Using the Administration Application

• On SunNet Manager select, Tools > CWB-Administration from the menu bar.

• On HP-OV and NetView for AIX, select CWBlue > Administration from the menu bar.

Step 2   Log in to the remote UNIX host as root (or with a username of your own choosing).

Step 3   Set your DISPLAY environment variable to export the display from the remote host to your local workstation. Depending on which shell you are using, use one of the following commands:

• From the K shell (ksh):

• From the C shell (csh) or TC shell (tcsh):

Step 4   To start the CiscoWorks Blue Administration application, enter the following commands:

Discovery is the process by which the DLSw application queries each device in the network to determine whether it is enabled for DLSw networking. Each time the DLSw application finds a router, it performs one of the following actions:

There are several ways in which the DLSw application can discover the routers in a network. You can provide a list of enabled routers in a special file called a seed file. Or you can let the Maps application get its information from an NMS database.

Both methods of discovery are described in the following subsections:

Seed File Format

Each record in the seed file can be either a comment or a router specification. You can list the routers in any order within the seed file.

A comment is a single line of text that begins with the pound (#) character, as shown below.

or

Use the following conventions for the router specification:

Step 2   When prompted, enter the router's device name and its read community string.

Step 3   Click OK.

The DLSw application adds the router to the database, polls the router's MIB, and adds the MIB information to the database. Watch the status area to see a message indicating the success or failure of this polling.

Note   The method that you select for specifying the status of aggregated peers affects all aggregates on the map.

Using the Worst-Case Status

You can choose to have all aggregated peers displayed in the color that is used for the peer with the worst status. For example, if the worst peer connection represented in the aggregated peer connection is inactive, then the aggregated peer connection is displayed as a red line and its aggregated peer router is also displayed in red.

To specify how aggregated peers are displayed, use the following procedure:

Step 2   Select Propagate Highest Abnormal Status.

Step 3   Click Apply.

Using a Calculated Status

A peer connection can have one of four statuses: active, degraded, inactive, or unknown. Degraded, and inactive statuses are considered abnormal. When all peer connections have unknown status, the aggregate status is "unknown."

You can choose to have the aggregated peers displayed in a color that represents a status calculated from that of the individual peers which make up the aggregation. The calculation is based on the percentage of peers in the aggregation whose condition is abnormal. An abnormal condition is based on the reported status of the peer.

To determine how to display an aggregated peer, look at the percentage of individual peers with an abnormal condition in the aggregated peer. Once that percentage is determined, you define two threshold values: the Marginal% value and the Critical% value.

Specifying the Threshold Percentages

To specify percentages for the Marginal% value and Critical% value, use the following procedure:

Step 2   Select Threshold Value (%) and enter the values in the Critical% and Marginal% fields.

Step 3   Click Apply.

Defining the Marginal% Threshold

You define the Marginal% value for your network. The default Marginal% value for DLSw aggregated peers is 0 percent.

Defining the Critical% Threshold

You define the Critical% value for your network. The default Critical% value for DLSw aggregated peers is 20 percent.

A special case occurs when all peers are unknown. In this case, the aggregated peer is considered unknown and is displayed in blue.

Calculating the Status for Peer Connections

DLSw calculates the status of an aggregated peer connection using the following method:

Step 2   DLSw compares the percentage of abnormal peer connections (x percent) to the Critical% value and to the Marginal% value.

Step 3   DLSw now calculates the status of the aggregated peer connection.

• If x percent is greater than or equal to 0 percent, but less than or equal to the Marginal% value, then the aggregated peer connection is considered active and is colored green.

• If x percent is greater than the Marginal% value, but less than or equal to the Critical% value, then the aggregated peer connection is considered degraded and is colored yellow.

• If x percent is greater than the Critical% value, then the aggregated peer connection is considered inactive and is colored red.

For example, there is a key router with six peer connections: three connections are active; one connection is unknown; and two connections are inactive. That means that 50 percent of the peer connections have abnormal status. Here are some scenarios:

• If we set the Marginal% value to 0 percent and the Critical% value to
  20 percent (which are the default values), the 50 percent abnormal number falls above the Critical% value. The status of the aggregated peer connection is inactive and is displayed in red.

