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Table of Contents

Using Threshold Manager

Using Threshold Manager

Threshold Manager is a CiscoView-launched threshold management application that allows you to set thresholds and retrieve event information. Threshold Manager relies on RMON (Remote Network Monitoring) alarm and event groups supported in Cisco routers and switches. This product expects a working knowledge of RMON.

Threshold Manager provides an easy-to-use interface to access device-specific threshold settings. Using Threshold Manager, you can set thresholds for network devices using Cisco-provided, predefined default policies. These policies can be applied automatically to target devices. Threshold Manager also supports detailed customization of threshold settings.

For a list of supported devices, refer to the README file and the release note. Threshold Manager also has online help available.

This chapter provides the following sections:

Starting Threshold Manager from CiscoView

After Threshold Manager is installed, the CiscoView menu has an additional pulldown menu item called Tools. Select Tools>Threshold Manager to launch Threshold Manager. Note that the Tools menu item is only available when CiscoView is invoked on devices that support RMON and have an IOS image that has RMON support built into it. The Tools item is always enabled for non-IOS devices such as Catalyst switches.

To access Threshold Manager from CiscoView, complete the following steps:


Step 1   Go to CiscoView - Main window.

Step 2   Select File>Open Device.

Step 3   Enter the IP Address or Host Name of the Threshold Manager in the Host field.

Step 4   Enter the Read Community string.

Step 5   Enter the Write Community string.

Step 6   Click OK.

Step 7   Select Tools>Threshold Manager from the CiscoView menu bar.

The Threshold Manager Events List window appears.

Starting Threshold Manager from Windows NT or Windows 95

You can also start Threshold Manager from the command line as a stand-alone application.


Step 1   Locate TM.EXE in File Manager.

Step 2   Select File>Run.

Step 3   Enter TM.EXE -I IP_Address

or

TM.EXE -n host_name

in the command field

where the following is a list of supported runtime arguments:

-I IP-address

or use

-n host name

is the IP address of the device you want to monitor

is the host name of the device. The default is the local machine.

-p

is the directory where Threshold Manager is installed.

-r read_community_string

is an SNMP password. The default is public.

-w write_community_string

is an SNMP password. The default is public.

-e retry count

is the number of times Threshold Manager sends a request to an unreponsive device. The default is 3.

-m timeout

is the amount of time, in seconds Threshold Manager waits before issuing another retry. The default is 10 seconds.

-f refresh_interval

is the time, in seconds, the event list window refreshes. The default is 360 seconds.

Introducing Threshold Manager Terms

In order to understand how Threshold Manager operates, you should be familiar with the terminology associated with the product. This section defines common terms you see throughout the interface. These are all discussed in detail in various sections of this chapter.

What Is a Threshold?

Thresholds define the range in which you expect your network to perform. If these thresholds exceed or go below the expected bounds, you examine these areas for potential problems. You can create thresholds for a specific device.

What Is a Policy?

Threshold Manager uses policies to set thresholds in a Cisco router or switch. A policy is a set of predefined configuration data that specifies the condition for triggering a threshold event.

What Is a Policy File?

A policy file is a collection of one or more policies that defines threshold values for specific MIB variable. Each threshold policy is associated with a single SNMP MIB variable type. If a policy specifies an interface type, Threshold Manager applies the threshold policy to the matching device interface. If the policy does not specify an interface type, the application applies the threshold value to all device interfaces. Multiple policy files can be enforced in a device or against a specific interface on a device.

There are two types of policy files available in Threshold Manager, a default policy and a customized policy.

What Is a Profile?

A profile is a group of threshold policy files that cover a specific management area. Threshold Manager supports four profile types:

What Is an Alarm?

An alarm is a list of parameters to be watched and pointers to events that are triggered when defined values cross a given threshold. These parameters and pointers are defined by the RMON alarm group. For instance, you define an alarm by picking a variable, such as the number of Ethernet collisions, plus a time interval, such as one second, and a threshold, such as 60 collisions. Given this scenario, an alarm is generated when the number of Ethernet collisions exceeds 60 in one second.

What Is an Event?

Alarms and events go hand in hand. An event defines what action is triggered as result of an alarm. For example as in the example given with alarms, when the number of collisions on an Ethernet segment exceeds 60 per second, the corresponding event can cause a trap message to be sent to one or more management stations. Events are defined by the RMON event group.

An event is generated by the RMON agent, which may or may not be triggered by a threshold crossing. An event may be signalled as a trap, a new entry in the RMON MIB log table, both, or neither. Threshold Manager displays all events captured from the log table of the RMON agent and correlates threshold-related events to the user-configured threshold policies.

What Is an Agent?

An agent is a process in the device that handles SNMP requests.

Managing Events

When you start Threshold Manager, the Threshold Manager events list window appears, as shown in Figure 5-1. The Threshold Manager Events List window is a view of threshold events stored as RMON log records in the managed device. This window also indicates the name of the target device. The name of the device displays as either the host name or IP address depending on how you identified the device when you launched Threshold Manager or CiscoView.


