Communication ports IP for LAN have been introduced, within the Abilis CPX, for offering to the IP router (IPRTR) all the transmission and reception services of IP datagrams over LAN Ethernet or Token Ring. It is also provided the IP addresses resolutions service towards the Ethernet addresses through ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) and RARP (Reverse Address Resolution Protocol) protocols (RFC 826).
In order to have an efficient management of the addresses resolution service, the IPLAN port has got a table, called ARP cache, where the couples <IP address, Ethernet address> already resolved are stored. In such way the overall address resolution process will not be activated for each incoming datagram.
Each element added to the ARP cache has a cache presence time, set by the parameter CACHETIMER:, after which it is removed. This procedure is needed in order to follow, within a reasonable time, the changes of the couples <IP address, Ethernet address> occurring, for example, when a station changes its adapter or IP address.
Each IPLAN port uses a ETH or ETH100 or TR lower layer port and provides its own services to a LAN IP port of the router IP.
The IP port for LAN is labelled within the Abilis CPX with the acronym "IPLAN" and it is provided with the parameters described in this section.
Here is an example on how to display the IPLAN port parameters. Shown values are the default ones.
[18:45:45] ABILIS_CPX: D P PO:IPLAN
PO:158 - Not Saved (SAVE CONF), Not Refreshed (INIT) --------------------------
IPLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOG:NO lowpo:NONE arpcache:200 CACHETIMER:120
rxbuf:4 txbuf:14
To activate any change made on the lowercase parameters, the system has to be started again, on the contrary for the uppercase
parameters it is enough to submit the initialisation command INIT PO:.
Changes made on the parameter LOG: are immediately active.
The "Not Saved (SAVE CONF)" message is displayed every time the port configuration is modified but not saved with the SAVE CONF command.
The "Not Refreshed (INIT)" message is displayed every time the port configuration is modified but not refreshed with the INIT PO: command.
| LOG: | Events logging activation and generation of alarm signals |
| DS | NO, D, S, A, L, T, ALL, +E |
Usually this parameter makes possible to activate/deactivate logging functionalities of meaningful events of the port as well as the detection and signalling of alarms in case of critical events.
The following table shows the available options and the related functionalities usable by the parameter:
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| D | Recording of the driver state changes and/or the meaningful events in Debug Log |
| S | Recording of the driver state changes and/or the meaningful events in the System Log |
| A | Periodic detection of possible alarms. The detected alarms can be displayed the command ALARM VIEW or by the analogous command available on the UTILITY of the LCD display on the front panel |
| L | On alarm detection, acoustic signal generation plus a message on the LCD display. This function depends on activation of alarms detection by the "A" option |
| T | Generation by the Agent SNMP of Abilis CPX of SNMP traps corresponding to any change of the driver state and/or occurring of meaningful events |
Beside the already described options the following values are also allowed:
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| NO | It means that all the logging functionalities, alarms detection and generation, above mentioned, are disabled. |
| ALL | It means that all the logging functionalities, alarms detection and generation, above mentioned, are enabled. |
| +E | This option added to one or more of the previous ones, extends its (their) set of meaningful events. The value "ALL+E" activates all the options and extends the set of meaningful events. The value "NO+E" is meaningless so it is ignored. |
Options can be combined together.
Some examples:
By using the characters "+" and "-" as prefix of one or more options is possible to add or delete one or more functionalities without setting from the scratch the value of the parameters.
Some examples:
The changes made on this parameter are immediately activated, without the need of initialization commands.
| lowpo: | Identifier of the Abilis CPX lower level port |
| NONE | 1- 999, NONE |
It sets the Abilis CPX lower level port. It can only be a ETH or ETH100 or TR port.
The value "NONE" isolates the IPLAN port from the lower level ones.
| arpcache: | Maximum number of the elements of the cache ARP |
| 50 | 50 - 1000 |
It sets the maximum number of couples <IP address, Ethernet address> that can be stored in the ARP cache.
