PMVision (Java Based PMconsole)
Version 1.2 Release Notes

1998/09/24

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 1.2 of PMVision is available to any Lucent customer at no charge. In order to use the full capabilities of this product product, you must have ComOS(R) 3.8 or later. ComOS 3.8 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.

PMVISION 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.

Back up 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.

Windows NT 4.0 http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/
Windows 95 http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/
Solaris 2.5.1 http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/
Solaris x86 2.5.1 http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/
Linux 2.x ftp://lagrange.la.asu.edu/pub/Linux_jdk/
FreeBSD http://www.freebsd.org/java/
SGI Irix 6.3 http://www.sgi.com/Products/DevMagic/products/java.html
HP/UX 10.02 http://www.hp.com/esy/go/java.html
DEC Alpha 4.0 http://www.digital.com/java/download/
IBM AIX 4.1 http://www.ibm.com/java/tools/jdk.html
All other platforms http://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/java-ports.cgi

INSTALLING PMVISION

  1. Download the following files from ftp.livingston.com: 
      ftp ftp.livingston.com
  binary
  cd pub/le/software/java
  (for Solaris)
  get pmvision12_solaris.tar
  (for other UNIX systems)
  get pmvision12_unix.tar
  (for Windows)
  get pmvision12.zip
  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:

    1. Open the Control Panel
    2. Click on the System icon
    3. 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 Solaris users, on the command line, enter the following command: 

      tar xvf pmvision12_solaris.tar
  ./pmvision_install.bin

    For other UNIX users, on the command line, enter the following command: 

      tar xvf pmvision12_unix.tar
  mkdir <bin directory>/Lucent
  mkdir <bin directory>/Lucent/PMVision
  cp pmvision.jar <bin directory>/Lucent/PMVision
  cp pmvision <bin directory>/Lucent/PMVision

    <bin directory> is the directory where you keep your applications.

    For Windows users, unzip the pmvision12.zip file and run the pmvision_install.exe program.

    Follow the instructions of the installation.

RUNNING PMVISION

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 pmvision at your command tool window when you are in the pmvision installation directory. If you have added the pmvision 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: pmvision -h hostname -u \!root -p password

-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 1.2 Everything.

LIMITATIONS

Following is a list of the known limitations in PMVision Version 1.2:

  • The backup operation (Maintain, Back Up) does not save the administrative password, RADIUS secret, ChoiceNet secret, user passwords, OSPF interface configuration, and BGP configuration.
  • Do not connect to more than five PortMaster 3 units unless you have more than 32MB of RAM in the computer running PMVision.
  • PMVision can run out of memory and crash when using Configure, Routes to monitor more than 5 PortMasters with large routing tables.
  • Monitor, Modems shows different call and retrain counts than a "show modem" command done at the command line.
  • Modem Display information is not always in the correct order, this can be corrected by clicking on the Column Name to sort the column.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Windows "Hourglass" cursor remains after the command is completed. The workaround for this is to move the mouse and cursor will change.
  • The Scroll Bar might not work correctly if you have JDK/JRE version 1.1.3 or earlier. Use 1.1.4 or later.
  • 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.
  • Occasionally, the initial overview screen might not be shown. Resizing the window will display the screen.
  • 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.
  • An alternative UDP port for RADIUS cannot be entered. Use the command line for this.
  • On Windows systems, the links shown in the help pages do not work unless Java 1.1.6 or later is used.

Please send your questions, comments, and suggestions regarding this beta software to support@livingston.com. Please mention that you are running PMVision 1.2, 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 InterNetworking Systems (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 1.2 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 InterNetworking Systems 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 7 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).