• If we set the Marginal% value to 30 percent and the Critical% value to
  80 percent, the 50 percent abnormal number falls between the Critical% value and the Marginal% value. The status of the aggregated peer connection is degraded and is displayed in yellow.

• If we set the Marginal% value to 60 percent and the Critical% value to
  80 percent, the 50 percent abnormal number falls below the Marginal% value. The status of the aggregated peer connection is active and is displayed in green.

• If the router is enabled for RSRB, the discover process stores that router name as an RSRB router in the database, and it polls that router.

• If the router is not enabled for RSRB, the discover process stores that router name as a non-RSRB router in the database, and it does not poll that router.

• If a router cannot be accessed by SNMP, the discover process continues trying to reach that router on every discovery iteration until it can determine whether the router is enabled for RSRB.

There are several ways that the RSRB application can discover the routers in a network. You can provide a list of enabled routers in a special file called a seed file. Or you can let the Maps application get its information from the NMS database.

The discovery methods are described in the following sections:

Seed File Format

Each record in the seed file can be either a comment or a router specification. You can list the routers in any order within the seed file.

Comments

A comment is a single line of text that begins with the pound (#) character, as shown in the following line:

Router Specifications

A router specification has one of the following formats:

or

Use the following conventions for the router specification:

• The delimiter can be a space or a colon (:).

• router can be either a host name or the IP address of a router in the network. This is the same label that marks the router on a map.

• ReadCommunityString is the read community string for that router. If you do not include this, the default read community string of "public" is used. You can use an asterisk (*) as a place holder for the default read community string, or you can just omit it.

Cross-Application Use

You can use the same seed file for all three Maps applications (DLSw, RSRB, and APPN). Although the DLSw application uses a third parameter on each router entry to identify a router as a DLSw key device, that parameter is ignored for the RSRB and APPN applications. The following lines are from a sample seed file:

Note   The seed file should not contain any extraneous characters, spaces, or blank lines. Also, remember that the device names and read community strings are case-sensitive.

Using the Seed File for Discovery

To use a seed file for discovery, use the following procedure:

Step 2   Start RSRB and select Admin > Discover > Seed File to display the Seed File Discover window.

Step 2   When prompted, enter the router's device name and its read community string.

Step 3   Click OK. The Maps application adds the router to the database, polls the router's MIB, and adds the MIB information to the database.

Watch the status area for a message indicating the success or failure of this polling.

The process of finding an IP address for each APPN node is called discovery. APPN starts with the APPN CP name for each node. Then it discovers the IP address by prompting you to enter an IP address or device name (and read community string) for each CP name the first time you request a view. The APPN application maintains this correlation between IP address and CP name for subsequent sessions.

To avoid being prompted for IP addresses or host names, you can perform a one-time discovery of the entire APPN network. For APPN, this discovery is the process of querying all IP devices in the network to determine whether they are also APPN network nodes, and, if so, to get their APPN names.

This process discovers all the devices in the seed file or database. After discovery is complete, select View > Global to display the global view.

Launching Discovery Using a Network Management System

We recommend that you do not launch the discovery process using an NMS because the NMS selects a topology agent at random. It is better to explicitly select a topology agent or to use a seed file of network nodes from which to select a network topology agent. APPN queries the devices from the seed file in the order in which they are listed. You can launch discovery using an NMS to correlate the IP addresses with CP names for the remaining nodes.

• If you request discovery by seed file in the Startup dialog box

• If you request discovery by seed file after selecting Admin > DiscoverSeed File

Seed File Format

Each record in the seed file can be a comment or a router specification. You can list the routers in any order within the seed file, but the order of routers in the seed file determines the order in which the routers are discovered to select a network topology agent.

Comments

A comment is a single line of text that begins with the pound (#) character, as follows:

Router Specifications

A router specification has one of the following formats:

or

Use the following conventions for the router specification:

The delimiter can be a space or a colon (:).

router can be either a host name or the IP address of a router in the network.

Cross-Application Use

You can use the same seed file for all three Maps applications (DLSw, RSRB, and APPN). Although DLSw has a third parameter on each router entry to identify a router as a key device, that parameter is ignored for the APPN and RSRB applications. The following lines are from a sample seed file:

Note   The seed file should not contain any extraneous characters, spaces, or blank lines. Also, remember that the device names and read community strings are case-sensitive.