Figure 5-1: Threshold Manager Events List Window

Threshold Manager correlates the information from the event with an existing policy by comparing the object identifier (OID) of the event with the value of the Alarm variable in the policy configuration file. If a match occurs, Threshold Manager complements the event display fields of the logged entry with information from the policy file. If no match occurs between a logged event and a policy file, Threshold Manager displays a value of undefined in those fields that would be completed by the policy.

Each event occupies a single line in the Events List window and displays until one of the following situations occurs:

The managing events section includes the following topics:

Viewing Threshold Events

Select View>Retrieve Events.

The threshold event list contains the logged events retrieved from the agent. Threshold manager retrieves events at startup time, and when the refresh timer reaches a specified interval. For more information on the refresh timer, see "Viewing Device Properties."

When a threshold event is retrieved from the agent, Threshold Manager tries to correlate the information from the event with existing policies to show additional information about the event. If an event cannot be correlated back to any policy, Threshold Manager displays "undefined."

Each entry threshold in the event list contains the following fields associated with a policy:

Field Policy

Capture of Event Priority Icon

The Event Priority icon is a visual representation of the severity of the event. The policy file defining the thresholds that generate this event sets the priority value for the event. Allowable values are 1 through 3 with 1 being the most severe. If Threshold Manager cannot correlate the event with a policy file, the application assigns a priority value of 3.

Log Time

Time the event was logged. The RMON agent in the managed device generates this value.

Profile

The profile to which the threshold belongs. A profile is a group of policies. There are four profiles: system, interface, mon-etherstats, and customize.

Description

Threshold policy description.

Alarm Variable

Name of the MIB variable.

Priority

Priority of the event. Values are 1 (highest) to 3 (lowest). The predefined threshold policies have default priority value, but you can change the value according to the importance of the information to you. If Threshold manager cannot correlate the event with a policy file, it assigns the event a priority of 3.

Alarm OID

Object identifier of the particular variable to be sampled.

Log Description

Description of the event as defined in the RMON event entry that corresponds to this event.

Event Index

Index of the RMON event entry that corresponds to this event.

Log Index

Index of the RMON log entry.

Owner

A text string that identifies the network management station or person to contact regarding the policy file associated with the event.

You can sort the event list by clicking on the field headers. You can also change the width of the columns by clicking on the dividers between the field headers and stretching the column to the desired size. Press the Shift key and click the middle mouse button while dragging the divider.

To view a single event, go to the Events List window and double click on the event you want to see.

The Single Event View window appears as shown in Figure 5-2.


Figure 5-2: Single Event Window

It allows you to easily view all information pertaining to a specific event. You use the Single Event View window to determine what threshold settings in the RMON agent generated the event.

The Single Event View window is divided into two panes: Profile Identification and Agent Log Information.

Profile Identification Pane

The Profile Identification pane contains parameters related to the threshold settings that generated the event. This information is useful to help you determine what conditions triggered the event. These parameters are the:

Profile

Contains the name of the profile to which the policy file belongs.

Description

Contains a description of the policy. This is the MIB variable name.

Threshold Parameters: Interval

Interval in seconds over which the data is sampled and compared with rising and falling thresholds.

Threshold Parameters: Rising Threshold

Threshold for the sampled statistic. When the current sampled value is greater than or equal to this threshold, a single event is generated. A single event is also generated if the first sample after this entry becomes active is greater than or equal to this threshold, and the associated Startup Alarm is equal to rising.

After a rising event is generated, another such event is not generated until the sampled value falls below this threshold and reaches Falling Threshold. See "Rising and Falling Events."

Threshold Parameters: Falling Threshold

Threshold for the sampled statistic. When the current sampled value is less than or equal to this threshold, and the value at the last sampling interval was greater than this threshold, a single event is generated. A single event is also be generated if the first sample after this entry becomes active is less than or equal to this threshold and the associated Startup Alarm is equal to falling.

After a falling event is generated, another such event is not generated until the sampled value rises above this threshold and reaches Rising Threshold. See "Rising and Falling Events."

Sampling Type

Method of sampling the selected variable and calculating the value to be compared against the thresholds. If the value of this object is Absolute, the value of the selected variable is compared directly with the thresholds at the end of the sampling interval. If the value of this object is Delta, the value of the selected variable at the last sample is subtracted from the current value, and the difference compared with the thresholds.

Startup Alarm

Alarm that may be sent when this entry first becomes active. If the first sample after this entry becomes active is greater than or equal to Rising Threshold, and Startup Alarm is equal to rising, then a single rising alarm is generated. If the first sample after this entry becomes active is less than or equal to Falling Threshold, and Startup Alarm is equal to falling, then a single falling alarm is generated.

