Interface Tools to Help You Sleep Better at Night!
 


What is the TCP/IP Monitor?
  • The TCP/IP Monitor is a program that checks the connection status (netstat status) of all running TCP/IP adapters currently running in Ensemble and any other non-Ensemble interfaces that have been configured in the setting page. When the connection status is "ESTABLISHED" for an interface, the interface rectangle display and the circle icon for the rectangle are green. When an interface is down, the color of the interface box can go yellow or red. For outbound interfaces, the color of a down interface is yellow if there is nothing in the queue. It is red and the icon is red if there are messages in the queue. An inbound interface can also be configured to be red in LISTEN state (not established) to indicate an abnormal state. Each interface rectangle can be clicked on to display the IP Address and port, the status of the interface, and user defined contact information.

How to use the monitor
  • When the monitor is started for the first time, it will automatically redirect to the monitor settings page to set all Ensemble interfaces to default settings and then redirect back to the monitor.
  • As time goes by and new interfaces are created in Ensemble, the monitor will automatically redirect briefly to the settings page to set defaults and then redirect back to the monitor.  Go to the settings page to change the default settings for the new interface. Each Ensemble user has some settings based on the user name, such as how the display should look, so individual users can choose how wide to make the columns, how many columns to have on the page, and when each interface is monitored. This capability allows for different users having different screen resolutions and different monitoring needs. When there are long Ensemble interface names, the column length may need to be increased and perhaps the number of columns decreased for a satisfactory display. Adjust these settings until the monitor display is optimized. Some settings are global and are displayed in the top half of the settings screen. Select from the drop down list of interfaces and the current values for the selected interface will automatically populate the fields. Adjust the values to your liking. Also in this section, set the DNS server IP address if you wish to use server names in addition to IP Addresses.

What happens when an interface goes down?
  • When an interface goes down due to the connection being down, or a message staying in the queue too long, a chime sounds (if the PC has speakers) and a message scrolls along the top of the screen. The message continues to scroll across the screen until someone clicks on the interface rectangle of the down interface. Also, the text in the interface rectangle scrolls back and forth and the rectangle and the icon in the rectangle are red. Once the rectangle is clicked on, the red circle icon is replaced with a red check mark icon to indicate that the down interface has been acknowledged. Also, the scrolling message and chime alert stops after the acknowledgement of the down interface. When the rectangle is clicked on, detail information appears in the lower left of the screen with a user defined contact name and number. Whenever the interface comes back up, it will go back to the green color with the green circle icon.

Limitations
  • Port number can be used only once for a TCP Service and only once for a TCP Operation - so for example you could use port 10001 once for a service and once for an operation.
  • If the DNS server IP address setting is not the same as what shows up when netstat is run on the Ensemble server, the connection status for outbound interfaces may be incorrect. If "nslookup" does not work on the Ensemble server, the setting must be "NONE" for the DNS server IP address setting. In that case, IP addresses should be used in Ensemble instead of server names. The red fictitious IP address in the following example shows the DNS IP address to use from a telnet session on your Ensemble server for a hypothetical server named ensembleserver.hospital.org.

  nslookup ensembleserver.hospital.org
      Server: hospital-dns.hospital.org
      Address: 111.123.45.67

      Name:   ensembleserver.hospital.org
      Address: 111.987.6.54


Questions should be sent to ralphgcrawford@gmail.com.