PMVision (Java Based PMconsole)
Version 1.2b2 Open Beta Release Notes
INTRODUCTION
PMVision(TM) (referred to as Amber in previous release notes) is a new
generation of PMconsole(TM) based on Sun's Java Virtual Machine version
1.1.4. Version 1.2b2 of PMVision is available for open beta to any
Lucent customer at no charge. In order to use the full capabilities of
this beta product, you must have ComOS(R) 3.8b13 (also in open beta,
latest version is ComOS 3.8b15) or later. ComOS 3.8b13 is currently
only available for PortMaster(R) 3. Older releases of ComOS are
supported by PMVision to the same extent that the old PMconsole
supported them, except that the SNMP table, hosts table, and routing
table cannot be configured with PMVision on releases of ComOS older
than 3.8.
PMVision was designed with the three following goals:
- To enhance the portability of the product. This goal has been met
with the use of the Java environment.
- To allow management of multiple PortMaster units simultaneously.
- To build a platform that is extensible to allow Wizards and Smart
Agents to aid the management of PortMaster products.
PMVision presents the user with a single document interface (SDI) style
window, with a control tree on the left, a list of currently open
PortMaster units, including selection information, on the top center,
and the main function window in the center. To access a
PortMaster, you select the Connect option from the PortMaster
pulldown menu, or select PortMaster in the control tree. PMVision allows
you to connect to a PortMaster using the default !root login, or to use
RADIUS authenticated administrative logins if the PortMaster is
appropriately configured.
If RADIUS authenticated administrative logins are used, the password
for these logins is currently sent over the connection in cleartext.
PMVision does not treat the RADIUS NAS-Prompt-User administrative user,
which has limited command rights, any differently from the RADIUS
Administrative-User, which is equivalent to the !root account, until
the ComOS denies access to a function. For example, a NAS-Prompt-User
level administrative user can use PMVision to create a user or location
record, but creation of that record is denied when the command is sent
to the PortMaster.
Existing PMconsole products provide four main functions:
- Configuration
- Viewing (Monitoring)
- Install/Upgrade
- Backup/Restore
PMVision provides all configuration options available through PMconsole,
for a PortMaster running ComOS 3.8 or later. In addition, PMVision lets
you copy configurations within a PortMaster or to other PortMaster
products, and provide debug capabilities and a window for entering
ComOS commands.
When controlling a PortMaster running a ComOS release earlier than
3.8, PMVision does not provide configuration for SNMP, the Host Table, or
Static Routes.
PMVision provides much more extensive monitoring capabilities than those
afforded by the old PMconsole, including the ability to monitor diagnostic
commands.
PMVision provides ComOS upgrade capabilities equivalent to PMconsole.
PMVision provides the capability to backup and restore PortMaster
configuration as ASCII text commands.
PMVision does not backup or restore user passwords, the administrative
password, the RADIUS secret, or the ChoiceNet secret.
PMVision does not read or restore binary backup files created by PMconsole
or pmreadconf. However, you can use Upgrade to send a pmreadconf'ed
binary backup file back to a PortMaster.
NOTE: The binary backup file format is heavily dependent on ComOS
version, and restoring a file saved from one version onto another is
potentially dangerous.
AMBER FUNCTIONS
You access PMVision functions by clicking on them in the menu tree.
MONITOR
The Monitor tree item allows you to monitor Sessions, Modems, Lines,
and Interfaces. Counters may be reset, affecting PMVision only, and the
counters revert to actual values when changing to another screen.
- Sessions shows active sessions.
- Modems shows the state of the modems.
- Lines shows the state of line0 and line1.
- Interfaces shows active interfaces.
DIAGNOSE
Debug allows you to select a variety of debug information to be
displayed.
MAINTAIN
Upgrade allows you to upgrade with a ComOS upgrade file.
Save allows you to save certain parts of your configuration to a file.
This configuration is saved in ASCII file format.
Restore allows you to restore a previously saved configuration file.
When doing a restore, PMVision is not just performing an erase and restore
operation. Instead, the configuration file overwrites the specific
configuration information that is being restored from the file.
NOTE: If there are items not overwritten by restore they will be left
unchanged.
WARNING: Backing up the user table does not recover the individual user
passwords.
WARNING: Restoring a user table from an PMVision back up does not restore
the user password. This can result in a null password on the user
table entry. If a user entry has a null password a login attempt will
not prompt for a password. This can result in the user being unable to
login. It can also result in unauthorized use of the user account
since no password is required.
WARNING: The administrative (!root) password and RADIUS and ChoiceNet
secrets are not saved by the backup operation. Unless the
administrative password and RADIUS and ChoiceNet secrets are added to
the backup file they are not restored and the previous password and
secrets will remain in effect.
