Device Manager

Device Manager (DM) is an SNMP-based graphical user interface (GUI) that allows you to manage networking devices. Device Manager provides you with all the options found in the other management tools except the ability to manage VLANs. Device Manager Help is generic to all devices. Click Help > Device for specific device help.

Device Manager Online Help covers the following topics:

 

 

 

 


Getting Started with Device Manager

This section covers the following topics:

 


Starting Device Manager

To start Device Manager:

Note:

On startup, Device Manager performs a DNS lookup for the machine on which it is running. If the DNS lookup is slow or fails, the initial Device Manager window may take up to 30 seconds to open.


Setting Device Manager Properties

Device Manager communicates with a switch using SNMP. The Device Manager Properties Dialog Box allows you to configure communication parameters.

To open the Properties dialog box:

The Device Manager Properties dialog box opens.

The following table describes items in the Device Manager Properties dialog box.

Item

Description

Status Poll Enable:

Enables (true) or disables (false) periodic polling of the device for updated status. If polling is disabled, the chassis status is updated only when you click Refresh on the Chassis tab.

Status Poll Interval:

Interval at which statistics and status information are gathered. Default is 300 seconds.

Retry Count:

The number of times Device Manager requests polling information.

Timeout:

The length of each retry of each polling waiting period. When accessing the device through a slow link, you may want to increase the timeout interval and then change the Retransmission Strategy to superliner.

Retransmission Strategy:

Can be one of the following:

Linear - sends a request based on retry count x timeout. For example, a retry count of 3 and a timeout value of 3 means that information is requested three times at 3-seconds intervals.

Superlinear - sends a request based on retry count x timeout (doubled). For example, a retry count of 3 and a timeout value of 3 means that information is requested three times:

First retry at 3 seconds, second retry at 6 seconds, and third retry at 12 seconds.

 

Hotswap Poll Interval:

The interval at which Device Manager polls for module information. The default is 600 seconds.

Max Traps in Log:

The specified number of traps that may exist in the trap log. The default is 500.

Display Hostnames As:

Choose to display names either in DNS format or IP address format.

Display SNMP Errors In:

Display SNMP errors from the status bar or from a separate error window.

Click Table Header to:

select: Selects the field. sort: Sorts the column.

SNMP Trace PDU:

Display SNMP PDU contents depending on user's choice..

 

Note:

By default, Device Manager attempts to resolve IP addresses to DNS names. If no DNS is available, set Display Hostnames to IP addresses to avoid long delays and sluggish Device Manager response caused by the failed DNS resolution attempts.


 

Opening a Device

The Open Device dialog box allows you access a device.

To open a device, do one of the following:

The Open Device dialog box opens.

The following table describes the items in the Open Device dialog box.

 

Item

Description

Device Name

The name specified can be either an IP address or a DSN name.

Read Community

The SNMP read community string for the device.

Write Community

The SNMP write community string for the device. Note that the Read-Write-All password must be specified in this field as well as the Read Community field.

 

HP OpenView users only: Device Manager will query the OpenView SNMP database for the device's community strings.

If a device fails to respond, Device Manager will display a timeout message. Usually timeouts indicate that you need to increase your retransmission retries and timeout intervals.

An attempt to open an unsupported device will respond with an unsupported error message.

When you access any part of the switch, you must enter passwords, logins, or community strings to gain management control of a device. The default access community strings for Device Manager on a BayStack switch are shown in the following table.

Access Level

SNMP Community String

read-only

public

read-write

private

 


Device Manager Window

The Device Manager main window contains four areas for accessing management options for devices as illustrated in the figure below.

 

The following describes the Device Manager window parts.

 


 

Menu bar

The Device Manager menu bar provides commands that control the appearance and navigation of this application. Some devices may add to this list; click Help > Device for more details on the capabilities of specific devices. The table below describes each menu and its submenu commands.

Menu

Command Name

Tool Bar Button

Command Description

Device

Open

Open Device window.

Device

Open Last

None

Reopen a device from the last 14 devices successfully opened.

