Contents

The Personal NetWare Diagnostics utility can help you monitor workgroup performance, inventory workgroup resources, and troubleshoot the workgroup.

Procedures

Customize Diagnostics Main Window

Graph workgroup traffic

Graph node disk space

Graph node traffic

Graph server utilization

Display clients

Display nodes

Display servers

Test workgroup connections

View node statistics and configuration


Customize Diagnostics Window

You may customize the "Personal NetWare Diagnostics" window to include the Status Bar and its individual regions and buttons.

Choose "Status Bar" from the "Options" menu to display the "Status Bar" dialog.

Regions and Buttons

"Status Bar Displayed": Click on this check box to display the Status Bar.

Note: At least one check box in the "Status Bar Item" region (besides "Mouse Sensitive") must be selected in order for the Status Bar to appear.

"Drop Buttons": Click on this check box to display the "View" and "Help" buttons.

"Status Information Fields": Click on this check box to display the "Workgroup" and "Address" fields.

"Help Messages": Click on this check box to display the "Message Area" region.

"Mouse Sensitive": Click on this check box to have help messages appear in the Message Area of the Status Bar as they are selected by the pointer.


Menu Bar

"Display" allows you to display a map of workgroup nodes, servers, or clients. It also allows you to refresh the screen display.

"Node" allows you to view details such as client and server configuration for any workgroup node.

"Graphs" allows you to display bar graphs for node traffic, node disk space, server utilization, and workgroup traffic.

"Tests" allows you to set up and run a test for workgroup connections.

"Options" allows you to customize the Personal NetWare Diagnostics Window display.


Tool Bar

The tool bar provides quick access to most menu commands.

	Closes the Diagnostics utility
	Displays all workgroup nodes
	Displays all workgroup servers
	Displays all workgroup clients
	Graphs workgroup node traffic
	Graphs node disk space
	Graphs server utilization
	Graphs workgroup traffic
	Runs all-points test


Status Bar

Use the Status Bar to view information on selected icons displayed in the window.

Show the Status Bar by selecting "Status Bar" from the "Options" menu, and selecting the "Status Bar Displayed" check box in the "Status Bar Options" dialog.

Screen Regions and Buttons

Workgroup: This field displays the workgroup you are currently logged in to.

Address: This field displays the node address of a specific server or workstation. The address for a selected workstation or server will be indicated until a new one is selected either by clicking on a new icon, or placing the pointer over it.

Message Area: Brief explanations or instructions for items selected with the pointer are indicated in this field.

View: Once a workstation or server is selected, click on, or drag the icon to the "View" button. A new window appears listing Configuration, Server Specific, and Network Information.

Help: Once a workstation or server is selected, click on, or drag the icon to the "Help" button. The "Node Icon Help" dialog appears displaying the node client name and server name.


 Graph Workgroup Traffic Help

To view a bar graph of the total number of packets sent by all the members of your workgroup

Choose "Workgroup traffic" from the "Graphs" menu.

-or-

Choose the "Graph Workgroup Traffic" button.

The "Workgroup Traffic" graph appears with bars representing the total number of packets being sent in the workgroup.

Click on any of the bars to see the exact number of packets sent at a particular time.

You might want to shrink this window and monitor the graph over time to identify peak traffic flow or higher-than-usual traffic flow.


 Graph Node Traffic Help

If overall network performance is slow, check traffic to see if one node is overloaded or having problems.

To view a bar graph of the total number of packets sent and received by each workgroup node

Choose "Node traffic" from the "Graphs" menu.

-or-

Choose the "Graph Node Traffic" button.

The "Node Traffic" graph appears with two bars (one representing packets sent to the node and one representing packets received by the node) tracking traffic for each node. Click on any node's bars to see detailed transmission information.

As you move the cursor across the bars, the name and address at the bottom of the screen change, allowing you to identify individual nodes.

Note: You can filter the graph by using the "Display" menu to specify servers only or clients only.


 Graph Node Disk Space Help

To view a bar graph of the total and available disk space for each workgroup node

Choose "Disk" from the "Graphs" menu.

-or-

Choose the "Graph Disk Space" button.

Note: You can filter the graph by using the "Display" menu to specify servers only or clients only.

The "DISK" graph appears with two bars for each workgroup node.  One bar represents total disk space; the other, available disk space.

This information can help you see how resources are distributed currently and what resources are available for future needs.