COMMAND
Command provides a command window for entering ComOS commands and
viewing command output.
CONFIGURE
Configure allows you to view and change configuration information for
the PortMaster.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
PMVision is a Java based product, and can be executed on any system that
has JDK or JRE (Java Runtime Environment) version 1.1.4 or later.
Non-developers should use JRE rather than JDK. Currently, JDK 1.1
and/or JRE 1.1 is available for the following platforms.
o Windows NT 4.0 http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/
o Windows 95 http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/
o Solaris 2.5.1 http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/
o Solaris x86 2.5.1 http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/
o Linux 2.x ftp://lagrange.la.asu.edu/pub/Linux_jdk/
o FreeBSD http://www.freebsd.org/java/
o SGI Irix 6.3 http://www.sgi.com/Products/DevMagic/products/java.html
o HP/UX 10.02 http://www.hp.com/esy/go/java.html
o DEC Alpha 4.0 http://www.digital.com/java/download/jdk_du/1.1.5/index.html
o IBM AIX 4.1 http://www.ibm.com/java/tools/jdk.html
o All other platforms http://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/java-ports.cgi
INSTALLING AMBER
1. Download the following files from ftp.livingston.com:
ftp ftp.livingston.com
binary
cd pub/le/software/java
(for UNIX)
get amber12b2.tar
(for Windows)
get amber12b2.zip
cd ../../upgrades
get pm3_3.8b15
2. For the UNIX systems, in the .cshrc file, define the path for jre1.1.4/bin.
For example: If you install jre1.1.4 in the /usr/local/lib directory,
then the .cshrc file should have the following entry:
set path=( /usr/local/lib/jre1.1.4/bin $path )
Installing the 1.1.5 JRE sets the correct values for PATH and CLASSPATH on
both Windows NT and Windows 95.
For JRE or JDK 1.1.4 on Windows 95, edit c:\autoexec.bat and add
path=%PATH%;<JAVADIR>\bin
where <JAVADIR> is the location where the Java runtime environment was
installed. Note that if the JDK is installed instead of the JRE the
scripts need to be edited.
For Windows NT 4.0, define the path for jre1.1.4 in the System
Environment as follows:
a. Open the Control Panel
b. Click on the System icon
c. Click on the Environment
On the display window, highlight and click on the line with the
word Path, enter the installation path of the JDK or JRE on
the Value window, and click on the Set button.
Typically, the JDK or JRE is intalled on C:\jdk1.1.4 or C:\jre1.1.4.
Therefore, the correct path for JDK and JRE in this case would be
C:\jdk1.1.4\bin or C:\jre1.1.4\bin.
3. Running the installation.
For UNIX users, on the command line, enter the following command:
tar xvf amber12b2.tar
./amberinstall
For Windows users, unzip the amber12b2.zip file and run the
amberinstall.exe program.
Follow the instructions of the installation.
NOTE: If you run the install on NT platform when NOT logged in as
Administrator, you will get an ERROR PopUp, just click OK
on it and then click FINISH to finish the installation. The
installation should be fine. This is a known BUG that is listed
on the Installshield WWW site.
RUNNING AMBER
For an NT system, you can select the PMVision icon from the Lucent folder
in your Start, Programs menu.
For UNIX systems, You can run PMVision by typing amber at your command
tool window when you are in the amber installation directory. If you
have added the amber installation directory to your PATH you can run
it from anywhere.
When executing PMVision, you can use the following options:
-h <Hostname>
-u <Username>
-p <Password>
-g <Debug level>
-l for Use local directory
-h, -u, -p are used together to force PMVision to log into the specified
PortMaster at startup. If only -h is specified, then the connect dialog
box is popped up with the hostname filled in.
For example: amber -h xxxxxx -u \!root -p xxxxx
-g specifies the debug level. Following are the valid value
for this command:
0 - NONE - No debug output at all
10 - FATAL_ERRORS - Debug output for fatal errors only
20 - ALL_ERRORS - Debug output for all errors
30 - DEBUG - Useful debug information
40 - VERBOSE - More debug than you can possibly stand
ALL_ERRORS is the default in this Beta release.
If you want VERBOSE debugging please specify -g 40 on the command line.
-l sends all debug output to the directory PMVision is installed in. By
default all debug output is sent to the Lucent\PMVision directory created
in your home directory. On UNIX machines this does the right thing.
However the concept of a home directory is not so clear on PCs and
seems to differ for each vendor's VM. Try looking for one of the following:
c:\java\Lucent\PMVision
c:\users\<username>\Lucent\PMVision
c:\windows\Lucent\PMVision
If you still can not figure out where things are going try doing a Find,
File for debuglog.txt.
NEW FEATURES IN 1.2b2
PMVision now supports subinterfaces on ethernets.
PMVision main window size and location are now saved.
