Jon stated, "To add your own property you need to add your own
field definition. You can create your own file (or change an existing one)
in the field/C directory with lines like:"

Tivoli strongly recommends, you create your own fields file, since applying
maintenance or upgrade may cause the loss of entries you put into a NetView
owned file.  NetView owns the files shipped with the product, and reverses
the right to replace file with new files without migrating customer changes
in the file forward, however NetView will create a backup of the original
file.

For NetView to draw a symbol other than the default, NetView must find a
snmp agent on the device and a system.sysObjectID that uniquely identifies
the device.  Once NetView has the OID, it is compared against the
oid_to_type file to determine attributes for the device, i.e. is it a
gateway, hub, switch, etc.  The OID is also compared against the oid_to_sym
to determine what type of symbol to draw. If you'll look at the programmers
reference you'll see how these two files are related to the symbols and
fields files.



Tivoli Verification - RTP
Bldg 500, 4205 South Miami Blvd,  Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Email: mark.sklenarik AT tivoli DOT com              Http: www.tivoli.com




Jon Needes <jon.needes AT ATS.UK.EDS DOT COM> on 12/15/98 05:12:41 AM

Please respond to Discussion of IBM NetView and POLYCENTER Manager on
      NetView <NV-L AT UCSBVM.UCSB DOT EDU>

To:   NV-L AT UCSBVM.UCSB DOT EDU
cc:    (bcc: Mark Sklenarik)
Subject:  Re: New Objects types, how do I register new device type





Mark van Kerkwyk wrote:

> Hi all,
>      I may have missing something obvious in the docuemntation , but I
need
> to do a couple of things.
>
> 1. Netview does not recognise some of our routers as routers, they are
all
> Cisco but some are different models to others, the symbol type is blank
in
> some cases.
> How do I tell Netview that a particular device is a router or switch etc
?
>
> 2. I would like to add an "isSwitch" property, how do I add a property
and
> how do I setup the criteria for a new property such as a switch ? Is
there
> a particular SNMP variable which detotes that a device is a switch ?? How
> is a Hub defined to be a hub etc ?
>
> Mark :-)

  To add your own property you need to add your own field definition. You
can
create your own file (or change an existing one) in the field/C directory
with
lines like:

Field "isSwitch" {
        Type    Boolean;
        Flags   capability;
}

When you have finished run "netview -fields" as root.

You then need to add the capability to the appropriate symbol definition is
symbols/C. (You can, of course create a new symbol if you want).  Ther are
plenty of examples. Note that you can add a capability to an entire symbol
class as well as individual symbols.

Capabilities {
            isSwitch = 1;
}

When you have finished run "netview -config" as root.

This is where the problems start.  When you add an object to a map for the
first time it inherits the properties of the symbol you allocate to it, and
I
think you can amend the capabilities if you wish.  If an object already
exists
and you use the right mouse button menu Edit -> Modify/Describe -> Object
you
can select the Capabilities and view them, but it is Read Only.  The only
way
I have found to change the capabilities is the delete the object from all
maps
and re-create it.  I have described this problem before but no-one offered
a
better solution.

Your problem, as I understand it, is that NetView is discovering your
routers,
but is not allocating the symbol you think is appropriate. I do not know
how
NetView selects the symbol to use, but I do not think it can be expected to
recognise particular makes and models.  If there is an SNMP agent on the
device it may be able to describe the device to NetView, otherwise NetView
simply makes an educated guess based upon the interfaces it detects. You
can
change the symbol type easliy enough under Edit on the object menu, but I
do
not think this will change the underlying capabilities.

You may be able to delete the objects and re-create them before NetView
re-discovers them, but this may give you other problems.

I hope that this is of some help, and that someone else can give better
advice, which I will be interested to read myself.

Jon Needes
EDS, Hook, UK