Rising Event Type

Notification that the agent makes about the rising event. In the case of log, an entry is made in the log table for each event. In the case of snmp-trap, an SNMP trap is sent to one or more management stations.

Falling Event Type

Notification that the agent makes about the falling event. In the case of log, an entry is made in the log table for each event. In the case of snmp-trap, an SNMP trap is sent to one or more management stations.

Priority

The box indicates the priority the event has.

Owner Identification

Text string, usually the name or user ID of the person who configured this entry and is therefore using the resources assigned to it.

Event Community

Specifies the SNMP community to which an SNMP trap is sent. Can be any text string; default is public.

If the threshold settings were created by a Threshold Manager policy file, the values from that policy file are displayed. If no policy file is associated with the threshold settings, the fields remain blank.

Agent Log Information (Configuration Information)

The Agent Log Information pane contains information obtained by Threshold Manager from the RMON agent log. This information provides:

Because the Agent Log Information contains information from the RMON agent log in the managed device, these values display whether or not a Threshold Manager policy file can be associated with the event.

Table 5-1 provides a description of the action buttons.


Table 5-1: Action Buttons
Button Action

Description

Click the Description button to see a more detailed description of the event.

Delete

Click the Delete button to delete the event from the event log. This has the same effect as selecting the event in the events list window and selecting Delete>Selected Events. You may want to delete events when you have finished analyzing a particular event type and no longer need to view it, or you want to decrease the number of events displayed in the events list window.

Close

Click the Close button to close the window.

Help

Click the Help button to get online help about this window.

Figure 5-3 shows when rising and falling events occur with the Startup Alarm set to Rising and Falling.


Figure 5-3: When Threshold Events Occur

Retrieving Events

Select View>Retrieve Events to force a retrieve event action from the Events List window.

Threshold Manager retrieves events from the RMON agent log in the following situations:

When the application is operational, Threshold Manager automatically retrieves events from the RMON log at regular intervals. This interval is defined by the refresh timer parameter associated with that instance of Threshold Manager. This parameter is defined when you initiate a Threshold Manager session. The default value is 360 seconds. If the refresh timer is set to 0, the Threshold Manager will not automatically retrieve events from the RMON agent.

Sorting Events

To sort events, go to the Events List window and click any column header to sort the items in that column.

Threshold Manager allows you to change the order in which you view events in the Events List window. This capability permits you to view events in a manner that is most meaningful to you. You can reorder the following fields:

Printing Events

To print events do the following:


Step 1   Open the Threshold Manager window.

Step 2   Make sure your printer is setup properly for the host system.

Step 3   Select File>Print to print out events in the window.

Step 4   Enter the name of the printer in the Print dialog.

Step 5   Click OK to print the events.

Because events can be deleted from the log, printing lets you maintain an historical log of device activity. This log is also helpful in accumulating data to determine your network baselines and performance trends. The printed version of the Event List window contains the information described in "Viewing Threshold Events."

Deleting Events

You can remove events from the RMON log in the managed device. You delete events because you:

Because events are physically removed from the RMON agent log, deleting events also improves the performance of Threshold Manager when retrieving and displaying new events.

To delete a selected event from the RMON agent log:


Step 1   Highlight the event to be deleted by selecting it from any field within the Events List window.

Step 2   Select Delete>Delete Selected Events.

To delete all events from the RMON agent log:


Step 1   Select Delete>Delete All Events.

You can also delete selected events from the single event view window.

Any user who has launched an instance of Threshold Manager against a device can delete events from that RMON agent log. This means that your Events List window might not display the current contents of the RMON agent log of a device if that device is being managed by more than one Threshold Manager. Your Events List window reflects the change when:

Threshold Manager allows you to delete selected events or all events in the log. When you delete a selected event, all events with the same eventIndex value are removed from the RMON log.

Event Task Examples

Table 5-2 shows examples of event tasks that you may use.


Table 5-2: Event Tasks
Task Description Solution Operations

A network segment is having congestion problems.

Check if any threshold events have occurred in the device close to the segment.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select View>Retrieve Events.

View all of the displayed events.

Click on the header of any column in the main window to sort the events to investigate the correlation between threshold events and the network problem.

Double-click on an interesting event to bring up the Single Event View window to investigate the threshold setting that caused the event to occur.

Click on Description to read the description of why this event was generated.

Sort the tasks by priority.

N/A

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Sort the events based on priority by clicking on the header of the Priority column.

Finished investigating the displayed events.

Delete some events in the box to reduce memory usage in the agent.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select the events and use Delete> Selected Events to delete the selected ones; or

Use Delete>All Events to delete all the events.

Managing Thresholds

With Threshold Manager you can manage existing threshold settings and policies or create new policies. This capability allows you to tailor alarms and events to your specific network needs. The Configure Threshold dialog box provides you with the tools to:

The Managing Thresholds section covers the following topics:

Displaying Thresholds

To access the Configure Threshold dialog box, select Config>Thresholds...

