I am interested in reading articles about discovery, polling etc. Which books should I install to get this information ?

Many thanks in advance.

 

George Gangl

Networking Systems

BundesRechenZentrum

>>> jshanks AT us.ibm DOT com 19:51:34 Donnerstag, 7. Oktober 2004 >>>

The answer to  how netmon works is exceptionally complex, but I think the answer you are looking for is "lists of objects with similar polling characteristics gleaned from the topology database"

The ARP cache is used for discovery, that's all.  netmon determines what to check next by the xnmsnmpconf database and the timestamps in the topology database ( managed by ovtopmd) of when he did it last.  You can see what's in that with "ovtopodump -rl", though I'd direct that to a file as it will be voluminous.

To really get a handle on how netmon works, I suggest that you start with man page (man netmon) and then get familiar with the "netmon -a<num>" commands.  They cause him to dump the various lists he is working to the /usr/OV/log/netmon.trace file.  And if you are really curious about how netmon handles a particular scenario, then turn on the full trace "netmon -M -1", do the thing, and then run off the trace "netmon -M -0" and read the file.  Of course, there are also the books we ship, which have discussions on discovery and polling and so forth in them.  You did install the books, didn't you?  They are a separate installation from the actual code.

James Shanks
Level 3 Support  for Tivoli NetView for UNIX and Windows
Tivoli Software / IBM Software Group