor changes to a cross-symbol.
4. Click the other participant (object at the other side) of the link.
5. The link is drawn, the default cursor is restored and the database is updated.
6. Release all keys.

Clicking the same object twice cancels the operation.

Removing a link between objects

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Press and hold-down the [Ctrl] key.
3. Click the first object participating in the link to remove. The cursor changes to a cross-symbol.
4. Click the second object at the other side of the link.
5. A confirmation window pops up.
6. Confirm the removal of the link.
7. The link is removed from the map, the default cursor is restored and the database is updated.

Clicking the same object twice cancels the operation.

Background images

Monitor one allows you to add background images to your network maps. Background images help you identify the location of malfunctioning equipment and the consequences of a failure more quickly.

If you are the network manager of a WAN you could add a country-map to your network map, if you are managing a LAN you could add the floor plan or a campus plan.

Building network maps as factually as possible, will positively affect the error tracking process and the speed of solving network problems.

Adding a background image to a network map

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Move to the map to add a background image to.
3. Right-click anywhere on the map and select Add background image from the popup menu.
4. A "Browse for bitmap" dialog window opens
5. Select the bitmap file to add as a background and click Open.
6. If the selected bitmap meets with some requirements the bitmap will appear as background image, otherwise an Informational or an Error message will popup.

Background image requirements:

1. It must be a *.bmp file.
2. The size of the bitmap must be equal to (or greater than) the size of the network map to cover.

Removing a background image from a network map

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Move to the map with the background image to remove.
3. Right-click on a blank portion of the map and select Remove background image.

Assigned background images are saved (as bitmap files) with random names in the project directory.

Building a hierarchical multi-level map structure

Monitor one allows you to create a hierarchical multi-level map structure that lets you move easily between the individual maps by using the virtual "Network" object. You can build maps that represent IP subnets, buildings, floors, wiring closets etc.

There is no limit to the depth of a hierarchical structure.

Creating a child map (sub-map)

1. Switch to Designer mode.
2. Add a "Network object" icon (see the image below) on the same way as you add a device icon.
3. Double-click the icon of the new Network object.
4. The child map opens
5. Monitor one automatically adds a network object at the upper left corner of the new (child) map. Double-clicking this icon lets you return to the parent map!

The icon of a "Network object"

Moving between maps

You can move between maps by double-clicking "Network objects". Each child map has a Network object pointing to its parent in the upper left corner. By double-clicking this object, you can return to the parent map.

The name of the icon on the parent map representing the child map has the name of the child map and vise versa. The icon on the child map representing the parent map has the name of the parent map!

The naming convention of a Network object differs from the naming convention of a device object. The name of a network is limited to 16 characters in length and may not contain spaces.

Error control

About error control

Error control (EC) is a very powerful feature that helps you quickly locate a problem, prevents superfluous Alerting and incorrect interpretation of a problem. EC tries to find the root-cause of a device that doesn’t respond to status requests anymore.

To be more precise, the above means that if a "No response" event occurs for a device, EC tries to find out whether the event is caused by a definite failure of the device itself OR by another device experiencing problems in the chain of devices (network paths) between the station running Monitor one (the "ThisStation" object on the map) and the device!

EC uses the information provided by the network map (connections and device types) to find out which device causes a "No response" event. It is therefore extremely important to set up your network maps as accurately/factually as possible. If a device "A" is physically connected to device "B", draw a link between them on your network map accordingly!

Without EC

By a failure of "Switch 10", four servers get the "No response" status. If Alerting by email is enabled, the network manager receives 5 email alerts (from which 4 are superfluous and incorrect!).

With Error control

Only "Switch 10" gets the "No response" status. The servers all get the "Unknown" status (blue tick). The network manager only receives one alert email.

How Error Control determines the root-cause of a "No response from device" event

Every time a device stops responding to status requests, EC verifies the status of all devices in the chain (network path) of devices from the ThisStation object to the device that stops responding. If one of the devices in the chain already has the "No response" status, Monitor one assumes this the root-cause of the event. In this case, the device that stops responding gets the blue tick.

If more than just one chain exists (because of network redundancy), Monitor one verifies all possible network paths!

In order to determine all possible network path(s) from the "ThisStation object" to a device, Monitor one needs two pieces of information:

1. Link or connection information (which device is connected to which other device)
2. If a device has more than one connected interface, does this device forward traffic? Does it route or switch packets or is the second interface just used for redundancy reasons and is it "hot-standby"?