To view a node's disk space in more detail, click on its bars.  To view the entire workgroup's disk space as a whole, choose "Totals."


 Graph Server Utilization Help

To view a bar graph of server and client requests for each workgroup node

Choose "Utilization" from the "Graphs" menu.

-or-

Choose the "Graph Server Utilization" button.

The "Utilization" graph appears comparing the demands on the server to those on the client for each node.

Note: You can filter the graph by using the "Display" menu to specify servers only or clients only.

This information can be displayed in two views: utilization by percentage or actual number of requests. To toggle between the two views, choose "Views."

The percentage view can help you determine which machines are spending most of their effort on server work (requests from other workstations).

The actual number can help you determine which servers are doing the most work in the workgroup.

Together these items can help you decide where a new network application might be placed.


 Display Clients

To view workgroup clients

Choose "Clients" from the "Display" menu.

-or-

Choose the "Display Clients" button.

All workgroup clients appear with their login names. If the client is attached to the network but not logged in to the workgroup, you see "Not Logged In." To identify a client (logged in or not), highlight the client and use the address that appears in the status ribbon at the bottom of the window.


 Display Nodes

To view workgroup nodes

Choose "Nodes" from the "Display" menu

-or-

Choose the "Display Nodes" button.


 Display Servers

To view workgroup servers

Choose "Servers" from the "Display" menu.

-or-

Choose the "Display Servers" button.


Test Workgroup Connections (All Points Test) Setup Help

The all points test shows how effectively packets are being sent and received within your workgroup.

For every pass of an all points test, each node sends 54 512-byte packets to every other node in the workgroup. After the test is completed, a bar graph shows how many packets were sent and how many packets were received for each node. You can click on any bar in the graph to view more detailed information on a particular node.

This test generates a lot of network traffic and will impact workgroup performance.  For less impact on the network and for more accurate results, run these tests during non-business hours.

To run the all points test

1.	From the "Tests" menu, choose "All points."

2.	Specify the number of test passes.

Note: As the number of test passes increases, the minimal test run time also increases. The minimal test run time is the minimum time to complete the test, given there is no other network traffic.  If the test is run during a peak work time, it is likely to take much longer than the indicated minimum.

3.	Choose "OK."

Diagnostics builds the "All Points Test" graph showing the number of packets sent and the number of packet received for each node.


All Points Test - Graph Help

This graph compares

- The number of packets sent by a workstation to a workgroup, to the number of packets received.

- The number of packets sent by a workgroup to a workstation, to the number of packets received.

Screen regions and buttons

"View" functions as a toggle, displaying two sets of graphs.

The first graph compares the number of packets sent by a workstation, to the number of packets received by the group.

The second graph compares the number of packets sent by workgroup to the number of packets received by the workstation.

Paired bars represent each workstation in the workgroup. The left bar shows the number of packets sent. The right bar shows the number of packets received. When functioning at optimum level, the bars in each workstation pair, will be equal in length.


All Points - Detail Help

Choosing any set of bars from the All Points test graph provides the following detailed test information for individual nodes.

"Client and Server name" The user login name and server name for the node.

"Send" information: The number of packets this node sent to the workgroup and how many of those packets were received.

"Receive" information: The number of packets sent to this node and how many of those packets were received.


All Points - Send Detail Help

Choosing "Send" from the "All Points Detail" window shows the exact number of packets sent by a specific node that were received by every other workgroup node.


All Points - Receive Detail Help

Choosing "Receive" from the "All Points Detail" window shows the exact number of packets received by a specific node that were sent by every other workgroup node.


View Node Statistics and Configuration Help

To view node statistics and configuration

1.	Select a workgroup node from the "Main" window.

2.	From the "Node" menu, choose "View Detail."

Configuration Information displays statistical information such as OS type, CPU, memory, ports, etc., specific to the selected node.

Server Specific Information displays server specific information such as server name, buffer sizes, connections, workgroup directories, etc., specific to the selected node.

Cache Specific Information displays statistical information if NWCache is running.

Network Information displays network information such as LSL version, node address, frame type, driver version, I/O address, etc. specific to the selected node.

3.	You can choose "More" to view Link Support Layer (LSL) statistics, Multiple Link Interface Driver (MLID) statistics, Protocol statistics, Sequenced Packet Exchange (SPX) statistics, and server statistics.

This listing can be saved to a file for later reference.


