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Ring Monitor is a TrafficDirector application that allows you to view statistics and errors specific to Token Ring and FDDI networks.
You can display information about the ring status, the position of active stations on the ring, the number of insertions on the ring, and the enter and exit times for each station. You can also see an error summary for the ring and remove stations from it.
The following sections provide information about using Ring Monitor:
You can use Ring Monitor to monitor Token Ring and FDDI type agents.
You can start Ring Monitor in either of the following ways:
You can view the standard ring status and error summary information for the ring. You can also view configuration information for individual stations on the ring.
When you use Ring Monitor to view Token Ring statistics, you can have the statistics grouped into different views. The following section shows how to view all stations seen by the Token Ring agent since it was booted, and error summaries and configuration information for each station on the ring.
You have a choice of two Ring Monitor views, each of which provides different information in the window list box:
To can change the agent view, follow these steps:
Step 1 Start Ring Monitor.
The Ring Station List window opens (Figure 16-1), displaying the Status view. The Status view is a list of the stations the agent has seen since it was powered on.
Step 2 Select View from the menu bar to display the View options menu.
Step 3 Do one the following to change the current view:
The following sections contain additional information about using the Ring Station List Window:
The Ring Station List Status View shows different information about the stations on the ring depending on the view you select.
The Ring Station List box contains several headings with values described in Table 16-1.
| This Status View List Box Heading... | Shows You |
|---|---|
Ring Order | The order of this station in the ring. |
Station | The name of the station. |
Address | The address of the station. |
Last Enter Time | The last time the station entered the ring. |
Last Exit Time | The last time the station exited the ring. |
Rlns | Ring insertions; the number of times a station has been inserted into the ring. |
Dups | Duplicate addresses. |
Status | Whether a station is active or inactive. |
The list box contains the information in Table 16-2 when you select the Summary view.
| This Status View List Box Heading... | Shows You |
|---|---|
Ring Order | The order of this station in the ring. |
Station Address | The address of the station. |
Last NAUN Address | The address of the nearest active upstream neighbor (NAUN) of the station (specified in the Station Address field). |
Soft Errors | Soft errors that occur normally in the ring. Soft errors do not cause the network to come down, and are one of two types:---isolating and non-isolating. An isolating soft error is either an input or output error that can be traced to a single station. |
Hard Errors---Beacon | A beacon; the equivalent of a ring reset, a beacon indicates a serious problem and can bring the ring down. There are two types of beacons--- input and output. |
You might want to see data only for active stations---stations currently on the ring. If a station was on the ring at some point, but is now off, it is referred to as inactive.
To view only the active stations on the ring, select View>Action Stations Only.
The list box updates the display to show only the active stations on the ring. For more information about soft and hard errors, see "About Soft Errors" and "About Hard Errors."
You can change the way information is sorted in the window list box.
You can use any of the variables listed in Table 16-3 to determine the sort order:
| Use This Variable... | To Sort According To |
|---|---|
Ring Order | The position of the station in the ring. This is the default sort variable when you first launch Ring Monitor. |
MAC Order | MAC addresses in descending order. |
Enter Time | The last time the station has entered the Ring. The sort is in descending order. |
Exit Time | The last time the station has exited the Ring. The sort is in descending order. |
Hard Errors | Sums the two types of hard errors for the station, In and Out, and sorts in descending order. |
Soft Errors | Sums the three types of soft errors for the station, In, Out, and Non (non-isolating), and sorts them in descending order. |
To change the way information is sorted in the Ring Station List, follow these steps:
Step 1 Select Sort from the menu bar.
Step 2 Click the sort order variable you want to use.
The Ring Monitor View Config function lets you see a selected station group address, MAC address, last update time, and functional address.
To view a station configuration, follow these steps:
Step 1 Start Ring Monitor for a Token Ring-type agent.
Step 2 In the Ring Station List, highlight the station configuration you want to view.
Step 3 Select View>View Config from the menu bar, or click View Config on the tool bar.
The Station Configuration window opens (Figure 16-3).
Step 4 Click Update to update the configuration information for this station at any time.
The Station Configuration window closes and the agent obtains the latest configuration from the station.
To view the updated information, repeat Step 3.
Step 5 Click OK to close the window.
You can use Ring Monitor to remove a station from the Token Ring.
To remove a station from the Token Ring, follow these steps:
 | Caution This procedure removes the selected station from the token ring. Use with caution. |
Step 1 Select the station you want to remove by highlighting it in the list box.
Step 2 Select Edit>Delete from the menu bar, or click Delete on the tool bar.
A confirmation window (Figure 16-4) prompts you to confirm that you really want to remove the station.
Step 3 Click Yes to remove the station, or click No to quit without removing the station.
This section provides a brief overview of errors you may encounter using Ring Monitor. See the appropriate Token Ring reference manuals for more information.
The TrafficDirector application looks at two types of Token Ring errors---soft errors and hard errors. There are other Token Ring errors, but this section covers only those used by the TrafficDirector application.
The following sections provide more information about soft and hard errors:
A soft error is an error that occurs during normal ring operation but does not cause the ring to come down.
A hard error is the equivalent of a system reset. It is a serious error that can bring the ring down. Hard errors are specific to a single station on the ring. There are two types of hard errors:
There are two ways to view Token Ring errors:
To view a detailed list of errors for a particular station, follow these steps:
Step 1 Select the appropriate agent from the TrafficDirector main window.
Step 2 Click the Ring Monitor icon in the TrafficDirector main window.
The Ring Monitor Station List window opens.
Step 3 Select the station you want to see errors for from the list box.
Step 4 Select View>View Errors from the menu bar, or click View Errors on the tool bar.
The Station Statistics window opens (Figure 16-5). This window lists Ring Station information, soft errors, and hard errors under the corresponding headings.
Step 5 Click OK to close the window.
Posted: Mon Apr 5 13:33:29 PDT 1999
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