Using the Seed File for Discovery

To use a seed file to provide the information to the application, use the following procedure:

Step 2   Start APPN and select Admin > Discover > Seed File. to display the Seed File Discover window.

Step 2   In the Discover list, select one or more of the following protocol types:

• RSRB to discover devices running the RSRB protocol.

• DLSw to discover devices running the DLSw protocol.

• Tn3270 to discover devices running the TN3270 protocol. To use this function, you must have a valid license for the SNA View application.

• APPN to discover devices running the APPN protocol.

Note   After you run discovery for TN3270 or APPN, cwbsnamapsd is automatically restarted to refresh its cache.

Step 3   Then select a method of discovery:

Step 2   In the Device name field, enter the host names or IP addresses, separated by spaces, of the devices that you want to add.

Step 3   In the Read Community field, enter the read community string of the device that you want to add.

Step 4   Click OK. The new device is added to the database.

After you add new devices, the DLSw poller and cwbsnamapsd are automatically restarted to update the following:

• The database with circuit information used in SNA correlation

• The cwbsnamapsd cache with current TN3270 and APPN information

From the CiscoWorks Blue Administration application, you can use the Delete button to remove devices from the database. You might want to delete devices for the following reasons:

• The devices might be in the database because you entered incorrect names in a seed file.

• The devices are no longer running any of the managed protocols (DLSw, RSRB, APPN, or TN3270).

• You now discover devices from the NMS and have several devices that will never run a managed protocol.

• You have a device that is running a managed protocol but you do not want to manage (poll) that device.

• You want to speed up the discovery process by deleting devices that are not running any of the managed protocols (the discovery process always tries to rediscover devices that are in the database, but not running the selected protocol).

Use the following procedure to delete devices from the database:

Step 2   The Devices list all the devices (routers) in the database. Select all the devices you want to delete.

Step 3   Click the >> button to move the selected devices into the Selected list.

The Selected list displays the devices to be deleted. Use the >> and << buttons to move devices between the Devices list and the Selected list.

If you inadvertently move devices to the Selected list which you do not want to delete, select those devices and click the << button to move them back to the Devices list.

Step 4   Click OK to delete the selected devices. The selected devices are deleted from the database.

Step 2   The Devices list box displays the devices currently in the database. Select all the devices you want to modify.

Step 3   Click the >> button to move the selected devices into the Selected list. The selected list box displays the devices to be modified. Use the >> and << buttons to move devices between the Devices list and the Selected list.

If you inadvertently move devices which you do not want modified to the Selected list, select those devices and click the << button to move them back to the
Devices list.

Step 4   The Read Community string specifies the new read community string for the selected devices. Enter a new read community string to be applied to all the selected devices.

Step 5   Click OK to change the read community string for the selected devices. The read community string is changed in the CiscoWorks Blue database (not in the router itself) for the selected devices.

Step 2   The Devices list displays the devices currently in the database. Select all the devices you want to rediscover.

If you select more than one device by pressing the Ctrl or Shift key, all selected devices must have the same read community string.

Step 3   Click the >> button to move the selected devices into the Selected list. The Selected list box displays the devices to be rediscovered.

If you inadvertently move devices which you do not want rediscovered, select those devices and click the << button to move them back to the Devices list.

Step 4   The Read Community String field specifies the read community string fort the selected devices. Enter a new read community string to be applied to all the selected devices.

Step 5   Click OK. The selected devices are rediscovered.

After you rediscover devices, the DLSw poller and cwbsnamapsd are automatically restarted to update the database with circuit information used in SNA correlation and to update the cwbsnamapsd cache with current TN3270 and APPN information.

Step 2   The Devices list displays the DLSw devices that are not key devices. Select all the devices that you want to make key devices.

Step 3   Click the >> button to move the selected devices into the Selected list. The Selected list box displays the DLSw devices that are designated as key devices.

When you click OK, the devices in the Selected list become key devices.

If you inadvertently move devices to the Selected list which you do not want designated as key devices, select those devices and click the << button to move them back to the Devices list.

Step 4   Click OK. The devices in the Selected list become DLSw key devices. The devices in the Devices list remain unchanged.

After you add key devices, the DLSw poller is automatically restarted, updating the database with circuit information used in SNA correlation.