Monitor one extracts link or connection information from the network map. It is therefore extremely important to draw network maps as factually as possible. The information whether or not a device forwards traffic comes from the definition of the Class each device belongs to (The checkbox This device forwards traffic via routing, switching, bridging or repeating on the Add/Modify a Class window). It is obvious that if you fail to set this option correctly, EC will not work as expected!

The list below shows some examples of device Classes that forward traffic.

• Routers, switches, hubs and/or repeaters.
• Firewalls.
• Modems.
• Wireless Access-points.
• Multi-homed Windows servers with running RRAS services (routing enabled)

The list below shows examples of devices with more than one connected interface that do not forward traffic

• Windows servers with more than one interface connected to one ore more switches, from which only one interface is active and the others "hot-standby".
• Servers in a SAN cluster that have an interface connected to the network and another interface connected to a fiber switch in order to access data on a central storage. The latter interface is not used for forwarding traffic but only for accessing the data on the central storage.

Enabling Error control

Enabling Error Control is simple; just add the ThisStation object to the network map and add a link object between the object and the switch or hub to which it is actually connected. The ThisStation object is a special purpose object representing the physical workstation (or server) that runs the Monitor one software. The ThisStation object is the key object for the "Error control" feature.

After adding the "ThisStation" object (and also after each time you add or remove links between device objects) the EC information database needs to synchronize. The EC icon on the Monitor one control panel has changed to the Sync icon: . In order to start synchronizing, just click this icon. After seconds the Icon will change back to the normal EC Icon.

During synchronizing, Monitor one automatically switches to Designer mode and will prevent you from entering Designer mode while processing!

The time it takes to synchronize the EC information database heavily depends on the amount of redundancy (the number of redundant paths) in your network and can take from less than a second to a couple of minutes!

Verifying Error Control activity

If Error Control is enabled, it takes more time before a "No response" status is propagated to the multilevel network map structure and the control panel. The color of the "EC panel" on the Monitor one main window shows Error Control activity.

• A white EC panel indicates: Error Control disabled (The "ThisStation" object has not been added to the map).
• A Green EC panel indicates: Error Control is enabled and Idle
• A yellow EC panel indicates: Error Control is enabled and currently busy trying to determine the root-cause of a "No response" event!

The "ThisStation" object can only be added once (of course!)

Verifying network paths used by Error control

You can verify whether your map is "EC proof" by enabling EC and after that clicking the speedbutton on the Monitor one control panel.

Example 1.

A small company has two offices in different cities connected by internet via ADSL. The Firewall in the main office has a problem and is down. As you can see from the screenshot, EC is enabled (the "ThisStation" object is present on the map) but nevertheless all devices in the remote office have been marked "down" (erroneously)!

In the above case, the problem is caused by not checking the "This device forwards traffic…." checkbox for the Class the device "InternetCloud" belongs to. As a result, Monitor one "thinks" that it cannot reach the remote office devices at the other end of the WAN link. Monitor one "thinks" that there are no network paths available from the "ThisStation" object to the devices in the remote offices and displays the little "network disconnected" symbols at the bottom left of each device in the remote office. The "InternetCloud" device represents the huge internet routing network in one device.

After checking the "This device forwards traffic……" checkbox for the Class the "InternetCloud" device belongs to, the network map shows:

Example 2.

The screenshot above shows another interesting example. For reasons of redundancy, a cluster system has two connections to two different switches. Only the first NIC is active, the second one is "Hot-standby". By mistake, the "Forward" setting of the Class the device "Cluster1" belongs to is checked. Switch4 is actually down! Because of the "forward" setting of Cluster1, Monitor one "thinks" that there is an alternate network path to device Switch3, gets no reply from device Switch3 and marks it accordingly.

After clicking the EC verifier speedbutton on the Monitor one control panel, the map shows:

Only TestServer1 has the "No Error Control information available" indicator (it is not connected).

After resetting the "Forward" control (unchecking the checkbox) of the Class the device Cluster1 belongs to, the map shows:

The Desktop feature

The Desktop feature allows you to save frequently used desktop setups to the database for easy restoring later. A desktop setup contains the size and position of opened map- and Shooter-windows. The Desktop feature is especially useful in large networks with many "areas of interest" or trouble spots.

Saving a Desktop setup

To save the current desktop settings, click the Desktop tab on the Monitor one main window and after that click the speedbutton. Enter a descriptive name into the Desktop name popup window and click the Save button. The new Desktop in immediately in effect and appears in the combobox.

Updating a Desktop setup

If you change the desktop (if you close maps or if you start new real-time Shooters) you can save these modifications to the currently selected Desktop by clicking the speedbutton.

Removing a Desktop setup

A Desktop setup can be removed from the database by selecting it from the combobox and clicking the speedbutton.