Debugging is no longer shut down when the user leaves the debug panel.
The Locations configuration screen now has a checkbox for analog.
The panel displayed when "PortMaster" is selected in the tree on the
left hand side of PMVision now supports scrolling in order to display
properly on small screens.
LIMITATIONS
Following is a list of the known limitations in PMVision Version 1.2b2:
o The backup operation (Maintain, Back Up) does not save the
administrative password, RADIUS secret, ChoiceNet secret, user
passwords, OSPF interface configuration, and BGP configuration.
o Do not connect to more than five PortMaster 3 units unless you have
more than 32MB of RAM in the computer running PMVision.
o PMVision can run out of memory and crash when using Configure, Routes
to monitor more than 5 PortMasters with large routing tables.
o The online help system can cause exceptions and crashes unpredictably.
o Monitor, Modems shows different call and retrain counts than a "show
modem" command done at the command line.
o Modem Display information is not always in the correct order, this
can be corrected by clicking on the Column Name to sort the column.
o When a user enters invalid information, it is changed to a valid
value. This problem occurs in some of the Configuration Panels.
In a future release of PMVision, an invalid input will be tagged
so that user can change it to a valid value.
o When using the Diagnose --> Debug screen, the debugging options do
not always get turned off correctly. Once a debug option is selected,
deselecting it may result in continual display of the debug
information. Turning off all debugging options stops the display of all
debug information.
o Since the ComOS only has one set of debug flags changing the debug
settings on the command line will affect the debug messages displayed
in PMVision's debug window.
o Windows "Hourglass" cursor remains after the command is completed.
The workaround for this is to move the mouse and cursor will change.
o The Scroll Bar might not work correctly if you have JDK/JRE version
1.1.3 or earlier. Use 1.1.4 or later.
o When PMVision is run under Motif or OpenWindows the following text may
be displayed. This does not cause any runtime problems in PMVision.
Warning:
Name: scrollbar
Class: XmScrollBar
The scrollbar page increment is less than 1.
o When starting PMVision if an error dialog appears containing the
following message, "Missing file: pmspec.cfg", there may be a problem
with the run script amber or amber.bat. Open this file and verify that
the current directory ("/./") is not in the -cp argument
Example:
jre -cp /home/usr/test/Lucent/PMVision/./amber.jar PMVision "$@"
^ BAD - REMOVE
o Occasionally, the initial overview screen might not be shown. Resizing
the window will display the screen.
o If an PortMaster running a a release older than ComOS 3.8 is sent
unsupported commands, a "Command Error" dialog box is displayed. Click
Done to dismiss the box, and return PMVision to a normal state.
o An alternative UDP port for RADIUS cannot be entered. Use the
command line for this.
Please send your questions, comments, and suggestions regarding
this beta software to support@livingston.com. Please mention that you
are running PMVision 1.2b2, and include the version of JDK or JRE that
you are running, the operating system version ("uname -a" output), and
the version of ComOS on the PortMaster.
The "About PMVision..." menu item in the Help menu will display the
version of PMVision you are running including the build date, debug level
and location of runtime debug files.
Copyright and Trademarks
Copyright 1998 Lucent Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.
PortMaster, ComOS, and ChoiceNet are registered trademarks of Lucent
Technologies, Inc. RADIUS ABM, PMVision, PMconsole, and IRX are
trademarks of Lucent Technologies, Inc. ProVision is a service mark of
Lucent Technologies, Inc. All other marks are the property of their
respective owners.
Notices
Lucent Technologies, Inc. makes no representations or warranties
with respect to the contents or use of this publication, and specifically
disclaims any express or implied warranties of merchantability or
fitness for any particular purpose. Further, Lucent Technologies.,
Inc. reserves the right to revise this publication and to make changes
to its content, any time, without obligation to notify any person or
entity of such revisions or changes.
Contacting Technical Support
Lucent Technologies Remote Access Business Unit (previously Livingston
Enterprises) provides technical support via voice, fax, electronic
mail, or through the World Wide Web at http://www.livingston.com/.
Please specify that you are running PMVision 1.2b2 when reporting
problems with this release.
Internet service providers (ISPs) and other end users in Europe, the
Middle East, Africa, India, and Pakistan should contact their
authorized Lucent Remote Access sales channel partner for technical
support; see http://www.livingston.com/International/EMEA/distributors.html
For North and South America and Asia Pacific customers, technical
support is available Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. U.S.
Pacific Time (GMT -8). Dial 1-800-458-9966 within the United States
(including Alaska and Hawaii), Canada, and the Caribbean, or
1-925-737-2100 from elsewhere, for voice support. Otherwise, fax to
1-925-737-2110, or send email to support@livingston.com
(asia-support@livingston.com for Asia Pacific customers).
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