Device

Properties

None

Set SNMP Properties.

Device

Refresh

Re-open the device and update the physical view.

Device

Trap Log

Display the trap log window.

Device

Print Chassis

None

Print chassis to current printer. (UNIX only)

Device

Exit

None

Quit application.

Edit

Card

Edit parameters for selected card.

Edit

Chassis

Same

Edit parameters for selected chassis.

Edit

Port

Same

Edit parameters for selected port.

Edit

IP

Same

Edit IP address information.

Edit

Bridge

Same

Edit bridge information.

Edit

Select

Same

Choose card, chassis, or port information to edit.

Graph

Chassis

Graph selected chassis information.

Graph

Port

Same

Graph selected port information.

RMON

Alarm Manager

Insert RMON alarm information.

RMON

Alarms

None

Edit RMON alarm information

RMON

History

None

Edit RMON alarm history information.

VLAN

VLANs

None

Edit VLAN information.

Help

Contents

None

Display Device Manager Help.

Help

Device

None

Display device-specific Help.

Help

Legend

None

Display state color legend.

Help

About

None

Display version information.



Toolbar

The toolbar buttons provide quick access to commonly used commands and some additional actions. The following table describes the toolbar buttons.

Button

Description

Opens a device

Opens Help

Makes changes to a port, card, or chassis.

Graphs statistics.

Accesses the trap logs.

Refreshes the graphical representation of the switch.

Opens a Telnet session.

Sets RMON alarms.

 


Device View

The device view is a graphical representation of the device to which you are connected. This graphical representation changes each time you connect to a device.

Selecting Objects

There are three types of objects that may be selected on the switch.

To select an object or objects, click the object. The object is outlined in yellow, indicating that it is selected. You then can perform management tasks on the object.

Selecting the Chassis

To select the chassis, click the edge of the chassis picture. The edge of the chassis is outlined in yellow to indicate that the chassis is selected.

Selecting Slots

To select a slot, click on the edge of the module in the switch picture. The edge of the module is outlined in yellow to indicate that it is selected.

To select multiple slots, use one of the following actions:

You can also use the menu bar to select a slot. To select a slot from the menu bar, choose Edit > Card.

Selecting an MDA.

To select a media dependent adapter, click on the edge of the picture of an MDA. The edge of the MDA is outlined in yellow to indicate that it is selected.

When you select an MDA and then choose Edit > Card, the Edit Card window opens.

Selecting Ports

To select a port, click the port. The edge of the port is outlined in yellow to indicate that it is selected.

To select multiple ports, use one of the following actions:

Object Shortcut Menus

Each object (chassis, port, and slot/card) has a shortcut menu that you can reach by clicking a selected object or group of objects and applying changes; however, you can access the same options using the menu bar or toolbar. These shortcut menus are shown in the figure below.


Status Bar

The status line displays error and warning messages. Non-catastrophic errors ( those that do not open an error window or prompt) are also displayed here.

The following table lists some error messages and a description.

Error

Description

noSuchName

The object does not exist on the device.

timeout

The request has timed out due to a slow network, no route to the device, or an incorrect community string.

badVal

You can not insert or modify this value.


Command Buttons

The Device Manager command buttons appear on windows and dialog boxes and let you control different functions within the application. The following table describes the Device Manager command buttons.

Button Name

Description

Apply

Applies the changes you have entered in fields in a window or dialog box. Changes are displayed as bold (PC) or underlined (UNIX) text or numbers.

Insert

Inserts or creates a new group, such as a spanning tree group.

Delete

Deletes a setting for a port, slot, or IP address from a VLAN, a spanning tree group, and so forth.

Refresh

Refreshes the information in a window. Every time you click Refresh, new information is polled from the switch and displayed.

Close

Closes the window or dialog box and disregards any changes you have made to fields.

Help

Displays Help information.

Stop

Stops the current action.

Replicate*

Copies a value for selected cells in a table.