If the table get full the oldest element are deleted.
The default value is enough to efficiently manage LANs with hundreds of stations, however if the statistics ARP-CACHE-ITEMS frequently shows values close to the value set in arpcache: parameter, it is reasonable to increase the parameter value.
| CACHETIMER: | Living time of each element in the ARP cache |
| 120 | 15 - 65535 seconds |
It sets how long (at maximum) each couple <IP address, Ethernet address> can stay into the ARP cache, before it get deleted.
The default values represents a good trade off between efficiency and reaction time, eventual changes of this parameter have to be done very carefully.
Executing the command INIT PO:, all the table elements are immediately deleted.
| rxbuf: | Number of receiving buffers |
| 4 | 1 - 50 |
It sets the number of receiving buffers.
| txbuf: | Number of transmission buffers |
| 14 | 1 - 50 |
It sets the number of transmission buffers.
Example on how to show state and statistics of IPLAN ports through the command D S:
[18:45:45] ABILIS_CPX: D S PO:IPLAN
PO:158 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
IPLAN STATE:LINKREADY ARP-CACHE-ITEMS:1
-----------|---INPUT---|--OUTPUT---|-----------|---INPUT---|--OUTPUT---|
DG | 70363| 11249|CHAR | 10249776| 2105391|
LONG | 0| 0|SHORT | | 0|
LOST | | 0|ARP-REQ | 96| 103|
ARP-RESP | 103| 96|ARP-R-TOUT | | 0|
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Example on how to show extended statistics of IPLAN ports through the command D SE:
[18:45:45] ABILIS_CPX: D SE PO:IPLAN
PO:158 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
IPLAN --- Cleared 003:18:22:39 ago, on 16/07/2004 at 16:32:04 ----------------
-----------|---INPUT---|--OUTPUT---|-----------|---INPUT---|--OUTPUT---|
DG | 70402| 11276|CHAR | 10253564| 2107473|
LONG | 0| 0|SHORT | | 0|
LOST | | 0|ARP-REQ | 96| 103|
ARP-RESP | 103| 96|ARP-R-TOUT | | 0|
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The information "Cleared DDD:HH:MM:SS ago, at DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM:SS", referred by the extended statistics, shows the time interval elapsed from the last reset of statistics (by the format "days:hours:minutes:seconds") and date/time of its execution (by the format "day:month:year" and "hours:minutes:seconds").
| STATE: | Current state of the IPLAN port |
| LINKDOWN, LINKREADY, LINKNOTPRESENT, HALTED, FAILED, ERR |
It shows the current state of the IPLAN port.
| Driver | States | Meaning | Values shown in: | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| System Log | Debug Log | Display LCD | |||
| IPLAN | LINKDOWN | The Abilis CPX lower level port is not active | LD | ||
| LINKREADY | The Abilis CPX lower level port is active | LR | |||
| LINKNOTPRESENT | The Abilis CPX lower level port is not present or not working | LN | |||
| HALTED | The port is not working because of a fatal error | HL | |||
| FAILED | The port is not working because of an initialisation error | FL | |||
| ERR | Software error, contact Abilis assistance | NA | |||
| ARP-CACHE-ITEMS: | Number of items currently stored into the ARP cache |
| 0 - 65.535 |
The counter ARP-CACHE-ITEMS shows the number of couples <IP address, Ethernet address> currently sorted into the ARP cache.
| DG: | Number of IP datagrams sent/received |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter DG (INPUT) is incremented every time an IP datagram is received from the lower level port and its Checksum is correct, while the counter DG (OUTPUT) every time a datagram is sent to the lower level port, without errors.
| CHAR: | Number of characters received/sent |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter CHAR (INPUT) is incremented every time the IPLAN port receives correct datagrams from the lower level port, while the counter CHAR (OUTPUT) every time data are sent.
| LONG: | Number of too long datagrams |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter LONG (INPUT) is incremented every time the datagram length received from the lower level port exceeds the maximum size (1500 bytes).
