Agents Administration - Tests
 

Default Parameters for NetworkInterfaceTest

The NetworkInterfaceTest monitors critical metrics relating to the Network interfaces of a target server/network device using MIB-II support provided by the server/device. The parameters of this test are as follows:

  • The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed.

  • The port number on which the mail server is exposing the SNMP MIB has to be specified in the SNMPPORT text box.

  • By default, the eG agent supports SNMP version 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the SNMPVERSION list is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from this list.

  • The community string of the mail server has to be provided in the SNMPCOMMUNITY. This parameter is specific to SNMP v1 and v2 only. Therefore, if the SNMPVERSION chosen is v3, then this parameter will not appear.

  • The USERNAME parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges - in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to the MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against the USERNAME parameter.

  • The CONTEXT parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the USERNAME provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the USERNAME in the CONTEXT text box. By default, this parameter is set to none.

  • Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned USERNAME in the AUTHPASS text box. This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPVERSION selected is v3.

  • Confirm the AUTHPASS by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

  • The AUTHTYPE parameter too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. From the AUTHTYPE list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified USERNAME and PASSWORD into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options:

    • MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm
    • SHA - Secure Hash Algorithm

  • The ENCRYPTFLAG appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, the ENCRYPTFLAG is set to NO by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the YES option.

  • If the ENCRYPTFLAG is set to YES, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the ENCRYPTTYPE list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types:

    • DES - Data Encryption Standard
    • AES - Advanced Encryption Standard

  • Specify the encryption password in the ENCRYPTPASSWORD text box.

  • Confirm the encryption password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

  • If the ONLYUP flag is set to Yes, then only the network interfaces that are operational - i.e. whose MIB-II operStatus variable has a value "up" - are monitored. If this flag is set to No, all network interfaces that have an adminStatus of "up" will be monitored. By default it is set to No. 

  • If the FULLDUPLEX value is Yes, then it indicates that all interfaces are full duplex. In this case, the eG system will compute bandwidth usage % to be, max(input bandwidth, output bandwidth)*100/total speed. On the other hand, if this flag is set to No, then the computation of bandwidth usage % will be (input bandwidth + output bandwidth)*100/total speed.

  • In the TIMEOUT text box, specify the maximum duration (in seconds) for which the test needs to wait for a response from the network interface.

  • The DISCOVERBYSTATE flag controls how the test discovers network interfaces. If this flag is No, the operational state of an interface is not considered when discovering all the network interfaces of a router/switch/network device. If this flag is Yes, only interfaces that have been in the Up operationalstate will be considered for monitoring. In this mode, if an interface is down all of the time, it will not be considered for monitoring. However, once the interface starts to function, it will be tracked by the test and alerts generated if the interface state ever changes to Down. By default it is set to Yes.

  • The EXCLUDE text box takes a comma separated list of network interfaces that are to be excluded when performing the test. E.g., if this parameter has a value of “Null”, then the Null0 interface of the network device will not be monitored by the eG agent.

    • Note:

    Wild card characters are supported when you provide a comma separated list of network interfaces in the EXCLUDE text box.

  • Cisco and many network devices allow administrators to set the names for switch/router ports. These names can be set to logical, easily understandable values. Port names can be set in Cisco devices using the command “set port name”. For example set port name 3/24 Federal_credit_union_link. This command indicates that the port 3/24 is used to support the Federal Credit Union. If the USEALIAS parameter is set to Yes, then a SHOW ALIAS AND INTERFACE NAME parameter will additionally appear, which is set to No by default. In this case, the agent will first try to look at the port name (from the ifAlias SNMP OID) and use the port name if specified as the descriptor for the test results. If a port name is unavailable or if no port name/alias is specified in the network device setting, the interface description for each port provided in the SNMP MIB-II output is used instead as the descriptor for the test results. On the other hand, if the USEALIAS parameter is set to Yes and the SHOW ALIAS AND INTERFACE NAME parameter is set to Yes, then each descriptor of this test will be represented in the format port name:interface description.For e.g., 1:local_lan_segment:GigabitEthernet 0/0. If the USEALIAS parameter is set to No, then the SHOW ALIAS AND INTERFACE NAME parameter option will not appear. In this case therefore, the device name will be displayed as the descriptor of the test.

  • By default, this test polls the standard Interfaces Group Extension MIB (RFC 2233) to collect the required metrics. Set the USEEXTENSION flag to No, if you want the test to poll the IF MIB (RFC 1213) for metrics collection. By default this parameter is set to Yes.

  • By default, none is displayed against the SPEED MULTIPLY FACTOR parameter. This indicates that the actual speed of each network interface of the target network device obtained as bits per second from the SNMP MIB II is automatically converted to Mbps and displayed against the Speed measure in the eG monitor interface. In some environments, network administrators may have explicitly set the speed of the target network device to Kbps or Mbps against the default speed of bits per second. In such cases, specify a suitable value against this parameter. If the speed of the network interface is set to kbps, then specify 1000 against this parameter. Alternately, if the speed of the ntwork interface is set to Mbps, then set 1000000 against this parameter.

  • By default, the SHOW DETAILS flag is set to Yes indicating that the detailed diagnosis of the Bandwidth used measure will provide the maximum amount of data flow through the network interface at a given point of time. It is also mandatory to enable the Net Flows Test, to obtain thedetailed diagnosis. If you do not wish to obtain the detailed diagnosis for the Bandwidth used measure, then set this flag to No.

  • By default, the SHOW CONCISE METRICS parameter is set to No indicating that the test will report all the metrics related to each network interface in the target environment. If this flag is set to Yes, then packet related metrics (for e.g., Non-unicast packets received, Transmit errors, Outbound protocols etc) will not be collected. It is recommended to set this flag to Yes in environments where database space is a constraint to collect all the metrics for a large number of network interfaces.

  • The DD FREQUENCY refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD FREQUENCY.

  • By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic - for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components - to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set the DATA OVER TCP flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.

  • Once the necessary values have been provided, clicking on the Update button will register the changes made.

When changing default configurations of tests, the values with “$” indicate variables that will be replaced by the eG system according to the specific server being managed - for instance, $hostName is the host/nickname of the target host, $port is the port number of the server being monitored. E.g., for a server xyz:80, $hostName will be changed automatically by the eG manager to “xyz” and $port will be changed to “80” when configuring a test.

Note:

Ensure that the host on which the NetworkInterfaceTest executes is SNMP-enabled. If not, the test will not function.