Configuration Information

"OS Type": type of operating system (Novell DOS, MS DOS, etc.) running on the selected node

"OS Version": version number of the operation system

"CPU": type of microprocessor (80286, 80386, etc.) for the node

"CoProcessor": type of coprocessor

"Video": type of video graphics board

"System Memory": KB of system memory

"Total Extended Memory (XMS)": KB of extended memory

"Available Extended Memory": KB of extended memory available for use

"Total Expanded Memory (EMS)": KB of expanded memory

"Available Expanded Memory": KB of expanded memory available for use

"Floppy Drives": number of floppy diskette drives

"Hard Drives": number of hard disk drives

<Drive Letter>: letter representing each hard drive followed by MB of available disk space

"Serial Ports": number of serial ports

"Parallel Ports": number of parallel ports

"Mouse Driver": type of mouse driver installed


Server Specific Information

"Server Name": name assigned to the server

"Server Description": description provided by server owner to help locate or further identify the computer

"Workgroup Name": name assigned to the workgroup

"Workgroup ID": ID number assigned to the workgroup

"OEM Name":name of original equipment manufacturer

"Server Version": version of the Personal NetWare for DOS and Windows operating system running on this server

"Size in Memory": KB of memory required by the OS when it is resident in memory

"Workgroup Auditing": whether or not auditing is enabled on the server

"Share Loaded": whether or not the DOS SHARE program is loaded in this machine's memory

"Local Security": whether security for hardware is enforced at boot time.

"Print Buffer Size": number of bytes in the print buffer

"Receive Buffers": number of receive buffers

"Receive Buffer Size": number of bytes in the receive buffer

"I/O Buffers": number of I/O buffers established

"I/O Buffer Size": maximum number of bytes the I/O buffer can hold

"Connections": number of connections that can be made to this server at one time

"Tasks": maximum number of tasks that can be simultaneously performed at this workstation

"Open Files": maximum number of files that can be open on this workstation at one time

"Workgroup Directories": maximum number of network directories that can be set up for use at one time

"Workgroup Printers": maximum number of printers that can be established for use by this workstation


Cache Specific Information

"Cache Version": version of NWCache

"Type of Memory Used": XMS, EMS, or conventional

"Maximum Size": maximum amount of memory available

"Minimum Size": maximum amount of memory available less the amount designated to lend


Network Information

"LSL Version": version of LSL.COM that is loaded on this workstation

"Maximum Network Boards": maximum number of network boards the Link Support Layer (LSL) is configured for

"Maximum Protocol Stacks": maximum number of protocol stacks that can be handled by the Link Support Layer (LSL) loaded on this workstation

"Network Card Name": name of the network card installed in the server

"Node Address": hexadecimal address of the LAN board installed in this workstation; it is used to uniquely identify the specific driver and board on the network

"Frame Type": frame type (such as Ethernet or token ring) being used by this workstation's MLID (Multiple Link Interface Driver) device driver written to the Open Data-link Interface specification that handles the transmission of packets across a LAN

"Driver Version": major and minor version numbers for the driver installed in the workstation

"Line Speed": speed of the LAN board, measured by the amount of time it takes a 576-byte packet to travel from one node on the LAN to another node

"Bus Types Supported": type of signal route (such as ISA or EISA) supported by this workstation's LAN board

"Interrupt Used": hardware interrupt line used by the network interface board

"I/O Address": the I/O port address used by the network interface board; it should be initialized to the default, but can be overridden by the NET.CFG. file

"I/O Range": ports decoded by the network interface board

"Memory Address": the absolute physical address of the network interface board's RAM

"Memory Size": number of 16-byte paragraphs found at the memory address for the network interface board

"DMA Channel": network interface board's physical DMA (Direct Memory Access) channel number, if applicable, or displays "not used" if a DMA Channel is not used by this network interface board

"Protocol Stack Name": name of the protocol stack used to register the protocol used by this workstation

"Version": major and minor version numbers for the protocol configuration table

"Maximum Open Sockets": maximum number of sockets that can be open at one time for receiving service requests or sending service responses

"Maximum Sockets Used": maximum number of sockets that have been used in the past to receive service requests or send responses

"Maximum SPX Connection": maximum number of SPX connections available on the workstation

"Maximum SPX Connection Used": maximum number of SPX connections that have been opened simultaneously since SPX was loaded

"NET.CFG Path": directory path to the NET.CFG file


View Node Statistics (More) Help

This listing can be saved to a file for later reference.