The Configure Threshold dialog box defaults to the Config Threshold window. This window allows access to other windows that provide information about managed devices and allow you to make changes to the managed device. Figure 5-4 shows the Configure Thresholds window.


Figure 5-4: Configure Thresholds Window

The Config Threshold window is divided into two panes. The upper pane is called the Policies pane. The lower pane is called the Current Threshold Settings pane.

Policy Pane

The Policies pane displays all the existing policy files that can be applied to the managed device. The displayed policies can be a default policy provided by Cisco Systems, a modified default policy, or any user-defined policy. Threshold Manager provides detailed information about each policy to help you determine which thresholds to set in the RMON agent.

The content of this pane is specific to the instance of Threshold Manager and is visible only at your local machine.

This pane also that allows you to:

For more information on the policies, see "Using Policy Files" later in this chapter.

Current Threshold Pane

The Current Threshold Settings pane displays the list of the threshold settings for the RMON agent in a managed device. The threshold settings that display an active status are those threshold settings that are enforced in the RMON agent. These threshold settings are viewable from any Threshold Manager launched against that device. The Current Threshold Settings pane also provides information on the number of current threshold settings, the status of those settings, and the last time the current threshold settings pane was updated. From the Current Threshold Settings pane, you can:

If Threshold Manager created the threshold settings, the fields displayed in the Current Threshold Settings pane will contain data provided by the policy file. If Threshold Manager did not create the policy or Threshold Manager cannot associate a policy with an event, then only the information provided by the RMON agent will display.

Managing Existing Thresholds

With Threshold Manager you can manage existing threshold settings and policies or create new policies. This capability allows you to tailor alarms and events to your specific network needs. The Configure Threshold dialog box provides you with the tools to:

To access the Configure Threshold dialog box, select Config>Thresholds...

Obtaining Current Information about the Managed Device

The Device Summary tab, shown in Figure 5-5, displays summary information about the device and the RMON MIB. The Device Summary dialog box provides you with information about the device currently managed by Threshold Manager. This is helpful if you want to determine the class of the target device or if you want to obtain information about the device interfaces. Go to the Events List window and select Config>Device Summary tab to access the Device Summary dialog box.


Figure 5-5: Thresholds Device Summary

Table 5-3 provides a description of the fields in the Device Summary dialog box.


Table 5-3: Device Summary Window
Field Description

Device Class

Type of device.

Last Refresh Time

Last time events were retrieved by the agent.

Log Entries
Alarm Entries
Event Entries

Number of entries in the log, alarm, and event tables.1

System Name
System Contact
System Uptime
System Description
System Location

Information about the system. One or more fields may be blank depending on the device configuration.

Interface/Port List

List of interfaces and ports available to the device. The icon (NT only) in the left column is either an I (interface) or P (port). A red icon indicates the interface or port is down, and a green icon indicates the interface or port is up.

The list of ports and interfaces for the device provides you with information regarding the individual interfaces. This is helpful when designing and applying policies for specific interfaces. You can sort on the fields within this window to present the information in a manner that is most meaningful to you.

1The counters of the RMON tables in the Device Summary dialog reflect the value at the time the interface table entries were completely retrieved. Since tables are retrieved asynchronously within Threshold Manager and a large log table may complete much later than the interface table, there are situations when the counters in the Device Summary dialog do not match the actual counters.

Click Retrieve to get the latest Interface/Port information.

Changing the Managed Device

There is a one-to-one relationship between a single instance of Threshold Manager and the managed device. Also, when Threshold Manager is launched from CiscoView, the application receives default run-time arguments used for operations. Threshold Manager allows you to alter both the target device and the run-time parameters from within the application. This is particularly useful if you want to use a single instance of Threshold Manager to apply threshold settings in multiple devices or if you started the application with the wrong run-time parameters.

This device information is changed from the Properties dialog box. The Properties dialog box lets you

Go to the Event List window and select Config>Properties to access the Properties dialog box.

Configuring Thresholds

The Thresholds tab of the Configure Thresholds window shown in Figure 5-6, allows you to modify and create policies and work with threshold settings.


Figure 5-6: Configure Thresholds

This window consists of two panes: the Policies pane and the Current Threshold Settings pane, which are described in "Managing Thresholds." For information on changing policies, see "Using Policy Files" later in this chapter. When Threshold Manager is installed, there are eighteen policy files that show up in this window. You can select one or all to use as thresholds.

Adding a Threshold Setting

Before you can set a threshold in the RMON agent, you must first add the settings to the Current Threshold Settings pane. You can add all policies as threshold settings or you can select to add just specific ones. A policy can result in multiple threshold settings in the Current Threshold Settings pane. The number of times Threshold Manager adds the policy to the Current Threshold Settings pane is dependent on the target type and number of interfaces defined in the policy file.

