Traffic Sentinel : Help

The Status page displays the status of devices and interfaces rolled up hierarchically.

Topics:

How do I navigate the network hierarchy?
What are the columns in the status table?
What are the rows in the status table?
What do the different status colors mean?
How do I drill down and see more information?
How do I see detailed interface information for a particular agent?
Why do I get the "No SNMP information available" message?
Why do I get an interface neighbor "Unknown" message?

How do I navigate the network hierarchy?

The Filter bar at the top of the screen provides a way to navigate through the network hierarchy (see File>Configure to see how to group network devices). At the top level, a list of Zones is shown, once you have selected a zone, the view will drill down to only show information from the selected zone, and a list of Groups will appear. Select a group and the view will drill down to only show the information from the selected group and a list of Agents will appear. Finally if you select an agent, its Interfaces will be shown. Click on the links at any level in the path and you will move back up the tree to that level. Click on the Show Map button to view a map of the selected part of the network (see Sentinel:Maps>Layer 2). If a single agent has been selected an Agent Details button will appear. Click on the button to see detailed information about the agent (see Sentinel:Search>Agent/Interface). Finally, if a single interface is selected an Explore button will appear. Click on the button to see long term trends for the interface (see Sentinel:Report>Explore).

What are the columns in the status table?

Each column in the table indicates the status of either network devices, or of traffic thresholds. The columns are:

Status, indicates whether the device is up or down as determined by a ping test.
Frames, interface frames/s threshold status
Utilization, interface percentage utilization threshold status
Broadcasts, interface broadcast frames/s threshold status
Multicasts, interface multicast frames/s threshold status
Errors, interface error frames/s threshold status
Discards, interface discarded frames/s threshold status

What are the rows in the status table?

Each row of status indicators summarizes the worst status of all the interfaces in a part of the network. The top, Site, row summarizes status for the whole site. The next, Summary, row summarizes status all the other rows in the table.

Note: See File>Configure for information on configuring thresholds.

What do the different status colors mean?

The color of each box indicates the status of the interface, or in the case when the status box represents a grouping of interfaces, the worst status of all the interfaces in the group. Shade is used to indicate whether flow information is available from the interface (flow information is used to determine which connections are generating traffic on the interface).

Flows=No	Flows=Yes	Description
		Unknown There is no status value, either because no counter data is available, or because there are no thresholds set.
		Good Counter value does not exceed threshold value.
		Warn Counter has exceeded threshold value in at least once, but not enough times to cause an alert.
		Critical Counter has exceeded threshold value often enough to generate an alert.

Additional information is displayed when viewing the status of individual interfaces. Inactive or disabled interfaces are indicated as follows:

Disconnected, no carrier detected.
, Disabled, administratively disabled interface.

How do I drill down and see more information?

Click on status boxes in the Status column to see when the availability of the network device was last tested. Click on the status boxes in any of the other columns to see all the interfaces that contribute to the status of the status box (see Sentinel:Traffic>Interfaces). Click on the group label to the right of the status boxes on each row to drill-down into specific regions of the network.

How do I see detailed interface information for a particular agent?

There are three ways to navigate to an agent:

Use the Filter at the top of the page to navigate down to a particular agent.
Click on the grouping names to the right of the table to drill down to the agent.
Use the Sentinel:Search>Agent/Interface page to search for the agent, then click on the Status button to view the status of its interfaces.

When viewing a device's interfaces, addition options appear in the Filter. The Show option button may have one or more of the following options (depending on the capabilities of the device):

Interfaces and Interfaces Alt., view a simple list of the interfaces.
Interface Stack, view the interfaces organized by containment hierarchy; indented interfaces are sub interfaces of the less indented parents above them in the list.
Component, view the interfaces organized by device components, indented interfaces are attached to the less indented component above them in the list.

Depending on the Show setting, an Interfaces option button will appear with some of the following options:

All, show all interfaces.
Active Only, show only the interfaces that are active.

Clicking on the Edit button displays a form that allows you do specify which columns should appear in the interfaces table for the selected Show setting. Selecting None for a column will remove it. The following columns are available:

Hosts, display the list of end hosts connected to the switch interface.
Neighbor, display the switch or router connected to the interface.
ifAlias, SNMP ifAlias value, an alternate name for the interface.
ifDescr, SNMP ifDescr value, a description of the interface.
ifIndex, SNMP ifIndex number, a unique number used to identify the interface.
ifName, SNMP ifName value, the textual name of the interface.
ifSpeed, SNMP ifSpeed value describing the speed of the interface.
ifType, SNMP ifType value describing the media type of the interface.

Why do I get the "No SNMP information available" message?

SNMP is used to obtain detailed device and interface information. If SNMP access fails then this is indicated with the message:

No SNMP information available.

Possible reasons for this message include:

The device does not support SNMP.
The incorrect community string has been configured (see File>Configure for information on configuring SNMP).
The device may have an access control setting that limits SNMP access.
The device may not exist. Check to see if an Agent section exists for this device in the configuration (see File>Configure for information on configuring Agents).

Why do I get an interface neighbor "Unknown" message?

A neighbor value of unknown is used if Traffic Sentinel has evidence that an interface is connected to another switch or router, but the identity of the neighbor cannot be determined.