Export

Exports information to a file. You can then import this file into a text editor or spreadsheet for further analysis.

* Use caution when working with the replication feature. It not only works for replicating values from one column to another but also works among columns too, even if the value is not a valid field entry.


Accessing Windows, Tabs, and Objects

This section describes some general conventions that apply to accessing windows, tabs, and objects in the Device Manager to edit management options.

Basic Conventions

Some basic conventions govern how you use the Device Manager. The following table contains information about those conventions.

Usage for....

Description

Tabs

Open a tab in a window by clicking on it.

Columns

Columns are resized automatically to fit the information contained in them. To resize the columns manually, however, you can click the resize tabs between columns and move a column divider left or right.

Editable fields

Editable fields are displayed in “white.”

Read-only fields

Read-only fields are displayed in “gray.”

Ports

Select ports in one of two ways:

1. When you create an alarm in RMON, use the down arrow to display a list of ports.

2. Enter the port location as an expression. For example, 1/2 is equivalent to port 2 on slot 1).

Pull-down menus

Access pull-down menus from the main menu and window menus , as well as through shortcut menus.

Values

Guidelines for values of IP addresses, MAC addresses, and time are:

- Enter an IP address in decimal format:

- Enter a MAC address in hexadecimal format: xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx

-Time is a value based on the delta from the computer system clock.

Help

All windows have a Help button.

Export

Saves the current table in ASCII format in a file that you select. The table contains tabs so that you can import the table into a spreadsheet.

Replicate button

Copies the contents of the active cell (dark border) to the selected cells (yellow background). To replicate a value:

1 Select multiple objects; for example, multiple ports (page 1-10).

2 From the Device Manager main menu, choose Edit.

3 Mark a group of table cells for the new value by dragging across them.

4 After making your selection, use the arrow keys to move the active cell. (Using the mouse starts a new selection.)

5 Click Replicate.

Editing Objects

You can edit objects and values from the Device Manager in several ways, including the following:

When you change values in a field, you can see fields that have been changed but not applied. Changed fields have the following characteristics:

Note:

To make permanent changes in the configuration, click on Apply. Changes are not applied to Device Manager until you click on Apply.

 

Note:

After you apply changes to fields, many windows contain a Refresh button. Click on Refresh to display new information in the window.


Graphing

To make performance monitoring fast and easy, Device Manager tracts and graphs a wide range of statistics for the Device Manager objects. Statistics are maintained for the chassis and each port. This section describes the following:

General Graphing Procedures

You can graph an object in the graph window. To open the graph window:

  1. Select the object or objects you want to graph.

  2. Do one of the following:

When you graph a single object, you will see a display similar to the one below which shows the graph port window.

Statistics are organized into groups. Select from the tabs in the Graph Port window for the group of statistics you want to view.

The statistics are updated based on the poll interval that you can set at the bottom of the screen.

 

Multiple Object Statistics

When you graph multiple objects, you will see a display similar to the one below which shows statistics for multiple ports. Not all statistics available for a single object are available when you graph multiple objects. This layout is similar to a single object graph except that the statistics choices are at the bottom on the window.

Creating a Graph

From a single or multiple object statistic window Device Manager can graph a single cell or multiple cells. Device Manager supports bar, pie, and line graphs.

To create a graph:

  1. Select the cells for which you want a graph representation.

  2. Click the button at the bottom of the window for the type of graph you want.

 


Device Manager Trap Log

You can configure a Nortel Networks switch to send out SNMP generic traps. When Device Manager is running, any traps received are recorded in the Trap Log.

NOTE:

When you operate Device Manager from a UNIX platform, you must be logged on as root in order to receive traps.

To view the Trap Log:


Online Help

Online Help in Device Manager is context-sensitive. You use a Web browser to display Online Help. The Web browser should start automatically when you click on the question mark button. If, for some reason, the Web browser does not start, the table below lists default locations of the Help files.

Platform

Default Path

Windows 95, 98, or Window NT

c:\DM\help

UNIX

DM-UNIX/DM/help