To add all policies in the Policies pane to the Current Threshold Settings pane, select the Add All Policy button.

To add selected policies to the Current Threshold Settings pane:

A policy added to the Current Threshold Settings pane retains a pending status. The pending status does not change until you enforce the threshold settings to the RMON agent. Threshold settings with a pending status are viewable only from your local machines.

Modifying Threshold Settings

To Modify Threshold Settings:


Step 1   Go to the Configure Thresholds window.

Step 2   Go to the Current Threshold Settings pane.

Step 3   Double Click on the selected threshold setting.

The Modify Threshold Settings dialog box appears. In this window you can do the following:

Threshold Manager lets you modify existing threshold settings. This feature lets you temporarily alter threshold settings for an Alarm object instance. This is useful when you want to monitor network performance for a specific period of time or to fine-tune threshold settings before permanently applying them. Changes to existing threshold settings are not saved in the associated policy file. Therefore, if the device loses power or is shut down, the modifications to the threshold settings are lost. If you want to make permanent changes to the threshold settings, alter the associated policy file and add the new threshold settings to the Current Threshold Settings pane.

You can alter a threshold setting that has a pending or active status. A threshold setting with a failed status indicates the threshold setting was rejected by the RMON agent and cannot be altered.

Deleting a Threshold Setting

You can remove active threshold settings enforced in the RMON agent and pending threshold settings from the Current Threshold Settings pane. Deleting a threshold setting removes all events associated with that threshold setting from the RMON log.

To delete selected threshold settings, regardless of status:

To delete more than one threshold setting, regardless of status:

Select the Delete All button, to remove all threshold settings, regardless of status

Threshold settings with a pending status are removed from the Current Threshold Setting pane when you:

Threshold Task Examples

Table 5-4 describes common Threshold Manager tasks.


Table 5-4: Common Threshold Tasks
Task Description Operations

When viewing the events, there are too many occurrences of a particular kind of event.

Modify the threshold parameters because they are set too low or too high with respect to the network baseline by performing the following steps:

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Double-click on the threshold.

Modify the rising and/or falling threshold parameter(s) to adjust to network baseline, so the events are generated only on exceptions.

Delete some thresholds to reduce load added by threshold monitoring.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Thresholds to bring up Configure Thresholds window.

Click Retrieve Thresholds to retrieve the current active thresholds from the managed agent.

Check the count of the current thresholds setting to see how many thresholds are active.

Select the threshold rows that are less critical to monitor.

Click Delete Selected to delete the thresholds from the agent. The events associated with these deleted thresholds are removed as well.

Use different threshold settings for each interface for interface-specific thresholds when the thresholds are still pending in the management station.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Thresholds to bring up Configure Thresholds window.

Double click on a threshold row in the lower pane of the window.

Modify the threshold parameters in the Modify Threshold Setting window.

Click Enforce to enforce to the agent.

Double-click on another threshold, and repeat the steps until the threshold setting for each interface is configured properly.

Adjust the event retrieving interval, because events are retrieved too frequently, and there is not that much event activity going on in this device.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Threshold Properties to bring up the Properties window.

Set the Refresh Timer to a larger number.

Click OK.

Using Policy Files

Threshold Manager is delivered with a set of predefined policy files. Threshold Manager uses policies described in a policy file to set threshold values into an RMON device agent. A threshold manager policy file contains at least one threshold policy, the default policy, for the Alarm variable defined in the policy file. A policy file may contain more than one threshold policy to define threshold values for specific interface types but it only contains policies for one MIB variable. In other words, there is a separate policy for each MIB variable. When an interface specific policy is defined, Threshold Manager applies the threshold policy to the matching interface type. If there is no interface specific threshold policy defined, Threshold Manager applies the default threshold value to all device interfaces.

Topics covered in this section include:

Policy File Format

There are many predefined policy files that are shipped together with the Threshold Manager. A policy file is a plain text file; it is defined by keywords that are used by Threshold Manager to scan the file. Each policy file defines a Alarm variable to be monitored by a device RMON agent, as well as one or more threshold policies to be set to the device agent for monitoring purposes.

In order to understand the meaning of policies and to simplify file parsing process, Threshold Manager imposes strict rules whenever a policy file is created either manually or through the Create Policy dialog in Threshold Manager. It is highly recommended that you create customized policy files by using the Threshold Manager graphic user interface.

A policy file is composed of many keyword-value pairs. A keyword and its value are separated by an equal sign "=". If the keyword requires more than one value, each value is separated by a colon ":". Each line of a policy profile contains only one keyword-value pair, for example:

Target_Type = etherStats
Rising_Threshold = 200
Falling_Threshold = 20
Sample_Interval = 60:0:300

The order of the keyword-value pair is not important. All white spaces are ignored by the Threshold Manager during file parsing. If a keyword appears more than once, the last keyword-value pair takes effect. The only exception to this rule is keyword Interface_Threshold.