The counter LONG (OUTPUT) is incremented every time the higher level port requests the transmission of a datagram whose length exceeds the maximum size (1500 bytes).
In the actual implementation these counters has always to display zero. If different values are shown, please contact the technical support.
| SHORT: | Number of too short datagrams received from the higher level |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter SHORT (OUTPUT) is incremented every time the higher level port requests the transmission of a datagram whose length is less than 20 bytes.
In the actual implementation these counters has always to display zero. If different values are shown, please contact the technical support.
| LOST: | Number of IP datagrams sent but lost |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter LOST (OUTPUT) is incremented every time the IPLAN driver was not able to send a datagram to the LAN.
This could only happen, in the actual implementation, if the resolution of an IP Address to an Ethernet one is not successful:
If one of the above mentioned situations will occur while the couple <IP address, Ethernet address> is present in the table, the error will be detected only after its removal, that is with a maximum delay of CACHETIMER: seconds.
| ARP-REQ: | Number of ARP requests sent/received |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter ARP-REQ (INPUT) is incremented every time an ARP request frame is received, while the ARP-ERQ (OUTPUT) one every time it is sent.
| ARP-RESP: | Number of ARP responses sent/received |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter ARP-RSP (INPUT) is incremented every time an ARP response frame is received, while the ARP-RSP (OUTPUT) one every time it is sent.
| ARP-R-TOUT: | Number of ARP requests sent, but not responded |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter ARP-REQ-TOUT is incremented every time the IPLAN driver sends an ARP requests but it does not received the relative response within one second.
The SNMP Agent of Abilis CPX is able to generate traps owing to meaningful state changes pertinent to the IPLAN port driver.
The traps listed below are generated when at least the "T" options are set in the LOG: parameter, corresponding to the basic SNMP traps generation functionality provided for IPLAN ports.
| Trap own code | Mnemonic of the trap | SNMP variables shown in the trap | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45 | cxTrapIpLanDown | cxPortIndex, cxPortType, cxIpLanDiagState, sysUpTime |
The SNMP Agent of the Abilis CPX generates this kind of trap every time the IPLAN port driver leaves the LINK-READY state and reaches one of the following states: LINK-DOWN, LINK-NOT-PRESENT, HALTED or FAILED |
| 46 | cxTrapIpLanReady | cxPortIndex, cxPortType, cxIpLanDiagState, sysUpTime |
The SNMP Agent of the Abilis CPX generates this kind of trap every time the IPLAN port driver reaches the LINK-READY state after leaving one of the following states: LINK-DOWN, LINK-NOT-PRESENT, HALTED or FAILED |
| cxPortIndex | IPLAN port which the SNMP trap refers to |
| 0 - 999 |
This variable stores the CPX port number, which the SNMP trap refers to.
| cxPortType | Type and description of the IPLAN port, which the trap refers to |
| type - description |
This variable shows either the port type which the trap refers to (in this case IPLAN) and the description eventually associated to it.
| cxIpLanDiagState | Current state of the IPLAN port driver which the trap refers to |
| linkDown(0), linkReady(1), linkNotPresent(2), halted(3), failed(4) |
This variable shows the current state of the IPLAN port driver which the trap refers to. The following table shows the relationship among the state value stored in the SNMP variable and the ones obtained executing the command D S.
| Value of the SNMP variable | Correspondent state of the IPLAN driver |
|---|---|
| linkDown(0) | LINK-DOWN |
| linkReady(1) | LINK-READY |
| linkNotPresent(2) | LINK-NOT-PRESENT |
| halted(3) | HALTED |
| failed(4) | FAILED |
| sysUpTime | Elapsed time from the system start to the event occurrence |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 or "ddd:hh:mm:ss" |
This variable stores the elapsed time (in cent of second) from the system start to the SNMP trap event occurrence.
This value is usually shown by the format days:hours:minutes:seconds.
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