LSL statistics: displays statistical information such as total transmit requests, ECB requests and failures, received and unclaimed packets, etc.

MLID statistics: displays statistical information such as too big and too small transmit requests, too big or too small count, miscellaneous transmit and receive error counts, etc.

Protocol statistic: displays statistical information such as protocol stack name, counts for malformed packets, counts for open socket failure, etc.

SPX statistics: displays statistical information such as established connection requests and failures, counts for aborted connections, sessions destroyed by watchdog, etc.

Server statistics: displays statistical information such as counts of lost responses, number of bad packets, number of clients "watchdogged", number of slist requests, etc.

Personal NetWare Cache statistics: displays statistical information such as current size, read requests, write requests, memory errors, disk errors,etc.


LSL Statistics

"Total Transmit Requests": number of SendPacket requests made to the LSL (Link Support Layer)

"Get ECB Requests": number of ECB (Event Control Block) requests made

"Get ECB Failures'': number of times an ECB request was made but failed

"AES Events Count": number of AES (Asynchronous Event Scheduler) events completed

"Postponed Events": number of AES, send and receive, events that were postponed because of critical section inside the MLIDs.

"Cancel AES Failures": number of times a request to cancel AES was made but failed to find and cancel the specified AES ECB

"Total Received Packets": number of requests for ECB stacks information that was made by the MLID (Multiple Link Interface Driver) to the LSL (Link Support Layer)

"Unclaimed Packets": number of times a packet was received but was not consumed by the protocol stack


MLID Statistics

"Network Card Name": name of the network interface card installed in the workstation (for example, Novell NE2000 Ethernet)

"Node Address": hexadecimal address of the LAN board installed in this workstation; it is used to uniquely identify the specific driver and board on the network

"Frame Type": frame type (such as Ethernet or token ring) being used by this workstation's MLID (Multiple Link Interface Driver) device driver written to the Open Data Link Interface specification that handles the transmission of packets across a LAN

"Total Transmit Requests": number of packets that were requested to be transmitted

"Total Packets Received": number of incoming packets actually received

"No ECB Available Count": number of incoming packets that were lost because of unavailable ECBs (Event Control Blocks)

"Too Big Transmit Request": number of requested packets for transmission that were too big to send

"Too Small Transmit Request": number of requested transmission packets that were normally too small to be transmitted, even though the MLID might have padded them so that they could be sent

"Receive Overflow Count": number of times that the physical network interface card ran out of internal receive buffers

"Receive Too Big Count": number of incoming packets that were bigger than the maximum legal size for the media

"Receive Too Small Count": number of incoming packets that were smaller than the minimum legal size for the media

"Miscellaneous Transmit Error Count": number of transmission requests that were not sent because of errors other than those specifically defined in the MLID Statistics table displayed in the DOS Generic NetWare Management Functional Specification

"Miscellaneous Receive Error Count": number of incoming packets which were lost due to conflicting information given by the hardware and the media-specific header

"Transmit Retry Count": number of times that the MLID had to retransmit due to a hardware failure

"Receive Checksum Error Count": number of packets which were lost due to checksum/CRC errors

"Receive Mismatch Count": number of incoming packets which were lost due to conflicting information given by the hardware and the media-specific header


Protocol Statistics

"Protocol Stack Name": name of the protocol stack on this workstation

"Total Packets Transmitted": number of SendPacket requests made to the LSL (Link Support Layer)

"Total Packets Received": number of incoming packets that were consumed by the protocol stack

"Ignored Received Packets": number of times the protocol receive handler was called with look-ahead data, and the protocol stack did not return a receive ECB (Event Control Block) to the MLID (Multiple Link Interface Driver) to receive the packet

"Malformed Packet Count": number of packets received that varied from the standard packet structure (either the first fragment was less than 42 bytes long, or the entire packet was greater than 576 bytes long)

"Open Socket Failure Count": number of times that a connection has failed because a socket number field was not opened before the packet was sent

"Listen ECB Count": number of event control block (ECB) completion code values that have been returned when a connection function was called

"ECB Cancel Failure Count": number of failed ECB codes that have been returned

"Find Route Failure Count": number of times the system was unable to find and make a connection to the requested route


SPX Statistics

"Established Connection Requests": number of attempts that were made in order to establish a connection

"Established Connection Failures": number of times the attempted connection failed

"Listen Connection Request Count": number of times the machine attempted to receive an Establish Connection request from a remote partner so that it could make an SPX connection