Interface-Specific Policy

An interface-specific policy is defined by the keyword Interface_Threshold. There can be multiple Interface_Threshold keyword-value pairs in a policy profile, each of which defines specific threshold policy (value) for a particular interface type, for example:

Interface_Threshold = ethernetCsmacd:375000000:187500000:100000000
Interface_Threshold = ethernetCsmacd:37500000:18750000:10000000

The syntax of this special keyword-value pair is as follows:

Interface_Threshold=interface_type:rising_thresh_value:falling_thre sh_value:interface_speed

where interface_speed is optional.

Threshold Manager uses the interface-specific policy to set thresholds for the interface type involved. If the interface speed is specified in the policy, the policy is applied to interfaces that match both the interface type and speed. If interface speed is not present, the policy is applied to the interface that matches the specified interface type, regardless of its speed. The default policy is used to set thresholds for interfaces without an interface-specific policy defined.

Loading Policies

Policies are loaded into Threshold Manager during startup of Threshold Manager and when a new instance of Threshold Manager is launched to monitor another device. Once the policies are loaded, any new policy file created manually is ignored by Threshold Manager. However, a new policy file that is created and saved by the Create Policy Dialog is immediately visible inside the Threshold Manager.

Policy files are grouped into three types: global, device class, and host. All policy files are saved under the config directory of the Threshold Manager. Policy files under the config directory are global policy files and are used for all devices. Policy file under the device class sub-directory apply to devices that belong to the same device class family. Policy files that are saved in the host sub-directory are used to set threshold against only the specific host.

When reading policies for a given device, Threshold Manager first searches that host sub-directory to locate any host-specific policy files defined for that device, then it scans the device class sub-directory for policy files defined for that device class, and finally it picks up any policy files not defined elsewhere.

Naming Convention

  All policy files have a ".thd" file extension. Threshold Manager loads only policy files with a ".thd" extension. You can create new policy files in addition to those shipped with Threshold Manager. You can create new policy files manually or by using the Threshold Manager GUI. A policy file created using the Threshold Manager GUI is saved as one of the policy file classes based on user's choice with a file name alarm_variable_name.thd where alarm_variable_name is the alarm variable entered.
  The config directory is installed by the Threshold Manager installation script. Threshold Manager is installed under $NMSROOT/etc/cview/devices/Threshold-Mgr. The config directory is under Threshold-Mgr. CiscoView launches Threshold Manager with a default config directory of $NMSROOT/etc/cview/devices/Threshold-Mgr/config. However, this can be overridden by starting the Threshold Manager with -p Threshold Manager argument. Once Threshold Manager is started, you cannot change the Threshold Manager directory even when you launch a new instance of Threshold Manager from within the application to monitor another device.

Using the Default Policy Files

Threshold Manager comes with 18 policy files already defined. In addition, there may be policies that are device specific that are under the device sub-directories. These device-specific policies override the default policies.

Table 5-5 contains a brief description of the policy files.


Table 5-5: Default Policy File Descriptions
Policy File Description Default Threshold

avgBusy5

Average CPU busy in the last 5 minutes. See note in next entry.

90%

avgBusy1

Average CPU busy in the last minute Both policies 1 and 2 are used so that the user gets at least 2 events (traps and/or logs) in case the CPU's load keeps monotonously increasing.

70%

etherStatsOctets

Ethernet segment utilization (RMON Ethernet statistic group).

50%

freeMem

Free memory

Falling threshold (absolute): 500K

ifInOctets

Interface input utilization.

50%

ifOutOctets

Interface output utilization.

50%

locIfCarTrans

Carrier transitions.

10/minute

locIfReliab

Reliability of the interface.

Falling threshold is 240

locIfResets

Number of resets.

10/minute

locIfRestarts

Number of restarts.

10/minute

bufferFail

Buffer allocating failures.

5/30 second

bufferNoMem

Buffer creation failures.

5/30 second

etherStatsPkts

Ethernet segment tuilization (RMON Ethernet statistic group).

500/second

etherStatsCRCAlignErrors

Ethernet segment alignment error (RMON Ethernet statistic group).

50/minute

etherStatsCollisions

Ethernet segment collision errors (RMON Ethernet statistic group).

50/minute

etherStatsUndersizePkts

Ethernet segment size errors (RMON Ethernet statistic group).

50/minute

etherStatsOversizePkts

Ethernet segment size errors (RMON Ethernet statistic group).

50/minute

etherStatsFragments

Ethernet fragmentation errors (RMON Ethernet Statistic group).

50/minute

Modifying a Policy File

Threshold Manager allows you to modify an existing threshold policy file, so you can change threshold settings for an Alarm variable without redefining the complete policy. You can create a policy file once, then tailor it for specific interface types. Altering the policy file values does not change any previously added threshold settings, regardless of the status of those settings.

Double click on the selected policy in the policy pane to activate the Modify Threshold Policy dialog box. From this window, you can:

When you complete the modifications to the policy file, you can save the changes in the host-specific, device class, or global directories. Saving a policy file automatically updates the existing policy file in the Policies pane. Selecting the Continue button will directly apply the altered policy to the Current Threshold Settings pane without saving the changes.

Customizing a Policy File to Create New Threshold Settings

A powerful feature of Threshold Manager is that it allows you to easily create customized threshold policies. This means that you can design threshold settings that are specific to the conditions and performance of your network. Customization also means you can define which Alarm variables are monitored, the type of threshold variable, and the specific interfaces to which the thresholds apply.

You create new threshold policies to:

Cisco maintains a list of all SNMP MIBs supported by IOS version 10.2 and later. This list can be found at:

  ftp://ftp.cisco.com/pub/mibs/supportlists/

The SNMP MIBs are organized by device class for both routers and switches.

Creating a New Policy File to Create New Thresholds

You create a new policy from the Create Threshold Policy dialog box. You access this screen by selecting the Create New Policy button in the Modify Threshold dialog box.

The Create Threshold Policy window provides the following fields:

The Create Threshold Policy dialog box lets you define the:

Configuration File Content

The policy configuration file is a text file and sets the parameters of the threshold for a specific MIB variable. The data in the configuration file is composed of keyword-value pairs in the form of <item name> = <item value>. The keywords contained in the configuration file are as follows:

  The syntax of the Interface_Threshold keyword is:
  <interface type>:<rising threshold value>:<falling threshold value>:<interface speed>
  The following is an example of the Interface_Threshold keyword and value:
Interface_Threshold = ethernet Csmacd:375000000:187500000:100000000

Policy configuration files are secured using the standard file security procedures in the host operating system.

After you create a policy file, you can:

You can save a threshold policy file in the host-specific, device class, or global directory. Remember that the host-specific directory takes on the name of the managed device. This name can be the host name or IP address of the device, depending on how you identified the device when you launched Threshold Manager. Policy files previously saved under the host name of a device will not appear in the Policies pane if you specify the IP address of the managed device when you launch Threshold Manager.

You cannot save a policy file that has a customized target type.

If the policy file is of an interface variable type, you can apply the threshold settings to one or more interfaces.

You can also add a policy file directly as a threshold setting without saving it to disk. This feature lets you create and add temporary threshold settings. However, there is no permanent record of these policies. The threshold settings are lost when the managed device is turned off or goes down, or when you delete the threshold settings from Threshold Manager.

Select the Continue button after creating the policy file to add it to the Current Threshold Settings pane as a threshold setting. The newly added threshold setting will have a status of pending.

Adding Settings to Multiple Interfaces

Threshold Manager lets you assign multiple threshold settings to one or more interfaces within a single policy file. You can define common variables once while retaining the freedom to specify individual threshold on an interface-by-interface basis.

To add multiple interface threshold settings within a single policy file:


Step 1   Define the first set of threshold parameters.

Step 2   Select the interface type of the target interface.

Step 3   Click on the Add button to add the interface type with its configured threshold settings to the Interface List.

Step 4   Define the next set of threshold parameters.

Step 5   Select the target interface type and add it to the interface list.

Repeat Steps 4 and 5 as many times as necessary.

After you have defined each specific threshold setting, you can apply it to one or more physical interfaces. Select the Continue button to access the Interface Selection dialog box. This screen displays all available interfaces in an up state for that device. Select the desired interfaces and click the OK button to apply the threshold settings to the physical interfaces. This action will also place the threshold settings in the lower pane of the Configure Threshold window with a status of pending.

Deleting a Policy File

The current implementation of Threshold Manager does not provide a mechanism to delete existing threshold policies from within the application. You delete policies using the delete function of the Windows operating systems.

The policies are located in the Threshold-Mgr /Config directory. Depending on how you saved the policy file, it can be found in one of the following subdirectories:

All default policies in this release of Threshold Manager are found in the global directory.

Policy Task Examples

Table 5-6 describes common Threshold Manager policy tasks.


Table 5-6: Policy Task Examples
Task Description Operations

Monitor all recommended thresholds on the managed agent.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Thresholds to bring up the Configure Thresholds window.

Click Add All Policies.

The thresholds are populated in the lower pane of the window based on the device configuration.

Click Enforce All.

All pending thresholds are downloaded to the agent, and become active thresholds.

Do not want to overload the agent with too many active thresholds by leveraging only the interface profiles.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Thresholds to bring up the Configure Thresholds window.

Click on the Profile title to sort the polices by profile name.

Select all of the policy rows in the interface profile to be monitored.

Click Add Selected Policies.

The selected thresholds are populated in the lower pane of the window for all currently Up interfaces, and are marked "Pending" in the Status column.

Click Enforce All.

All the pending thresholds are downloaded to the agent, and become active thresholds, marked "Active" in the Status column.