"Listen Connection Failure Count": number of times that an attempt to connect was made but the connection failed and was aborted

"Send Packet Count": number of SPX packets that were sent

"Target No Receive Buffer Count": number of times SPX failed to send a packet because the target station had not allocated a receive buffer

"Bad Send Packet Count": number of times that applications have incorrectly called SPX SendSequencedPacket by passing an invalid connection ID

"Send Failure Count": number of times SPX could not send packet and receive acknowledgement

"Abort Connection Count": number of times that bad connections were aborted without any attempt to inform the connection partner of the impending connection abort; used when a catastrophic event has occurred requiring immediate disconnection

"Listen Packet Count": number of times that the system has attempted to receive an Establish Connection packet and thereby establish an SPX connection

"Bad Listen Packet Count": number of times an error has occurred resulting in a completion error code being returned after an Establish Connection packet has been sent

"Incoming Packet Count": number of incoming packets received by this station

"Bad Incoming Packet Count": number of incoming packets containing packet errors received by this station

"Suppressed Packet Count":number of SPX packets discarded because they were duplicates

"No Session Listen ECB Count": number of times Event Control Block information for the purpose of receiving a sequenced packet was not returned when requested by SPX

"Watchdog Destroyed Sessions": number of SPX connection sessions that have been terminated because watchdog determined that a valid connection no longer existed


Server Statistics

"Server Name": name of the workstation with server software loaded that is returning this Diagnostic Statistics information

"Workgroup Name": name of the workgroup that this workstation belongs to

"Total Packets Received": number of packets received by this workstation

"Number of Bad Packets": number of bad packets received by this workstation

"Packets Not Processed Immediately": number of packets that were received by this workstation but which had to be held in a buffer until processing capability was available

"Number of Lost Responses": number of times the server had to retransmit a response to the client because the first response was lost

"Peak Connections Used": maximum number of simultaneous connections made by this workstation

"Peak Open Files": maximum number of files that this workstation has had open at any given time

"Peak Client Tasks": maximum number of client tasks being performed by this workstation at any given time

"Watchdog Packets Sent": number of watchdog packets sent in an effort to determine the validity of an existing connection

"Clients Watchdogged": number of clients being checked by the watchdog function

"ECB Reposts With No Buffers": number of Event Control Block responses lacking buffer identification information

"Send Packet With ECB Active": number of packets sent from the server

"Total Slist Requests": number of times a request for servers list has been made by this workstation


"Server Busy Packets": number of times a packet indicating a busy status is sent to a workstation

"Server Busy Packets No Buffer": no receive buffers available on server

"Unknown Requests": number of times an unsupported request was received on the server

"Write Behind Misses": when using I/O buffers, allows read ahead and write behind

"Read Cache Hits": number of times cache requests were serviced from existing cache blocks

"Read Cache Misses": number of times cache requests could not be serviced from existing cache blocks

"Reads Too Large": number of times the information to be cached was too large for the defined cache buffers

"Critical Errors": number of times that a critical error was returned when trying to use cache buffers for reading or writing

"Saved Large DOS Area": number of times a large portion of DOS was swapped out of memory

"Saved Small DOS Area": number of times a small portion of DOS was swapped out of memory

"Starvation Counter": number of times a background process is run while DOS is busy

"Write Behind Hits": when using I/O buffers, allows read ahead and write behind

"Cache Blocks In Use": number of cache blocks currently in use

"Packet Queue Runs": number of times an inbound packet is received while the services packet queue is being processed

"Idle Loop Wait Hits": number of times the service packet queue routine waits for an incoming packet and is able to service a packet

"Client Int 21 Calls": number of DOS Interrupt 21 calls made by this workstation

"Total Int 21 Calls": number of DOS Interrupt 21 calls made by this workstation and server

"Password Failures": number of times this workstation has recorded a password that was not compatible with the user identification and, subsequently, returned a connection failure

"Current Number of Free Buffers": remaining unused buffers available for this workstation's use

"Current Number of Semaphores": number of semaphores (a name associated with a network resource such as a file) in use by this workstation


Personal NetWare Cache Statistics

"Current Size": available memory less amount currently lent

"Read Requests": total number of read requests

"Actual Reads": actual number of reads retrieved from disk

"Write Requests": total number of write requests

"Actual Writes": total number of writes written to disk

"Disk Errors": number of times a disk error has occurred

"Memory Errors": number of times a memory error has ocurred