Create a new threshold policy and save it for later use.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Thresholds to bring up Configure Thresholds window.

Click Create New Policy.

Choose the appropriate target type for the threshold to be defined.

Set up all parameters for this customized threshold policy.

Save this policy to the desired location by clicking the proper button representing the destination (global, device class, or host) on the right hand side of the window.

Task Description Operations

Customize the threshold parameters for predefined thresholds.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Thresholds to bring up Configure Thresholds window.

Double-click on the threshold policy you want to modify.

Setup the parameters to fit your network baseline.

Save the changes to disk.

The changes can be saved at the global level, which can be used by all devices; or saved at the device class level, which can be used by all devices of the same device type; or saved at the device instance level, which can only be used again for this particular device.

Determine what a policy means.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Thresholds to bring up Configure Thresholds window.

Double-click on a threshold policy that you want to learn more about.

Click Description in the Modify Threshold Policy window.

Threshold Manager provides help text on what this policy means.

Apply an interface-specific threshold only to a particular interface, instead of all interfaces.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Thresholds to bring up Configure Thresholds window.

Double click on the threshold policy you wish to enforce to the agent.

Click Continue in the Modify Threshold Policy window.

Select the interface for setting the threshold from the Interface Selection dialog.

Click OK to push it to the staging area.

Click Enforce All to download the changes to the agent.

Set thresholds for only system MIB.

Open the Threshold Manager window.

Select Config>Profiles to hide profiles other than system.

In the Filter Profiles window, select profiles other than system and click on the arrow to move the profiles to the Hide Profiles box.

Select Config>Thresholds to bring up Configure Thresholds window.

The upper window now shows only the system policies.

Starting a New Threshold Manager

You can run multiple instances of Threshold Manager simultaneously to manage thresholds on several devices. From the pulldown menu, select File>New Threshold Manager to open the dialog box shown in Figure 5-7.


Figure 5-7: Start a New Threshold Manager

The defaults in this window apply to the current device configuration. You need to set the host address of the device to be managed. You also need to specify the Threshold Manager Directory if it is not installed in the default location. The Threshold Manager Directory is under the Threshold Directory called Threshold Manager. For example:

/CWW/etc/cview/devices/Threshold-Mgr/

For descriptions of the other input fields in this window, see the section "Viewing Device Properties" earlier in this chapter.

Filtering Profiles

Threshold Manager lets you to filter out profiles. A profile is a set of policy files that belong to a specific management area. When you filter a profile, all the policy files contained in that profile are no longer available to this instance of Threshold Manager. Filtering profiles is useful when you want to limit the number or focus the type of policies available to an RMON agent. You can also use it when you want to set interface-related thresholds. By disabling all other profiles, only the interface policies are shown in the windows that manage policies. To access the Filter Profile dialog box, select Config>Profiles to open the dialog box shown in Figure 5-8.


Figure 5-8: Filter Profiles

To filter one or more profiles:

Profiles appearing in the Hide Profile panes are no longer available to this instance of Threshold Manager and policy files contained in these profiles will not display in the Policies pane of the Configure Threshold window. However, any threshold settings active in the RMON agent that belong to the filtered profile are not affected.

Troubleshooting Threshold Manager

The Threshold Manager Release Note is available on Customer Connection Online or the Cisco Customer Documentation, Enterprise CD. Table 5-7 provides a description of known problems and an explanation of how to correct them.


Table 5-7: Threshold Manager Troubleshooting Procedures
Problem Explanation

Cisco 7000 devices do not display Threshold Manager in the CiscoView pulldown menu.

Change the c7com.dd file located in $NMSROOT/etc/cview/devices/7000/dd/c7com.dd

Change:

source $Cv_Path/devices/Router-share/CRTOOLBR.dd

source $Cv_Path/devices/Router-share/C47CH.dd

To:

source $Cv_Path/devices/Router-share/C47CH.dd

source $Cv_Path/devices/Router-share/CRTOOLBR.dd

Change:

set DD (menubar.menu) ((()"Admin" admin))

To:

lappend DD (menubar.menu) (() "Admin" admin)

New policies are always added to the display list.

Exit from the Configure Thresholds window, then reopen it.

Policy file names won't match if IP address is used.

Use hostname instead of IP address when saving host-specific policies.

Threshold Manager shows undefined fields in the Event List window.

The Threshold Manager directory is incorrect. Go to the directory where the policy files that you want to use are defined.

Duplicate global/device/host policies may be allowed, depending on which window is used.

When creating a custom policy, you can only save it once, either as global, device, or host. But after saving the policy, you can use the Modify Threshold Policy window to modify the saved custom policy and save it as all three.

The policy that you are using was not created by this Threshold Manager.

Create the policy on this instance of Threshold Manager or copy it from the Threshold Manager where it is defined.


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Posted: Wed Sep 25 21:23:18 PDT 2002
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